The films discussed in this book have been labeled cinéma vomitif because they induce a visceral response in their audience. They are an underground hybrid of slasher movies, exploitation films, and shock-u-mentaries. Taking a serious look at a taboo subject, Brottman argues that these scandalous films are of far more substance than has been previously assumed. Their consistent appeal to our repressed appetites, libidinal instincts, and fascination with flesh and death has much to tell us about the human condition. Films analyzed include the voyeuristic Freaks (1932), the traumatic psychodrama The Tingler (1959), the succés de scandale The Texas Chain Saw Massacre (1976), the Italian shocker Cannibal Holocaust (1983), and two recent series of live death shock-u-mentaries, Death Scenes and Faces of Death (1989-1994). These movies, shunned from mainstream cinema because they are too offensive, obscene, marginal or bizarre, are considered here for the first time as an important part of the cinematic canon.
This entertaining and insightful book is the first devoted exclusively to the films that have earned a special place in motion picture history by pushing the “cinematic envelope” with their treatment of provocative subjects and themes. Obscene, Indecent, Immoral & Offensive: 100+ Years of Controversial Cinema chronicles the history of Hollywood censorship and the films that were banned, censored, and condemned by the Production Code Administration and the Legion of Decency. Stephen Tropiano offers readers insightful and accessible analysis of films that were branded “controversial” at the time of their release due to explicit language, nudity, graphic sex, violence, and their treatment of “adult” subject matter and themes. The films profiled include The Birth of a Nation, Anatomy of a Murder, Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?, Baby Doll, Blackboard Jungle, Bonnie and Clyde, The Wild Bunch, A Clockwork Orange, Natural Born Killers, Caligula, Rosemary's Baby, Life of Brian, The Last Temptation of Christ, and The Passion of the Christ.
This serious look at films that have disgusted, appalled, offended, and repelled reveals how such forbidden films have a great deal to teach us about the human condition.
At the heart of any history of controversial films is a strange paradox: while films, especially popular and mainstream films, are often portrayed as meaningless products of popular culture, those popular films involved in public controversies become the focal point of enormous cultural energy, political attention, and profoundly conflicting sets of principles. The ongoing culture wars continue to shape the American political landscape, and controversial films continue to be a major point of conflict. Controversial Cinema: The Films that Outraged America traces the history of controversial films and offers insights into why it is that certain films spark controversies, and how Americans typically react to controversial moviemaking. Since the widespread banning of DW Griffith's The Birth of a Nation, the American film industry has found itself embroiled in one political controversy after another. These controversies have centered on everything from the portrayal of the past, as in Griffith's film, to depictions of sex and sexuality, to the use of graphic violence, and issues of race, religion, and politics. In turn, segments of the American public have been driven to boycott, picket, and even censor those films they felt challenged their sense of decency. At the heart of this history of controversial films is a strange paradox: while films, especially popular and mainstream films, are often portrayed as meaningless products of popular culture, popular films involved in public controversies become the focal point of enormous cultural energy and political attention. The ongoing culture wars thus continue to shape the American political landscape, and controversial films continue to be a major point of conflict. In the course of this wide-ranging work, Kendall Phillips offers insights into the kinds of films that spark controversies, and the ways that Americans typically react to them. Organized around broad controversial themes and with particular attention to mainstream films since the dissolution of the Motion Picture Production Code in the mid-1960s, Controversial Cinema explores why films spark broad cultural controversies, how these controversies play out, and the long-term results. The four broad areas of controversy examined in the work are: Sex and Sexuality, Violence, Race, and Religion. Each chapter offers a broad overview of the history of these topics in controversial American films as well as more in-depth examinations of recent examples, including The Silence of the Lambs, Natural Born Killers, Do the Right Thing, and The Passion of the Christ. A final section of the book considers the broader issues of cultural politics in light of the long history of controversial cinema.
Thoroughly researched and fully APA referenced chronological history of film censorship and classification in Australia. Case by case histories of banned films punctuate a detailed account of the evolution of the Australian Film Classification system and the concurrent development of the Australian adult XXX industry, culminating in the establishment of the Australian Sex Party. Former SAR Research Fellow at Australia’s National Film & Sound Archive Robert Cettl gained exclusive access to both the national collection and the highly restricted Australian adult industry archive, the Eros Collection, at the Flinders University of South Australia Library to piece together the complete history of film censorship in Australia. Progressing through individual banned and censored films – including works by such internationally renowned directors as Hitchcock, Whale, Bunuel, Forman, Godard, Oshima, Pasolini, Hopper, Lyne, Breillat, Noe, Brass, Bertolucci, Fellini, Ford, Clark, Despentes, Winterbottom, Von Trier – Cettl maps out the specification of “offensive” material in parallel to the emergence of Australia’s adult XXX industry and the Christian morals-driven pressure groups that advocate tighter censorship restrictions. In a country that has the dubious honor of being the most censorial of Western democracies, film censorship is based on the principle of “offense to a reasonable adult”, an undefined refrain that religious minorities have used to manipulate censorship decisions in their favor. The history of these groups and the political support for their right-wing Christian agenda – driven by what Australians term “Wowserism” – makes Australian film censorship unique in its delineation of :the “aesthetics of offense” as grounds for the suppression of free dissemination, to the point of seeking mandatory ISP Internet filtering and Internet blacklisting of all material classified RC (or “refused classification”), much of which is available for dissemination throughout Europe and the USA, in violation of UN Human Rights Article 19. In this comprehensive study of the socio-political ideology surrounding the censorship of primarily sexually explicit material (“pornography”), Cettl delineates the aesthetic construction of “offense” as a transgressive genre and charts the morality-driven religiosity behind their construction as Other to a civilized society, questioning whether the categorization of such material as other makes of it legitimate discourse. With extensive case histories, never-before-published government censorship reports, press clippings and secret internal memos between some of Australia’s most powerful and influential politicians, Offensive to a Reasonable Adult exposes the quagmire of Australian censorship law and the morals-cabal of “wowsers” that dominate the censorship agenda in the so-called “Clever Country”.
In modern-day Hong Kong, major constitutional controversies have caused people to demonstrate on the streets, immigrate to other countries, occupy major thoroughfares, and even engage in violence. These controversies have such great resonance because they put pressure on a cultural identity made possible by, and inseparable from, the 'One Country, Two Systems' framework. Hong Kong is also a city synonymous with film, ranging from commercial gangster movies to the art cinema of Wong Kar-wai. This book argues that while the importance of constitutional controversies for the process of self-formation may not be readily discernible in court judgments and legislative enactments, it is registered in the diverse modes of expression found in Hong Kong cinema. It contends that film gives form to the ways in which Hong Kong identity is articulated, placed under stress, bolstered, and transformed in light of disputes about the nature and meaning of the city's constitutional documents.
Hanich looks at fear at the movies – its aesthetics, its experience and its pleasures--in this thought-provoking study. Looking at over 150 different films including Seven, Rosemary's Baby, and Silence of the Lambs, Hanich attempts to answer the paradox of why we enjoy films that thrill us, that scare us, that threaten us, that shock us –affects that we otherwise desperately wish to avoid.
The Negro Motorist Green Book was a groundbreaking guide that provided African American travelers with crucial information on safe places to stay, eat, and visit during the era of segregation in the United States. This essential resource, originally published from 1936 to 1966, offered a lifeline to black motorists navigating a deeply divided nation, helping them avoid the dangers and indignities of racism on the road. More than just a travel guide, The Negro Motorist Green Book stands as a powerful symbol of resilience and resistance in the face of oppression, offering a poignant glimpse into the challenges and triumphs of the African American experience in the 20th century.
