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Pretty Baby
The firestorm of multi-layered controversy that the film caused during its 1978 release might seem a little silly today, but Pretty Baby is still worth watching if, for no other reason, the delicately nuanced direction of French filmmaker Louis Malle.
The setting of this steamy story is an elegant brothel in 1917 Orleans where we meet a free-spirited prostitute named Hattie (Susan Sarandon) who seems content raising her 12-year old daughter, Violet (Brooke Shields) to follow in her footsteps until the arrival of an attractive and enigmatic photographer named Bellocq (Keith Carradine) who arrives to do a photo essay on the girls. It's not long afterwards that Hattie receives a marriage proposal that forces her to leave Violet at the brothel, a move that brings an entire new dynamic to the relationship between her daughter, Violet and the young photographer.
Screenwriter Polly Platt has crafted a bold and unapologetic story that often walks a very delicate line between good taste and soft porn that takes a sophisticated look at some very seamy subject matter that makes parallels to more universal themes. The story seems to compare prostitution to slavery. The scene where Violet is put on display for the first time as a professional finds her actually being auctioned off, like a slave. The more disturbing aspect of what happens to Violet here is her nonchalance about what she's doing. The life of prostitution is all she knows and she seems to have no desire to know any other way to live. Violet's unabashed pursuit of the photographer is completely inappropriate as is his not discouraging it, but it's a different time and place and we find ourselves drawn to something that really should make us squirm.
Even more so than Platt's story is Louis Malle's beautifully evocative direction that drapes this somewhat seamy subject matter in such a glamorous and tasteful atmosphere that we almost forget that we're watching women selling their bodies because they don't know how to do anything else and don't care. Malle's approach to the expected nudity in the story is quite tasteful for the most part,,,minimal frontal nudity but what shocked filmgoers was how much of it involved 12 year old Brooke Shields.
Moviegoers were not only outraged by the seemingly strong sexual content of the film, but more by some of the things that Brooke Shields had to do in this film, including frontal nudity. Strong criticism was even thrown the way of Shields' mother, Terri, because people felt the psychological effect this role would have on her daughter would damage her. Shields seemed to come out of it, unscathed though...she's still alive, still working, and this film just seems to be a postscript in her career.
Shields is an eye-opener in this film and, if the truth be told, she never did anything in her career more interesting than this. Susan Sarandon is delicious as her mother Hattie and Keith Carradine brings a sensitive sexuality to the Bellocq character that is most appealing. Older fans might recognize the brothel piano player: that's Antonio Fargas, who got his fifteen minutes playing Huggy Bear on ABC's Starsky and Hutch. When all is said and done, it is the work of Louis Malle that still makes this viable entertainment.
The firestorm of multi-layered controversy that the film caused during its 1978 release might seem a little silly today, but Pretty Baby is still worth watching if, for no other reason, the delicately nuanced direction of French filmmaker Louis Malle.
The setting of this steamy story is an elegant brothel in 1917 Orleans where we meet a free-spirited prostitute named Hattie (Susan Sarandon) who seems content raising her 12-year old daughter, Violet (Brooke Shields) to follow in her footsteps until the arrival of an attractive and enigmatic photographer named Bellocq (Keith Carradine) who arrives to do a photo essay on the girls. It's not long afterwards that Hattie receives a marriage proposal that forces her to leave Violet at the brothel, a move that brings an entire new dynamic to the relationship between her daughter, Violet and the young photographer.
Screenwriter Polly Platt has crafted a bold and unapologetic story that often walks a very delicate line between good taste and soft porn that takes a sophisticated look at some very seamy subject matter that makes parallels to more universal themes. The story seems to compare prostitution to slavery. The scene where Violet is put on display for the first time as a professional finds her actually being auctioned off, like a slave. The more disturbing aspect of what happens to Violet here is her nonchalance about what she's doing. The life of prostitution is all she knows and she seems to have no desire to know any other way to live. Violet's unabashed pursuit of the photographer is completely inappropriate as is his not discouraging it, but it's a different time and place and we find ourselves drawn to something that really should make us squirm.
Even more so than Platt's story is Louis Malle's beautifully evocative direction that drapes this somewhat seamy subject matter in such a glamorous and tasteful atmosphere that we almost forget that we're watching women selling their bodies because they don't know how to do anything else and don't care. Malle's approach to the expected nudity in the story is quite tasteful for the most part,,,minimal frontal nudity but what shocked filmgoers was how much of it involved 12 year old Brooke Shields.
Moviegoers were not only outraged by the seemingly strong sexual content of the film, but more by some of the things that Brooke Shields had to do in this film, including frontal nudity. Strong criticism was even thrown the way of Shields' mother, Terri, because people felt the psychological effect this role would have on her daughter would damage her. Shields seemed to come out of it, unscathed though...she's still alive, still working, and this film just seems to be a postscript in her career.
Shields is an eye-opener in this film and, if the truth be told, she never did anything in her career more interesting than this. Susan Sarandon is delicious as her mother Hattie and Keith Carradine brings a sensitive sexuality to the Bellocq character that is most appealing. Older fans might recognize the brothel piano player: that's Antonio Fargas, who got his fifteen minutes playing Huggy Bear on ABC's Starsky and Hutch. When all is said and done, it is the work of Louis Malle that still makes this viable entertainment.