The documentary Body Parts is about moviemaking and sex – and from a female point of view. That is, of course, overdue because we’ve had a century of movies greenlit, financed and made by men, operating from a male perspective and generally without accountability. Of course, movies have always reflected our society and culture. How movies have been made – and how they’re being made now – is fascinating stuff. Especially the sex part.
With Body Parts, director Kristy Guevara-Flanagan and producer Helen Hood Scheer have created an impressively comprehensive survey of history and current practices. We get unflinching looks at titillation and exploitation, the casting couch and worse (Harvey Weinstein). And there are fascinating, behind the scenes procedurals on the filming of scenes of sexual intimacy, including the new deployment of intimacy coordinators in filmmaking.
Jane Fonda leads a brigade of actress talking heads who share their experiences. Of course, Fonda is an Oscar-winning movie star and a feminist icon. But before that, she was a starlet in an age where there were essentially zero women’s voices in filmmaking. While the Production Code was still in its final days in the US, she was acting in European films that were free of those restrictions, but before the women’s liberation movement had traction. Fonda’s candor (and ruefulness) adds important perspective to Body Parts.
On IMDb’s User Reviews, one perceptive contributor has noted that “men are giving this an average rating of 5.8 while women are averaging an 8.3.” I understand why women love Body Parts, but not why some men don’t. It’s decidedly not a screed, and, as a man, I didn’t find it at all scolding, threatening or unpleasant.
I screened Body Parts for the SLO Film Fest. Body Parts is streaming on Amazon, AppleTV, Vudu and YouTube.