Obscene (2009) on Netflix
NR20091h 37mBiographyDocumentary
Barney Rosset buys Grove Press in 1951 and commits it to banned and experimental writing. Publishing Lady Chatterley's Lover draws the Post Office, and Grove Press heads to court.
- Netflix3.2/5
- IMDb7.2/10267 votes
- Rotten Tomatoes92%
Trailer
Plot summary
An American publisher with a taste for avant-garde literature and banned books, Barney Rosset takes over Grove Press in 1951 and turns it into a home for experimental writing, radical politics and erotica. In 1959 he issues an uncensored edition of D. H. Lawrence's Lady Chatterley's Lover, banned in the United States in 1929; when the Post Office confiscates mailed copies, Grove Press challenges the seizures in court. Rosset then takes on Henry Miller's Tropic of Cancer, first brought out in France in 1934 and barred from import. Lawsuits follow against him and the booksellers who stock it. Grove and its magazine Evergreen Review also bring out Beat writers, Samuel Beckett and The Autobiography of Malcolm X.
Cast
- Barney Rossetas Himself
- Lawrence Ferlinghettias Himself
