European cinema

The approach to nude scenes in Europe is much more lenient than in the U.S. As early as the 1920s a topless Josephine Baker was filmed performing exotic dance routines for the French cinema. The 1922 Swedish/Danish silent film Witchcraft Through The Ages contained scenes of nudity, torture and perversion — an edited version was shown in the U.S. The 1956 German film, Liane, Jungle Goddess featured a topless female variant on the Tarzan legend. Other notable examples from Europe include Sophia LorenSophia Loren in Era Lui, Si Si (1952), François Truffaut's Shoot the Piano Player (1960), Brigitte BardotBrigitte Bardot's casual nude scenes in the 1963 Jean-Luc GodardJean-Luc Godard film Contempt, Jane FondaJane Fonda in the French film The Game is Over (1966), Catherine DeneuveCatherine Deneuve in Belle de jour (1967), Vanessa RedgraveVanessa Redgrave in 1968's Isadora, and Helen MirrenHelen Mirren in the Australian film Age of Consent (1969). Two Swedish films from 1967, I Am Curious (Yellow) and Inga were ground-breaking, and notorious, for showing explicit sex and nudity. Both were initially banned in the U.S. and received an X-rating when they were shown in 1968. In England, the Ken Russell film Women in Love (1969) was especially controversial for showing frontal male nudity in a wrestling scene between Oliver ReedOliver Reed and Alan Bates. Glenda JacksonGlenda Jackson won the Academy Award for Best Actress in that film, the first performer to win for a role that included nude scenes. Europeans generally accept depictions of nudity as something natural which is part of normal human life, so there are no taboos around it. Showing of full frontal nudity in movies even by major actors is common and it is not considered damaging to the actors' career. In recent years explicit sexual activity also occurs in movies which target the general moviegoing audience, albeit those usually labelled 'arthouse' product; for example, Michael WinterbottomMichael Winterbottom’s 9 Songs and Lars Von Trier’s The Idiots.