TW
Joined: Mar 25, 2002
Posts: 2301
|
TW
On 2004-10-19 18:23, Kono wrote:
Another technique was to put a strong morality message at the end of the film. You can have all the sex and violence you want as long as you close the film by talking about how bad all that sex and violence is. Russ Meyer might have originated this device (if not, was right there in the beginning) and if you go back and watch your copy of "Beyond the Valley of the Dolls" you can see that he employed it in that flick even though by the time that film came out it was quite unnecessary. I only mention this because the same phenomenon occurred in Germany in the 70s with the German schundfilm. The Schulmadchen reports and all their imitators used a fake documentary style and morality clause to (apparently) make the content and subject matter of those movies palatable to the general public. Interestingly, and probably contrary to what most Europeans would guess, I believe that the Netherlands and Denmark were the only countries in Europe to legalize X-rated movies before the United States did.
Indeed - who can forget the cringe-worthy scene in Taxi Driver where our hero Travis takes the object of his affections to an x-rated movie, which turns out to be some vile-looking biological monstrosity intercut with some cheap sex scenes.
Sweden is another country that allowed X-rated movies very early. Certainly their society didn't collapse as a result. In the UK, they only started allowing such material through a few years ago, so we certainly lag way behind on that score. I think all the prudes over here just finally died off!
Trader Woody
PS - Tiki Flange, I was just leaping on Bigbro's point. Thanks for the pics and the warning too - certainly my boss wouldn't be too keen on me dribbling on my desk all afternoon!
[ Edited by: Trader Woody on 2004-10-20 10:41 ]
|
