you'll know it when you see it
The Lovers
As censorship rears its head in Australia, see the film that went all the way to the US Supreme Court to find out if it was obscene.
In 1964, Nico Jacobellis, manager of the Heights Art Theatre in Cleveland Heights, Ohio, was convicted and fined $2500 by Cuyahoga County Court of Common Pleas. His offence? Showing Louis Malle's The Lovers (1958).
Things have changed now . or, at least we hope so, as our friends at Melbourne Cinémathèque are showing the film on Wednesday 22 April, as part of their impressive Louis Malle retrospective.
The Supreme Court of Ohio upheld Jacobellis' case. It was only finally reversed by the U.S. Supreme Court, who ruled that the film was not obscene and therefore protected by the First Amendment. The case is now a cornerstone of US constitutional law.
Most famously, the film caused Justice Potter Stewart to make his notoriously vague attempt to define obscenity: "I shall not today attempt further to define the kinds of material I understand to be embraced within that shorthand description; and perhaps I could never succeed in intelligibly doing so. But I know it when I see it, and the motion picture involved in this case is not that."
The Lovers (Les Amants) was Malle's second feature film, made when he was 25 years old. Starring Jeanne Moreau, the film that caused such a ruckus explores the rediscovery of human love and the perils of adultery. And, with Louis Malle, there's even more taboo to boot: suicide in Le Feu follet (1963), Nazi collaborators in Lacombe, Lucien (1974) and, in Zazie dans le métro, a cross-dressing uncle babysitter.
To see what all the fuss is about, click here
Published Thursday, 9 April 2009
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