Synopsis
All I wanted to do was make some money and have some fun," says Larry Flynt of his tempestuous career, which began in the early seventies - the twilight of the sexual revolution in America - when the sex-industry entrepreneur leveraged a small string of Ohio strip-clubs into the beginnings of a publishing empire. Hustler was a raw and raunchy magazine that pushed the limits of American morality. Flynt, its publisher, was nobody's hero but became cast, through circumstance, as a crusader against a new American order.His releasing of the infamous John DeLorean/FBI cocaine-sting video and subsequent refusal to reveal its source led to his unlikely role as champion of the First Amendment, whereby he took his fight against the Reverend Jerry Falwell (the leader of America's self-proclaimed moral majority) to the Supreme Court. Here, Flynt appealed his right to free speech and was rewarded with a precedent-setting decision in his favour.
Behind such public scenes was a no less striking story: that of Flynt the man, passionate about his beliefs and about living up to them despite personal tragedy (he was paralysed by a sniper's bullet on the steps of a Georgia courthouse and his soul mate, Althea, eventually succumbed to AIDS). The People vs. Larry Flint, Milos Forman's first film in seven years, won the Golden Bear at the Berlin Film Festival earlier this year.
