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Freedom to Offend This page intentionally left blank FREEDOM TO OffEND How New York Remade Movie Culture RAYMOND J. HABERSKI JR. THE UNIVERSITY PRESS OF KENTUCKY Publication of this volume was made possible in part by a grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities. Copyright © 2007 by The University Press of Kentucky Scholarly publisher for the Commonwealth, serving Bellarmine University, Berea College, Centre College of Kentucky, Eastern Kentucky University, The Filson Historical Society, Georgetown College, Kentucky Historical Society, Kentucky State University, Morehead State University, Murray State University, Northern Kentucky University, Transylvania University, University of Kentucky, University of Louisville, and Western Kentucky University. All rights reserved. Editorial and Sales Offices: The University Press of Kentucky 663 South Limestone Street, Lexington, Kentucky 40508-4008 www.kentuckypress.com 11 10 09 08 07 5 4 3 2 1 Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Haberski, Raymond J., 1968- Freedom to offend : how New York remade movie culture / Raymond J. Haberski, Jr. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN-13: 978-0-8131-2429-2 (hardcover : alk. paper) ISBN-10: 0-8131-2429-8 (hardcover : alk. paper) 1. Motion pictures— Censorship—New York (State)—New York—History. 2. Film criticism— New York (State)—New York—History. 3. Motion pictures—New York (State)—New York—History. I. Title. PN1995.64.N495 2007 363.3109747’1—dc22 2006039696 This book is printed on acid-free recycled paper meeting the requirements of the American National Standard for Permanence in Paper for Printed Library Materials. Manufactured in the United States of America. Member of the Association of American University Presses This book is dedicated to the memory of Raymond E. Haberski (1916–2004) This page intentionally left blank Contents Acknowledgments ix Introduction: Cinema Naïveté 1 1. The Web of Control 13 2. The Miracle and Bosley Crowther 39 3. Baby Doll and Commonweal Criticism 61 4. Amos Vogel and Confrontational Cinema 90 5. The “Flaming” Freedom of Jonas Mekas 119 6. The End of New York Movie Culture 152 7. Did Bonnie and Clyde Kill Bosley Crowther? 177 8. The Failure of Porno Chic 202 Conclusion: The Irrelevance of Controversial Culture 224 Notes 231 Bibliography 251 Index 259 This page intentionally left blank Acknowledgments MY FIRST DEBT OF gratitude goes to Jonas Mekas and the folks who help him operate Anthology Film Archives in New York City. Mekas and his staff gave me access to material that covered a significant period in the history of New York’s avant-garde cinema and a formative period in Mekas’s life. They did so with an openness char- acteristic of Mekas’s approach to his work and his love of film. While my argument might seem critical of some of the decisions Mekas made during the mid-1960s, I continue to be a great admirer of the legacy that Mekas has forged almost in spite of the great odds that have always worked against him and the cinema he champions. I was assisted in the archives of Lincoln Center for the Perform- ing Arts by Judith Johnson and her very able staff. They made room for me amid the boxes of their small office as well as within their very busy schedules. I thank them for their consideration and help. Like- wise, Charles Silver and Ronald Magliozzi at the Museum of Modern Art’s Film Study Center helped me navigate through their various clip- pings collections during a period of renovation that forced the whole museum and all its departments to move to Queens. Their office was cramped, inadequate, and wholly unbecoming the kind of work they do, and yet these two film scholars have carried on a tradition of ac- commodation that has consistently been nothing less than heroic. I am also grateful to the New York State Archives for awarding me a Larry J. Hackman Research Residency grant to conduct research in the state’s censorship files. I have also had the good fortune to test a few of the arguments included in this book before diverse audiences. I thank the scholars of Copenhagen Business School who invited me to speak at a conference on popular culture in the Americas, especially Birgitte Madelung, Niels Bjerre-Poulsen, Dale Carter, and executive assistant Merete Borch. Graduate students of Ohio University’s Department of History ix x Acknowledgments and Contemporary History Institute asked me to address them as one who had made it to the other side of graduate school and lived to tell the story. Lastly, Charles Van Eaton and his colleagues at Bryan Col- lege, especially Michael Palmer, gave me a wonderful opportunity to meet their excellent students and address their evangelical Christian community. At Marian College, my