| Pretty Baby | | Cast : | Brooke Shields, Keith Carradine | | Director : | Louis Malle | | Studio : | Paramount Home Video | | Format : | Color, Closed-captioned, Widescreen | | Released Date : | April 05, 1978 | | DVD Released Date : | November 18, 2003 | | Language : | English (Dubbed), French (Dubbed), English (Subtitled) | | Audience Rating : | R (Restricted) | | | BUY THIS DVD FROM AMAZON |
Customer Reviews
| Rating |  | | Date | July 27, 2005 | | Summary | keep away | Content
 | This was purhcased by accident. But still one of the crapiest movies I ever seen. Story wise, well it's bad to see what situation young girls could have with whores for mothers and growing up just like them. It's actualy very sad to see young girls throwing away their life away. Other wise, movie had bad ending, good quality packing and dvd from amazon.com .... |
| Rating | | | Date | April 23, 2005 | | Summary | Misunderstood | Content
| Louis Malle didn't make this film to exploit the sexuality of children. There is such a reactionary curse on this film that few people dare to actually view it. Compare it to Kids (1995),there are very few similarities. This is an objective view of a true story 1910's New Orleans. 12 year old Violet lives in a world of sexual currency, everything is acceptable and out front. She passes no judgement on the prostitutes and johns that parade across her mother's room. This is the only life she has known, what could be possibly wrong when everyone is smiling and there is food on the table. The camerawork captures the tragic lyrical situation. Very little ugliness appears, only once in the film when Violet loses her virginity. Bellocq, the photographer she marries, only does so to protect her from losing the innocence she still has. This film has been deemed child pornography but first and foremost it is an accurate biography of a specific place in time. Malle with his French sensibilty portrays the brothel as almost a sanctuary, the people laughing and without malice. Violet's life is tragic not just because she is overexposed to a sexual atmosphere but because the world around her will eventually paint her extended family as ugly and criminal. She has yet to realize this because she perceives them as her home. Pretty Baby offers a very innocent look at prostitution. Susan Sarandon,Brooke Shields,and Keith Carradine are very lovely with their doelike eyes. This is a romanticized world, a far cry from the hardcore reality that we perceive now. I think women would be more openminded to actually view the film as a period piece and not some abomination of morality. |
| Rating | | | Date | February 01, 2005 | | Summary | Absolutely a great movie | Content
| Great movies, like great literature, are capable of evoking a definite atmosphere, that of the time and setting of the story, the plot of which, then, almost loses significance. The atmosphere in this case is that of New Orleans at the turn of last century - a slight anachronism here sets the story in 1917 to match the timing of the closure of Storyville, New Orleans's red light district, located roughly between Rampart and Robeson, Iberville and St. Louis, of which nothing remains today. That atmosphere is well expressed by the music, especially that of the pianist in the movie, who is modeled after Jelly Roll Morton, a pioneer jazz pianist and composer, and plays his compositions. For the curious listener, I have listed here some of the works by Jelly Roll and when they get played in the movie:
3:30 - 4:45, Winin's Boy Blues #1
5:05 - 7:21, Tiger's Rag, from the typical NO repertory, including the tiger's roar
24:35 - 25:00, Jelly Roll
26:11 - 27:12, Thought I Heard Buddy Bolden Say #1
30:10 - 31:30, Winin' Boy Blues #2
38:39 - 43:20, (composing of ) King Porter Stomp, in the background when the Susan Sarandon character poses half-naked for the photographer
54:46 - 56:35, (Original Jelly Roll?) Blues, with clarinet and bass
1:47:15 - 1:49:15 Blues
We can add to this the sweet, though perhaps already outdated by 1917, music played by the New Orleans Ragtime Orchestra, with the nice Creole clarinet of Louis Cottrell, who used to play in the Preservation Hall.
It is impossible to underestimate the importance of New Orleans in the world of culture, since it can be stated, as Jelly Roll Morton did, that it was for the musical world what Florence of the 14th and 15th century was for the visual arts. The fact that such culture flourished in whorehouses instead at the courts of princes is thus just a reflection of the cultural level of racist American society - which should be proud of its lupanars - which has prevented its own great culture to be accepted by its puritanical obsession, which led to the disaster of prohibition and the present overfilling of prisons for acts, such as possessing marijuana, which are not criminal in most of the civilized world.
