entertainment
Page 10 Summer Nebraskan, Tuesday, June 13, 197(
'Pretty Baby' more sensitive than sexy
By Kent Wolgamott
Those who attend Louis Malle's Pretty
Baby to be titilated with its much
discussed "child pornography" will be
disappointed, for producer-director
Malle uses little explicit sex in taking his
viewers into the haunting world of a New
review
Orleans bordello of the early 1900's.
The controversy about Pretty Baby
has been stirred by the film's story,
based loosely on fact, of a 12-year-old
girl growing up in a brothel in New
Orleans' Storyville district.
Violet, played by child model Brooke
Shields, is the daughter of a prostitute,
who at the age of 12 has her virginity
sold at auction as she follows her mother
into the world's oldest profession.
While Violet is entering the world of
prostitution, her mother, Hattie,
strongly played by Susan Sarandon, is
doing everything she can to escape from
it and when given the chance to escape
by marriage, she leaves, abaondoning
her daughter.
Violet in the end is rescued from the
bordello by marriage to the mysterious
figure of E.J. Bellocq, a photographer
whose remarkable pictures of the
Storyville prostitutes still hang in the
Museum of Art in New Orleans.
Bellocq (Keith Carradine) haunts the
bordello, capturing the girls on film,
fascinated by the characters and atmos
phere in Storyville.
Malle also gets strong performances
from Frances Faye, as the wordly wise
madam, Nell, and from Antonio Fargas,
the brilliant young black character actor,
who plays the "professor", the brothel's
jazz pianist.
With the help of his cinematographer,
Sven Nykvist. Malle explores the
humanity and problems of the people
who inhabit the house, and through the
strong performances of the three main
characters explores the moral ambigui-
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ties of the life in the bordello and of
today's society.
Shields portrays Violet with a troubl
ing mixture of knowledge and innocence,
a girl who can deliver the prostitute's
sales pitch with enthusiasm while only
later be pn inquisitive typically American
12-year-old.
It is through her view of the world of
the brothel as normal and acceptable,
and her eagerness to take her place in it,
that much of the film's questioning of
innocence and corruption is done.
Sarandon, as Hattie, portrays a
character divided between her lifetime
home, the bordello, and a desire to
escape, her responsibilities as a mother
and her vish to begin her life again.
Perhaps the character who embodies
the greatest contradictions is Bellocq,
who attempts to be the young girl's
lover, guardian and detached artist at
the same time.
Carradine gives a strong performance
as a man who can watch a 12-year-old's
virginity being sold with an amazed
detachment and then rescue that same
child from the world of prostitution with
passion.
The film ends in a final contradiction
wh' ,i Hattie returns to take Violet from
bellocq and as they await the train for St.
Louis, Hattie's husband snaps their
picture with a small Brownie, replacing
Bellocq's glass plate camera.
While using less nudity and rough
language than most other movies of the
same rating, Malle has created a tender
sensitive film about human emotions,
morals, and sexuality, raising questions
about each which are troubling and
difficult to answer, but questions which
deserve exploration.
Malle has once again handled a very
delicate subject well and produced a
poignant, if troubling film.
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Brooke Shields plays a pre-teen hooker in "Pretty Baby
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