The misappropriation of a nude scene that made Natalie Portman “really angry”
Goya’s Ghost is an incredibly dark film.
Based on the life of Spanish Painter Francisco Goya, the Natalie Portman-starring historical drama focuses on one of the bleakest moments in early modern history: the purification of European catholicism by the Spanish Inquisition.
Though the artist is a peripheral character in Miloš Forman’s film, the subject of his so-called “black paintings” – the state’s brutalisation and torture of innocents – is of central importance.
Goya’s black paintings are concerned with the horrors man is capable of inflicting upon his kin. Created between 1819 and 1823, the 14 works are haunted by the brutality Napoleon’s French soldiers inflicted on the Spanish people during their invasion, conquest and subsequent abandonment of the nation during the Peninsular War. These highly secretive works, which Goya never named and probably never revealed, are haunted by another spectre: that of the Holy Office, better known as the Spanish Inquisition. The organisation was established to identify, convert or expel non-Catholics in Europe. In order to force confessions from suspects, the Spanish Inquisition utilised some particularly grisly torture techniques, one of which is demonstrated in Goya’s Ghost.
The film follows Brother Lorenzo, a member of the Spanish Inquisition, who seeks to win the favour of the Inquisitor General by arresting and torturing the muse of Francisco Goya, Inés – played by Natalie Portman. In the scene, Portman is tied by her hands and suspended by a rope. This real-life practice – known as “strappado” in Spain and Italy – frequently resulted in the dislocation of the victim’s arms. The Nazis used the same method under a different name (“Pfahlbinden”) during the Second World War”.
At the time of the film’s release in 2006, it was also allegedly being used by American interrogators, who referred to it as the “stress position”. The use of the technique was said to have been authorised by President George W Bush.
The Goya’s Ghost scene is incredibly hard to watch, not least because Portman’s character is forced to strip naked, a practice of the Inquisition at the time. When film was released, Portman was careful to point out that the long shot of Inés hanging from the rope features a body double.
“You do see some parts of me unclothed,” she explained, “But if they end up in a website making it look like I’m nude, I’m going to be really, really angry.”
Around the same time, Portman appeared nude in Wes Anderson’s Hotel Chevalier. The Huffington Post subsequently interviewed the actor to clarify, as had been previously implied, whether she regretted the nudity in Goya’s Ghost.
“I don’t really have regrets,” she said. “It’s more that I don’t like misappropriation of stuff, like when you create something as part of a story, and then a piece of it ends up on a porn site,” she added. “It’s meant to be a dramatic scene and part of a story. That really makes me angry.”
Portman had every right to be livid over that nude scene in Goya’s Ghosts. She’d agreed to shoot it with all the usual modesty measures in place, thinking everything was above board. Then, when they brought in a body double for the more graphic bits, people were pointing fingers, assuming it was all her. Those clips ended up plastered across the internet, and the rumours took off like wildfire.
And for someone like Portman, who’s always been careful about what she signs her name to, it wasn’t just uncomfortable; it’s obviously a proper punch in the gut to end up being associated with adult content.
“That really makes me angry,” she said, and you can fucking see why.