Beside the music, there are great moments in this movie. Brooke Shields, besides being pretty, has an interesting role, oscillating between her behavior as a future [prostitute] and that of an immature girl, with a lot of innocence - which incidentally is to be found among all those ladies certainly despised by the pseudo-moralistic mainstream, that same one which seems so popular these days in the US. The Madam looks like a true character, a worn out woman with distinguished manners who keeps up with absinthe and cocaine (not without some humor, as when she says: "there are only two things you can do in a rainy day, and I don't like playing cards!"). And I am sure that the character of the distinguished photographer existed in reality, since I remember having seen an exhibition of pictures of such ladies taken in New Orleans at that time (in spite of the howling of some who wanted to label it degrading and censor it). Add to this the great photography, and the intelligence of Louis Malle, who has always used Jazz in a respectful way, as in "Elevator to the Gallows" with the music of Miles Davis and "Murmur of Heart" with that of Charlie Parker - the latter exploring an even more controversial subject than "Pretty Baby", that of an incest with the mother, in a poetic way.
The only reason I am not giving this movie five stars is because I would have loved to see more of the Jelly Roll Morton character. One has almost to strain his/her ear to listen to his composing of the masterpiece "King Porter Stomp" while the photographer tries to take pictures of Hattie (Susan Sarandon). Perhaps some viewers may prefer Sarandon's naked tits over Morton's playing, but that's not my case!
But on the whole this is a great movie and is to be recommended heartily to everybody, perhaps especially to Americans who generally know close to nothing of the great culture which has been created in the very places their society has systematically despised, by people which are still often considered as an inferior "race" (whatever that means).
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| Rating | | | Date | December 07, 2004 | | Summary | BROOKE SPARKLES!! | Content
| After making a series of acclaimed and controversial films in his native France, director Louis Malle made his American debut with this disturbing but visually beautiful story about Hattie (Susan Sarandon), a prostitute working in New Orleans' Storyville district at the turn of the century. When Hattie becomes pregnant, she opts to keep her baby and gives birth to a daughter named Violet, raising her in the brothel where she continues to work. Twelve years later, Violet (Brooke Shields) is old enough to attract the attentions of the brothel's customers, but emotionally has one foot in the adult world of her surroundings and the other in the naïveté of childhood. With Hattie's consent, Violet's virginity is auctioned off to the customers of the house; but for Violet, the pull between childhood and adulthood becomes most clear - and most painful - when she draws the affections of Bellocq (Keith Carradine), a photographer who has been working on a photo series about Storyville prostitutes. Violet's blend of childlike innocence and adult sensuality is profoundly attractive to him, but their relationship quickly becomes problematic, especially when Hattie leaves Violet behind to get married.
This movie also has a great ragtime soundtrack and this music helps with the story too. |
| Rating | | | Date | September 02, 2004 | | Summary | A distinctly Gallic view of sexuality... | Content
| ...this movie should be remarked, as the Amazon reviewer correctly notes, also for the utterly beautiful camera-work.
And Sarandon, before her manic obsession with politics, like Alec Baldwin and others, shimmers with talent and we're treated to her full genius, something little scene (pun intended) these last ten years as "activism" has dissipated the sap that once nourished the talent in this once brilliant actress. (See this descent in her jarring overacting in "Children of Dune; marring an otherwise excellent adaptation.)
The "scandal" is highly overblown. As for the movie "being unable to be made today", that's an odd statement. Thora Birch went topless at the age of seventeen. Kirsten Dunst engaged in full mouth kiss with Brad Pitt in "Vampire", and Led Zeppelin's "Houses of Holy" with dozens of naked children on it, can still be bought even at Wal-Mart and BestBuy. I know of no prosecurtor who has brought charges of child porn against the producers of any of these films or the parents of the children. And this movie's still obviously available to everyone within the US by its mere presence on Amazon.
Even more notable is that the "scandalous" scenes haven't been cut in an "abridged" version by the supposedly craven studio(s). However, this could be due to Malle's ownership of it.
If this film really was child porn does anyone think Amazon would sell it?
Frankly, this movie's tame compared to much of garbage readily available, 24-7, thanks to the wonders of cable.
The difference? Malle's work has clear, artistic intent. The nude scenes of the sparkling beauty of Shields, those eyes even then so powerful, were necessary to the plot. Doubltess, controversy in the Anglo-Saxon world wasn't unanticipated, and certainly added to the box office; but its (obviously) enduring popularity is proven by its presence here.
As for the film itself, like all of Malle's work, it's a love-hate affair. He either hits his mark or misses to the point of (possible Anglo-Saxon) incoherence. Here he mostly hits his target, offering, in an American environment and in English, the very different French view of sexuality.
If you're looking for a readily excessible way to grasp some part of the Gallic mindset, this film may help. |
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