Description
Book SynopsisThis engaging and comprehensive history of censorship and cinema reveals the ways in which film has had a lasting impact on the legal concept of free speech and personal freedoms.
Trade Review"An important reference book for scholars of the law and cinema." * Kirkus Reviews *
"… clarity, combined with scholarly authority and a graceful narrative style…makes Jeremy Geltzer’s
Dirty Words And Filthy Pictures: Film And The First Amendment so compelling… valuable both as a specialized movie-history text and a meditation on morality, freedom of expression, changing notions of what constitutes the scandalous, and how, well, nothing ever stays the same." * The New York Times Book Review *
Table of Contents
- Acknowledgments
- Introduction
- Part I: Censoring the Cinema
- 1. Boxing, Porn, and the Beginnings of Movie Censorship
- 2. The Rise of Salacious Cinema
- 3. State Regulations Emerge
- 4. Mutual and the Capacity for Evil
- 5. War, Nudity, and Birth Control
- 6. Self-Regulation Reemerges
- 7. Midnight Movies and Sanctioned Cinema
- 8. Sound Enters the Debate
- 9. Tension Increases between Free Speech and State Censorship
- 10. Threats from Abroad and Domestic Disturbances
- Part II: Freedom of the Screen
- 11. Outlaws and Miracles
- 12. State Censorship Statutes on the Defense
- 13. Devil in the Details: Film and the Fourth and Fifth Amendments
- Part III: Dirty Words, Filthy Pictures, and Where to Find Them
- 14. Dirty Words: Profanity and the Patently Offensive
- 15. Filthy Pictures: Obscenity from Nudie Cuties to Fetish Films
- 16. The Porno Chic: From Danish Loops to Deep Throat
- 17. Just Not Here: Content Regulation through Zoning
- Part IV: Censorship Today
- 18. Is Censorship Necessary?
- 19. The Politics of Profanity
- Conclusion
- Notes
- Selected Bibliography
- Index
