Larry Flynt the Martyr?
The 1996 film, THE PEOPLE VS. LARRY FLYNT, represents Larry Flynt the same way HUSTLER magazine represents women, with soft-core vulgarity, and glossy pictures. This is not to say I didn’t enjoy the film.
The film begins in Kentucky in 1952. Larry Flynt and his brother Jimmy are children selling moonshine to the dirt-poor farmers in their region. Dirt-poor is not a cliché in this case. The two boys are covered in mud, and live in a shack. This scene is obviously a stab at trying to make a comparison to the humble beginnings of the Flynt brothers and the fortunes they would someday have.
Cut to twenty years later in Cincinnati, Ohio to find the Flynt brothers running a strip club. The club does fairly well, but Larry Flynt, the visionary that he is, has set his sights ever higher. He comes up with the idea to start a newsletter advertising the beautiful and scantily dressed women in his club.
Enter Althea. Althea, who is never given a last name, is an underage stripper in Flynt’s club. The two fall in love after she seduces him in the first ten minutes of their acquaintance. Courtney Love (200 CIGARETTES, FEELING MINNESOTA), widow of rock legend Kurt Cobain, was nominated for a Golden Globe for her portrayal of this character. She did not win the award, and was slighted by the Academy without a nomination. Many sang praises for her performance in this movie, but there were far more people writing off her role as typecasting. Regardless, she is very believable as the doomed Althea.
Flynt starts Hustler Publications. A primary example of what would eventually enrage the public is a photograph session around the birth of HUSTLER. An ornately undressed woman is reclined on a bed. The photographer gives her posing instructions. Flynt looks on in wonder. When the photographer asks the girl to close her legs slightly Flynt interrupts. He walks over, grabs the girl’s knees, and spreads her legs for the picture. “You can’t do that,” the photographer insists. “Why not?” Flynt asks. “A girl’s vagina has just as much personality as her face.”
Milos Forman (ONE FLEW OVER THE CUCKOO’S NEST, MAN ON THE MOON) does an impressive directing job showing the tension and disappointment of HUSTLER’S initial failure. And then Forman brings things up a notch. The infamous nude pictures of Jackie O featured in HUSTLER bring in millions in profit for Flynt and his entourage. The celebration begins.
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