People Vs Larry Flynt
There is little doubt that Larry Flynt was one of the most wretched, vile and disgusting human beings to come out of the 20th Century, a filth drenched pornographer who was one of the first to explicitly photograph women âopenâ for widespread distribution and admittedly fought many legal battles defending his First Amendment rights to do so, but outside of being a wild provocateur who was so stinkin rich that he used his vast fortune to make life a living Hell for the Moral Majority right wingers, his known overall worth as a human being along with his so called ânobilityâ are things that can always be called into question. When a major motion picture about his life and exploits was made in 1996, the first correct decision was in hiring Milos Forman as director, having first made a big splash in Hollywood with the humanistic classic One Flew Over The Cuckooâs Nest (and winning an Oscar), he eventually segued into making offbeat biographical films starting with Amadeus (and winning a second Oscar) and continuing through this with the Andy Kaufman biopic Man On The Moon. The second rightful decision was in hiring Woody Harrelson for the lead role of Flynt himself because even though there was little physical resemblance, Harrelson could easily assume the country boy / white trash persona that Flynt embodied, not to mention (in the second half of the film) doing a near pitch perfect impression of Flyntâs garbled, nerve damaged voice. The film begins in Flyntâs childhood where he and his brother (played in adulthood by Harrelsonâs real life brother Brett) are running moonshine in the hills of Kentucky and it is rightfully established that in the end the only thing that ol Larry ever actually cared about was just making a buck, which almost betrays the âheroâ notion later on in the film quite a bit, because even though Flynt (as crazy as he was) would act like a lunatic even if he was in a wheelchair, itâs pretty clear that he was just as fully aware that âshock sellsâ as much as âsex sellsâ and that getting his own name as well as the name of Hustler Magazine out there was as important to him as anything. Many have said (not without merit) that the film thoroughly whitewashes many details of Flyntâs life so as to make him a more palatable lead character (including allegations of child molestation and rape) but even then the mostly unapologetic view of many aspects of Flyntâs lifestyle are quite the eye opener, most notably his relationship with Althea Leasure played by Courtney Love. Much controversy erupted over the casting of Love in the part (with her being a musician who had little acting experience but who had been thrust recently into the spotlight after the suicide death of husband Kurt Cobain) since nearly every top actress in Hollywood had either interviewed or auditioned for the role with the story being that when Love had met with director Forman to discuss the film, she was literally so high on drugs that Forman actually managed to see her as almost being a kindred spirit to the real life Althea (whom like Love was a heroin addict and HIV positive, although that one still remains only a strong rumor to this day about her) and cast her in the role on the condition that she at least stay clean for the duration of the filming (with the irony being that Love with her own questionable sex appeal was arguably not even as attractive as the real life Althea who was able to come across as being both likable and personable). We first see Harrelsonâs Flynt as a small time strip club owner who made the daring decision to send out a nudie filled newsletter solely for the purpose of promoting the club, then seeing that build into an adult entertainment empire all with Loveâs Althea at his side before being railroaded into trumped up charges (including an incredibly bizarre one for organized crime) where he is prosecuted by James Carville (a known left wing TV political analyst who somehow has made a small career in movies playing various embodiments of simmering right wing evil). Even more strange is the casting of James Cromwell (a good actor) as Charles Keating (best known as the architect of the Savings And Loan Scandal and thus a truly hissable real life villain), a character who is given almost nothing to say or do but who is almost always seen hovering over Flyntâs various legal proceedings like some kind of bird of prey with the implication being that it is actually HE who is orchestrating the seeds of Flyntâs downfall that never happened (where exactly the writers came up with this is hard to determine). Along the way he is adopted into the (rather liberal) Christian graces of President Jimmy Carterâs wacky sister Ruth (Donna Hanover) and then after a victory in a Georgia courtroom over obscenity charges, he is shot and wounded by a sniper (a man who had never been caught at the time of filming but has since been captured and revealed to be a white supremacist serial killer) which leads him to renounce his Christian faith and start thinking of his newly paralyzed condition (which now prevents him from having sex) as being something that âtheyâ had done to him (i.e. The Establishment) , thus having him decide that now his true purpose in life is going to be raising hell and starting shit with everyone that he can (with the porno business ironically now merely being used just to keep the money coming in) and it is in THIS incarnation that Forman goes all in and wins big portraying Flynt as someone who is going to do everything that he can to rattle some cages while using his substantial fortune to keep himself afloat while doing so. Whether it be by scandalizing The FBI by exposing corruption in a major investigation or publicly refusing to back down from an imposing federal judge, Flyntâs craziness and absolute utter refusal to conform (as embodied by Harrelson who deserved his Best Actor Oscar Nomination for this) really do in the context of the film itself make him into the free thinking hero that he no doubt would like to be thought of as. But the biggest scandal was yet to come, when Hustler ran an obvious parody ad (which was explicitly stated at the bottom as being as such) depicting the Rev. Jerry Falwell ruminating about his first sexual experience which just so happened to be with his own mother in an outhouse as the goats looked on. When first brought to Falwellâs attention, he immediately sued Flynt for libel and infliction of emotional distress with Flynt countersuing for copyright infringement based on Falwell reprinting the ad to gin up his followers and thus the legal war was on, one which went all the way up to The Supreme Court with Flynt successfully setting a legal precedent stating that any and all public figures were subject to ridicule if need be which is really an important point of free speech as while nobody believed that Falwell had actually done such things, the idea that he could sue for having his feelings hurt over such a thing was a slippery slope that ultimately could draw our society away from being able to criticize almost anything that we donât agree with. Whatâs much more interesting (and not touched upon in the movie) is the fact that Flynt and Falwell later became good friends despite their differing philosophies and even went on a debate tour together discussing the pros and cons of The First Amendment (which no doubt put more money in Flyntâs pocket but really said much more about the character of Falwell as a man). Through it all we also have Edward Norton (just starting out his career) as Flyntâs long suffering attorney Alan Isaacman, constantly having to put up with his clientâs atrocities and outbursts in the courtroom but ultimately rising to the occasion in The Supreme Court, intelligently and articulately arguing the case in favor of a known scumbagâs right to talk shit about anyone he wants in an attempt to bring them down a notch and really turning out in the end to be the true hero of the film as well. More than anything though, the film is just fascinating to watch, depicting a sordid porn empire being run by a bitter cripple along with his rapidly deteriorating wife in a sort of mock perfect life and succeeding in making its main character much more likable than his real life counterpart while still demonstrating exactly why his story is just so importantâŚ
9/10