Obscene successfully explores its controversial subject matter

A production that boasts the high-integrity reporting of old-guard documentarians with the high-energy storytelling of MTV-era doc making, Neil Ortenberg and Daniel O’Connor’s Obscene plays appropriately like the subject it explores: edifying fringe culture doled out with the sweet tang of bad education. Barney Rosset, founder of The Grove Press and The Evergreen Review, made a career bringing controversial literature and work to America. As the American publisher of such previous banned books as Lady Chatterly’s Lover and Tropic of Cancer, Rosset’s tastes in his chosen books were consistently situated between the arenas of high art and low class—well, depending on who you spoke to. Loved by the literati and respected by the counterculture for his constantly stalwart battle against censors, Rosset blazed a path that Ortenberg and O’Connor’s film makes look clearly defined, though the character of Rosset, his career, and the circumstances surrounding are built on paradox. This crystal-clear doc makes the conundrums at hand both interesting and accessible, making good reception a strong possibility, however, the doc’s biggest returns will likely be DVD and cable.

At the onset, it’s clear Rosset is a fascinating character; not just for what he’s done for American culture, counterculture and modern mores, but also because he embodies an odd American contradiction. On the one hand, Rosset was a crusader for our country’s access to acutely relevant culture. Grove was the sole American publisher of Samuel Becket; the Press brought Howl and many, many other Beat books to American bookstores; William S. Burroughs’ Naked Lunch was a seminal (no pun intended) title for them. And looking back, such titles are so relevant to our notions of written art that simply learning that battles were fought to give the nation access to them is inspiring. Looking back with modern (and/or progressive) eyes, it seems like a no-brainer. “Of course you save D.H. Lawrence! Who would think of putting the kibosh on Ferlinghetti?” It would have been easy for Ortenberg and O’Connor to take their intended audience at face-political-value and anticipate the crowds to boo Gaslight-style at Rosset’s many adversaries, but the richest central issue of the film is declared by its title. Does not the notion of obscenity require restriction in order to be? And at what point does the purely subjective distinction of art and obscenity become irrelevant? I mean, there is a point where it just becomes porn, and we’re not always blessed with a clear distinction between.

That paradox: the conflict between public acceptance and private joy, social acceptance and singular resonance, smart/sexy and dirty-plus-big words, is just as relevant to the story of Obscene as is the paradox of the film’s protagonist.

Rosset worked for decades between his press (Grove) and his magazine (Evergreen Review), and perhaps in need of money or attention, certain projects he endeavored (particularly into the later part of the ’60s and ’70s) were less obviously salacious art and more explicitly dirty curio. His line of Victorian Erotica, for example, is less in line with Kenzaburo Oe (one of Grove’s authors) than Louis L’Amour, making such titillation seem less able to hide behind the legitimacy-making title “Art.” His film production, the hard to find cult semi-sensation, Swedish soft-core I am Curious (Yellow) didn’t do the numbers of Deep Throat, but was attended by similarly high profile viewers (Jackie O, supposedly among them), leading one to believe the film carried both the cache of the newer ’70s porn and the awkward legitimacy of foreign cinema. (Still, the film made Rosset little profits and was deemed a commercial failure.) Yet, as the financial onus seems to grow on Rosset’s businesses, a myriad of factors (randomly violent picketers, unsuccessful public protests, government surveillance, lack of interest in imported culture) take a toll that seems to dovetail into Rosset’s more prurient proclivities. It’s hard to say, given the film’s exceptionally neutral depiction of Rosset’s career timeline, whether it was these factors that created the devolution of Rosset’s business or if Rosset’s interest in sex simply got the best of him. Rosset himself seems disinclined to dignify that specific intersection of issues with his attention. To say the answer is as simple as “I’m dirty” or “I’m just trying to make a living” isn’t just reductive: it’s unrealistic and somehow inhumane. Further, it’s perhaps pointless to provide any answers when Rosset himself seems fit to declare it’s the question that’s of any intrigue. Life simply can’t be put in tiny boxes, no matter how much we may strive to contain ourselves.

Editing on Obscene is beautifully handled. A steady, swirling and always-accessible parade of highly researched media is used in support of the ever-growing and ever-deepening exploration of the story. The doc formally mirrors its subject in its pacing, which balances the titillation/education of the doc’s subject with consistent and pleasantly teasing speed and tone from start to finish. On top of all of this sexy presentation, one can’t help feeling the film’s offering an American history we should all know more (if not just something) about. Much like Sam Green’s Weather Underground, this alternate history may be one for the books, but due to smart filmmaking, perhaps this one’s better absorbed from reel to reel.

Distributor: Arthouse Films
Cast: Barney Rosset, Amiri Baraka, Jim Carroll, Betty Dodson, Lawrence Ferlinghetti, Erica Jong, Gore Vidal, Ira Silverberg, John Sayles and Micahel McClure
Directors: Neil Ortenberg and Daniel O’Connor
Producers: Tanya Ager Mellier, Alexander Mellier, Neil Ortenberg and Daniel O’Connor
Genre: Documentary
Running time: 97 min.
Rating: Unrated
Release date: September 26 NY, October 3 LA