Dirty words & filthy pictures : film and the First Amendment / Jeremy Geltzer ; foreword by Alex Kozinski.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Geltzer, Jeremy, 1969- author.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Motion pictures--Censorship--United States.

Motion pictures.

Motion pictures--Law and legislation--United States.

Motion picture industry--Law and legislation--United States.

Motion picture industry.

Motion pictures--History.

Freedom of speech--United States.

Freedom of speech.

United States.

Genre:

History

Electronic books.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (385 p.)

Edition:

First edition.

Other Title:

Dirty words and filthy pictures

Place of Publication:

Austin, [Texas] : University of Texas Press, 2015.

Language Note:

English

Summary:

From the earliest days of cinema, scandalous films such as The Kiss (1896) attracted audiences eager to see provocative images on screen. With controversial content, motion pictures challenged social norms and prevailing laws at the intersection of art and entertainment. Today, the First Amendment protects a wide range of free speech, but this wasn't always the case. For the first fifty years, movies could be censored and banned by city and state officials charged with protecting the moral fabric of their communities. Once film was embraced under the First Amendment by the Supreme Court's Miracle decision in 1952, new problems pushed notions of acceptable content even further. This book explores movies that changed the law and resulted in greater creative freedom for all. Relying on primary sources that include court decisions, contemporary periodicals, state censorship ordinances, and studio production codes, Jeremy Geltzer offers a comprehensive and fascinating history of cinema and free speech, from the earliest films of Thomas Edison to the impact of pornography and the Internet. With incisive case studies of risque pictures, subversive foreign films, and banned B-movies, he reveals how the legal battles over film content changed long-held interpretations of the Constitution, expanded personal freedoms, and opened a new era of free speech.--Adapted from back cover.

Contents:

Boxing, porn, and the beginnings of movie censorship

The rise of salacious cinema

State regulations emerge

Mutual and the capacity for evil

War, nudity, and birth control

Self-regulation reemerges

Midnight movies and sanctioned cinema

Sound enters the debate

Tension increases between free speech and state censorship

Threats from abroad and domestic disturbances

Outlaws and miracles

State censorship statutes on the defense

Devil in the details : film and the Fourth and Fifth Amendments

Dirty words : profanity and the patently offensive

Filthy pictures : obscenity from nudie cuties to fetish films

The porno chic : from Danish loops to Deep throat

Just not here : content regulation through zoning

Is censorship necessary?

The politics of profanity.

Notes:

Description based upon print version of record.

Includes bibliographical references (pages 358-359) and index.

Description based on print version record.

ISBN:

1-4773-0741-9

OCLC:

1451414419