Rating: 
Summary: AMAZING!
Review: A tour de force. It's fun to watch as Spencer Tunick asks people to get nude in the name of art. Or is it? Nicely edited, entertaining doc. Watch for the Phish concert at the end. It's also a good window on what it takes to make it in the art world.
Rating:
Summary: absolutely beautiful
Review: His approach to his art is wonderful. He truly captures the beauty of the human body, be it an individual or a group. Each photograph is amazing! I highly recommend this DVD. This DVD shows the human body as a true piece of art. Thanks for opening my eyes to the beauty of nude photography!
Rating:
Summary: A well done documentary about Mr. Tunick and his unique work
Review: I found out about Mr. Tunick's work from an article in Wired. The photographs are interesting studies in how the human body can be used to create a unique work of art. I found the documentary to be very interesting as I got to see how such work is accomplished and the kind of difficulties that he has experienced in New York City with those who would consider the nude human body to be obscene or something that needs to be covered at all times.
It was also great to be able to listen to the actual participants of these events and get their reactions to the whole experience and how liberating it was to pose nude for Mr. Tunick. It was especially touching listening to the poor lady who had been physically attacked 6 months prior to the photo shoot and how posing nude for Mr. Tunick was therapeutic to her and helped her to regain a positive self image of herself.
I also have to give Mr. Tunick a medal for his courage to ask people to pose for him at a biker convention. This part of the film was an excellent documentation as to how people have such pre-conceived notions of the nude human body and the negativety he experienced until he became better known.
I hope that Mr. Tunick decides to do a photo shoot in my neck of the woods soon as I would love to be able to pose for him. By the way, he has a official website where you can provide your email address and sign up to be informed of upcoming photoshoots and maybe pose as well.
Definitely I recommend this DVD. I hope the sequel "Naked World" is released in DVD format as well soon. I would love to see the one about the shoot in which there were 7,000 partipants. It must have been an amazing experience to behold.
Rating: 
Summary: Intersting stuff!
Review: I have a friend who participated in two of these photographic events in New York City. It was surprising to see him in the extra film included on this DVD. Needless to say, he was surprised as well! Interesting stuff. And if Tunic comes to DC to do a photograph, I'll probably volunteer.
Rating: 
Summary: No art here.
Review: I think Tunick is nothing more than someone getting his kicks by seeing and controling hundreds of nude people. Nude photography is art but this certainly isn't. The photos of people lying in ordinary places are lifeless, dull, and completely unartistic. There is no beauty in looking at one of his photographs. It is my opinion that this guy simply enjoys seeing naked people. Any amateur with a camera could take the same exact pictures as he did. Let's give Tunick a photo commission of some REAL things to photograph and I bet they would come out like crap. I don't feel he is a skilled photographer in the least.
Rating:
Summary: Fascinating documentary
Review: I was afraid that this film might turn out to be just a cheesy, cheap exploitation flick, but I was pleasantly surprised. It turned out to be a great documentary, very tasteful and intelligent. The filmmaker avoids cliches and stereotypes and shows Tunick as a real human being with real flaws, like his obsessiveness, his anxiety, his ambition for status in the art world. It was fascinating to see the behind-scenes work that went into organizing the various photo shoots, all the various diificulties and struggles that Tunick and his associates went through in order to make Tunick's strange personal vision a reality. It was also extremely interesting to hear the various models talk about their experiences in the photo shoots, and how some of them found the experience to be unexpectedly liberating and/or therapeutic. All in all one of the most interesting documentaries I've ever seen. It's led me to look at Spencer Tunick's photography in a whole new light.
Rating:
Summary: Very interesting, could've been better
Review: I'd give it a 3 1/2 if that rating was possible because I thought it needed something. The documentary starts with Mr. Tunick getting ready for a five month cross country tour at his family home in New York and follows him on his journey as he photographs individuals and groups of people nude, sometimes in very public places.
