The Naked Civil Servant

“Never keep up with the Jonses. Drag them down to your level. It's cheaper.”

Quentin Crisp (John Hurt) walks the streets of London in dyed hair, makeup and painted nails, years before the war, and the country answers with stares, insults and the occasional fist. Jack Gold follows him from his first jobs to the nude modelling at a government-funded art school that gives the film its title. Crisp refuses to dress or act any other way, and the film treats that refusal as the whole of his courage.