In a film that is about gowns and gossip, there's a lot to say about how people are dressed or are dressing—Benítez refusing to put on the costume until Lawrence sees him plain in the Room of Tears, Adeyemi holding his fascia in his hand when he is confronted with his unchastity, Tedesco with his princely ankle-length cape, Bellini examining and standing apart from the robes prepared for the new pope, Benítez again as he takes off his shoes while Lawrence tries to get him to not vote for him—but tonight I am circling the drain thinking about nakedness.
And how the person who shows the most skin in this movie is (by a wide margin) Aldo Bellini.
First of all, people like to say that this is a film about your bald coworkers but it's really just him. Almost everybody else is experiencing some amount of hair loss, yes, but Aldo's the only main character who is bald-shaved-bald. Even with the skullcap on he is, at all times, in a very modest workplace, showing more skin than anyone else. It's a very high-maintenance look, too, as we can see because he has a little bit of shadow from where the hair he does still grow comes in. For him to have this look, he has to go over his scalp with a razor, close, every few days; at least once per week. That's a choice he has made, and that the film has endorsed, because I have seen them put some very wild lace-fronts on Stanley Tucci and they chose not to do that. Being that bald and austere and bare is right for his character.
And then he wears the blue nightshirt (others have spoken on color theory in this film and I'll leave the implications of that color choice as an exercise to the reader) and it is short. When everyone else has only been visible from the chin up and the wrists down, it's shockingly intimate to see so much bare skin. We even get the now-infamous panty shot, which is completely deliberate for the audience if not for Thomas—I struggle to imagine they didn't have at least one other take they could have used if they didn't want that to be included.
He's extremely exposed in that moment, right up to his underthings, whether we consciously notice that or not. We see his forearms and his legs, and we see that his body is hairy, and that the hair is still dark. He's not an old, dead thing, not yet. He's still alive, still robust, he is human and mammal and animal: he still has skin and not just marble and ice. In a film where everyone else "dresses down" to a long-sleeve shirt and a cardigan sweater, in a film where not knowing our own bodies is the key to the final revelation, Aldo's body is the one we know the most about.
Moreover, he is physically and emotionally that naked, that intensely exposed, when he has the argument where Lawrence names him for a coward. He is stripped down to just his jangling nerves in that scene, when we finally see him recognized, shamed, and lost.
But he's also the man who turns back to Thomas and reconciles with him. He's the man who can be honest, bare his heart to his friend, receive Thomas' bared heart in return. Because Aldo's always more naked than anyone else. He's been saying and preaching and shouting the truth about himself, about his unworthiness and his fear, the whole time. He hides his ambition to remain in the Curia, but not very well, because as much as he is brilliant and strategic and versed in Vatican realpolitik, he's not accustomed to hiding and lying about himself.
He lives his life much, much more naked than anyone else in the whole place. Whatever else he's ashamed of, whatever else upsets him, it isn't being seen. It isn't being bare.
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