This year’s lineup of visionaries did not disappoint. One film that stood out was the documentary on the highs and lows of Hustler founder Larry Flynt. A host of Larry Flynt cronies and enthusiasts joined producer-director, Joan Brooker-Marks for the screening of Larry Flynt: The Right to be Left Alone.
The documentary comes at the right time and played to the right audience. In the world of documentaries, that makes all the difference in whether a film is a success or not. Flynt is a great and lucid activist for the American public. At first, we see him as a man on a mission; that mission has a very selfish slant, of course, but the implications of this mission can be grander for a larger audience. So many of the general public know Larry Flynt as the self proclaim “smut peddler” but what we don’t know, is that he’s fought the government for our civil liberties for the more than twenty years.
For some odd reason, it’s hard to picture the publisher of Hustler Magazine as an activist. That’s the main reason for a brilliant film like Larry Flynt: The Right to be Left Alone. If for no other reason than to know that one man can make a humongous difference. Just as one film festival can put independent voices on the map, Brooker-Marks documentary will show you that free speech isn’t really free. You have to fight for it.
- Darralynn D.
HutsonDarralynn@detroitfashionpages.com
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