I'll never know how the guy can keep avoiding jail time for his efforts but they are really interesting, some of them quite good. I found him to be a little whiny at times but my biggest complaint is that the film maker just seemed to zip through many of the scenes, some of them I couldn't get any real sense of what the resulting photographs would look like. I can understand how he was able to get one or two people to pose in some small town out of the way places at an early morning hour but New York City with a street full of nude people, now that was really something. Young (only one or two babies, no children), Old, mostly white but some black, slender or very large, all are represented by Tunick and seemed happy to do it for him, even those who didn't know the guy. The main program ends with a showing in a New York gallery, some of his subjects were there still proud of his efforts, and several magazines formerly not interested were paying attention to Tunick's work now.
The film and short film were good, the short perhaps helped by being so brief. I didn't have much use for the photo gallery, some of the stuff done in the documentaries was better.
Some of the photo subjects talked about how liberating it felt to pose nude, wonder how many of them have participated in anything nudist since that time?
Rating:
Summary: Doco Exposing An Artist's Naked Ambition
Review: NAKED STATES is a fascinating documentary about New York photographer/artist Spencer Tunick as he embarks on his "Naked States" tour, getting people from every state to shed their clothes all for the sake of art. Tunick just picks regular people off the street to model for his photos. You've got to admire these people; figuratively speaking, I wouldn't have the balls to do something like that. Not surprisingly the moralists manage to get him arrested in several states for "aiding and abetting disorderly conduct". Ironically, Tunick is listed on the DVD profile as being "notoriously private"! And despite his hunger for publicity he doesn't want the tabloids to cover his art as he feels they will cheapen its merit!
Even just seeing the different backgrounds and personalities of his subjects is fascinating. There's an amusing scene of a tough biker guy getting aggro at Tunick when Tunick asks his daughter to pose for him, and another subject is a rape victim being photographed as part of her healing process. One photo even shows the twin towers of the WTC in the background (Yes, I DO notice other things when there are naked women in view!). It's also good to see that Tunick is willing to strip too to get his work done, as we see when he photographs several thousand people at a Phish concert. The finished pictures look amazing. I found it funny how the news item on the doco censored the nudity- especially when on any other day you see gruesome war footage and the like. This would probably never happen in NZ (Unless the artist was Maori, Helen Clark just can't say "No" to them). NAKED STATES is highly recommended. The only extra with the Australasian DVD is a written profile of Tunick, but it's still worth seeing.
Rating:
Summary: Enter Whining
Review: Should be the real title of this documentary.I'd known of and admired Spencer Tunick's works for many years. He captures beutiful images of the nude from. Conveying intense messages. As a documentary, it faithfully records the time spent with Mr Tunick, his SO and crew. Showing what they go through to get the shot. Shining the unwinking eye of the camera on not only the process, but the people involvled. Which means we find out that Mr. Tunick whines his way through life, he's inarticulate about what he wants his vision to be and when folks don't get it, he gets angry. During the documentary we met and talk to several of his models, one larger lady is having a very moving personal moment about how being a model was a wonderful experience and how good she felt in her heart and mind. If Mr. Tunick, ever saw that, he didn't show it, looking at her simply as prop to contrast against the thin black lady. As a photographer and a nudist, I did wince with him when he was photographing the Nudists. A photographer without his pockets is lost and the childishness of the nudists has no excuse.
Rating:
Summary: The Messiah of Public Nudity!
Review: Spencer Tunick is everything that the perfect nude photographer is: a charismatic showman, a gentle pastor, a geeky college kid, a social/political activist, a kid in a sweetshop who jumps for joy when he bags the perfect photo or gets a glowing report in a high-profile newspaper. As a budding nude activist in the unlikely city of Brisbane in Australia who is into nude photography and a Christian, I believe that Jesus Christ had it right when he said 'nobody can understand God's Kingdom unless they are born again'. Naked States is a film that shows how Tunick has been able to give his subjects a new outlook on themselves, to help them go within and be the people they want to be and need to be. From the raped black girl, the 65-year-old man, the rock concert promoter, the blonde daddy's little girl to his own lawyer prepared to let Tunick photograph him naked....Tunick doesn't have to justify or analyse his work. His subjects do the work for him. And at the end of the day, the only people that I feel are the true hypocrites are the nudists themselves. They talk about freedom, acceptance, enthusiasm and respect - yet they showed none of that towards Tunick for his first subjective brush with nudism. A shame. Don't give up your day and night job, Spencer. God knows the world needs you whether it thinks it does or not.
|
