Earliest Movies About Taboo Subjects

Nothing before 1934 (Hays Code)

The earlier, the better, as they seem to handle the subject matter better, especially with quality writing, instead of being crass.. Nothing after the 1970s. From any country. For some reason, they just seem to be better. Nothing silly, but something mature. I'm watching "Pale Flower" and loving it, and there's a mention of a guy who is a "dope addict"… I do remember liking "The Man With The Golden Arm", too.

Not the exploitation stuff like "Reefer Madness"

I can't speak for Norwegisn cinema history, though i can recolect some titles but just from weak memory. But i remember the most taboo movie in my time is/was f**king Åmål, a Swedish film about same sex relationship. In it's time it was a seriosuly dangerously topic to portrait in scandinavian film
. Today this film would be no worry but this was before Broakback Mountain and so on.

Interesting topic
First thing that popped into my mind was Kubrick’s Lolita. I still find that to be an unsettling watch.
...but then I thought about The Godfather flicks. In many ways these movies flipped the coin: you are almost instantly rooting for the bad guys. The story is so beautifully told that you often forget that you’ve become deeply attached to a sociopathic murderer with Napoleonic tendencies.
These are people you would dread in real life yet somehow you’re warped into a dimension where killing to upfold honour, turf or merely because someone fecks with you...well is completely ok

Edited by Guldbamsen - May 16 2020 at 04:36

"Spring Night, Summer Night" -- taboo, but no exploitation at all. Very cinema-verite.

Edited by MortSahlFan - May 21 2020 at 10:38

A Lion in Winter (1968) with Peter O'Tool as Henry II and Katherine Hepburn as Eleanor of Aquitaine had some very intense dialogue for the time (Henry's son Richard played by Anthony Hopkins "buggering boys", for instance).

The Birth of a Nation (1915).

ExittheLemming wrote: Todd Browning's Freaks from 1932 is still acutely disturbing 88 years hence. He cast real sideshow performers and people with real disabilities in the roles of Circus employees who seek to exact hideous and brutal revenge on a trapeze artist and strongman who have connived to cheat a dwarf out of his inheritance. Browning's career went 'teats skywards' soon thereafter. It was banned in the UK for 30 years.

I only wish that I could see the earlier longer version. It was very significantly cut for release since test audiences found it too grotesque and disturbing. I think more than half an hour of material was taken out by the studio and that material no longer exists. What a shame, they weren't thinking ahead to a potential DVD Director's Cut release. ;) Tod Browning's Freaks: The Unabridged Cut, now with 50 percent more Freak than in previous releases cause it's chic to be freak.



I like Freaks a lot, and, as was mentioned, I love Harold & Maude.