[1][2] Woody Haut's more recent characterization is more sympathetic:[3]...a worthy, if not altogether successful, attempt at being an American art movie, a hodgepodge of influences, from Italian Realists, Antonioni and Bergman to US social conscience films and documentarists like Robert Flaherty.
Written, produced and directed by former documentarist and Hollywood scriptwriter Ben Maddow, the film was, for the most part, shot on the streets of New York, and memorable for its sensuousness, its street-level camera-work and use of natural light.Maddow is reported as feeling that the initial release of An Affair of the Skin had been rushed for financial reasons.
As described by John Hagan, "An offscreen narration by the photographer was added to establish her as an observer: a participant in the action, but also a caustic chronicler of it.
As in much of Maddow's work, inner disorder is seen against a background of social unrest as described in a highly imagistic manner by a person who has both emotional involvement and critical detachment.
"[4] Set in New York, the drama describes the sexual relations of the three main characters, Victoria, Allen, and his wife Katherine, including the problems they encounter as told in three intertwined stories.