Larry Flynt, pornographer and publisher of Hustler magazine, isn't exactly Johnny Appleseed. But after his court battle
with right-wing evangelist, the Reverend Jerry Falwell, he emerged as an unlikely champion of free speech. As he put it after winning his case in the Supreme Court, "If they'll protect a scumbag like me, then they'll protect all of you."
When he received Scott Alexander and Larry Karaszewki's screenplay dramatising Flynt's life, director Milos Forman put it aside with disdain. "The only association in my mind was pornography, sleaze and exploitation." Initially, producer Oliver Stone wasn't any more enthusiastic. "I had never cared one bit about Flynt." (Once they'd both read it, their response, of course, was very different.) Ironically, Flynt
himself was sheepish about seeing his past put up on screen. "A lot of things in that movie are embarrassing," admits the man who once turned up in court wearing nappies stitched out of the American flag and who published naked photographs of Jacqueline Onassis.
But producer Janet Yang says, "Flynt's a thoughtful, intelligent, kind, well-spoken man, albeit with a biting sense of humour. There's nothing phoney about him." To her, he is a symbol of what she most admires about America, "its unique diversity and the tolerance of that diversity".
Alexander and Karaszewki describe People Vs Larry Flynt as a "love letter to the First Amendment". It is a celebration of a colourful, contradictory American life. Forman, who first sprang to prominence during the heady days of the Czech New Wave in the late 1960s, has always taken an adventurous approach to casting. Alongside Woody Harrelson (who plays Flynt) and rock star Courtney Love (cast, with a little help from Vaclav Havel, as Althea) appear political campaigner James Carville ('star' of DA Pennebaker's
documentary, The War Room), and law professor Burt Neuborne. There is even a cameo from Flynt. Geoffrey Macnab
Regie (Dir): Milos Forman Buch (Scr): Scott Alexander, Larry Karaszewski Darsteller (Cast) Woody Harrelson, Courtney Love, Edward Norton LŠnge (Running time): 130 minutes.
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