friends and colleagues have helped me in ways too numerous to list. I have benefited from attentive listeners and engaging intellectuals, especially Dave Shumate, Carolyn Johnston, Patrick Kiley, Pierre Atlas, Bill Mirola, and Dave Benson. My work- study assistant Megan Hunter helped me amass many of the articles and essays in the bibliography, I thank her for her diligent work. The library staff at Marian was quick to respond to my requests and patient with my late books. I appreciate all the support that the Marian com- munity in general has consistently shown me. While writing can be a lonely pursuit, I have benefited from the encouragement of an intellectual community that included Laura Wittern-Keller, Robert Brent Toplin, Ralph Leck, Alonzo Hamby, Pe- ter Rollins, Ray Carney, Louis Menand, Dana Polan, and good friends and fellow historians Marc Selverstone and Jeff Coker. George Cotkin provided me with his editorial and historical expertise at a number of stages during the process of writing and reviewing this manuscript, and I am grateful for his gentle but always persuasive suggestions. Charley Alexander and Dave Steigerwald willingly gave an earlier version of this manuscript a careful and thoughtful reading. Their advice improved what remains, though I absolve them and George of responsibility for lingering weaknesses. Those who provided shelter and conversation during my New York sojourns include historian Steve Remy and his wife, Beth Kilgore; Christian Thiim and his wife, Sumana; and close family friends Pilar Cragan and Bob and Claudia Klein. They made research in New York a treat and have humbled me with their affection. To my family I owe my deepest thanks. My uncles, aunts, and cous- ins were generous in their interest—especially Brian Shields and Mi- chael Manley—and even more generous with their love. My in-laws, Ellyn and Gene Kroupa, have welcomed me into their family with un- qualified acceptance and affection; I thank them for making Madison a second home for me. My sisters and their mates are both my dearest Acknowledgments xi friends and most faithful supporters. I can still fail, but never in their eyes. For my parents, my career as a historian is a triumph, and for that I am eternally grateful to them. During the writing of this book I made two enormous leaps: I got married and my wife gave birth to our baby girl. Suddenly going to the movies didn’t seem like such a big deal anymore. In other words, I am enchanted with my girls. This book is dedicated to the memory of the grandfather after whom my dad and I take our first names, Raymond E. Haberski. He was the type of person who earned the easy admiration of others. I wish the world were populated with more like him. This page intentionally left blank Introduction Cinema Naïveté W e l i ve ALONG a cultural fault line that constantly threatens the vitality of the arts in America. On one side of this fault is the com- monplace complaint that there is too much sex, violence, and offen- sive material in art and media. On the other side is an equally strong force that defends speech and expression in absolute terms, that resists anything that smells of censorship, and that elevates art of all kinds to an irreproachable level. Occupying but often lost in the cultural space between these two positions is a delicate ironic stance. This is an irony that contextualizes the concerns of both sides but remains in- dependent enough to resist the Manichean terms of the debate. With- out such irony we get riots over cartoons, churches boycotting movies with gay characters, and museum curators staunchly defending urine- soaked crucifixes. It was the absence of such irony that made a recent documentary so noteworthy to me. In 2005, Brian Grazer, a producer of Hollywood hits and a recipient of Academy Awards, released a documentary about the notorious 1972 pornographic film Deep Throat. The result, Inside Deep Throat, characterized the most successful porn movie ever made as a kind of cultural landmark—a symbol of resistance against forces of repression and censorship. In the summer of 1972, New York City police officers, acting as part of a citywide crackdown on pornography, confiscated prints ofDeep Throat from the Manhattan theater at which it premiered. And while few claimed either in 1972 or in 2005 that Deep Throat was a great film, many suggested that the public had a right to see it because we live in a democracy.1 Thus, Inside Deep Throat created the impression that all cultural 1 2 FREEDOM TO OFFEND expressions have inherent legitimacy, and that even one as dubious as Deep Throat is worthy of defense. But a defense based on what? Sheila Nevins of HBO Documentary, the distributor of Inside Deep Throat, offered a classic rationale. She related how Grazer had con- vinced her