Earliest (Good) Taboo Movies?

The one with Juliet "Aunt Peg" Anderson and Kay Parker? It had at least 3 sequels.

 

She was the one of the greatest female directors ever. There's a documentary called The Wonderful Horrible Life of Leni Riefenstahl.

Her "mountain films" are also brilliant, as Olympia.

"I built bridges do they call me 'Jacob the bridge builder?'"

There's little evidence that she was enthusiastic Nazi, she was an opportunistic filmmaker.

 

Murmur Of The Heart, directed by Louis Malle

 

I agree with that. She lived where and when she did.

She was either going to make movies or not.

 

Kongo 1932

 

Many of the greatests artists of all time were anti-semitic or national-socialists -- anti-semitism was a common and legitimate intellectual and political position until 1945. If one rejects art created by anti-semites, one rejects major figures like Voltaire, Wagner or Bernanos.

 

For a Lost Soldier
For a Lost Soldier - Google Search

The Strange Ones
The Strange Ones - Google Search

 

Leni Reifenstahl's perspective seems to be primarily career-driven and her values exclusively in service of her personal aesthetic vision, and hence amoral and apolitical. She probably would have worked with the Soviets, if that had presented itself as an attractive opportunity. The general sense of everything I've read about Riefenstahl- including interviews with her- accords with this article The real Leni Riefenstahl

 

I don't even understand the question.
Why can't people just ask a straight question anymore?

 

You're probably right, but I've always had the impression that people are more eager to forgive her flirtations with Nazism because she's a female filmmaker -- there aren't many of those, especially in the 1930's, so there's an ideological desire to extend her the kind of excuses -- she just wanted to make films, she was a victim of the times -- that the same defenders wouldn't use with male filmmakers.

In my case the point is moot anyway, as I would still admire Triumph of the Will even if Riefenstahl had worshipped at the altar of Hitler until her dying breath. It's a hell of a film!

 

I think that is true, that every film maker throughout history, had to make movies within the scope that their living environment would permit, given the political and cultural climate of their day.

 

Peeping Tom. Created a firestorm with the British censor in 1960 and resulted in severely hampering future efforts by director Michael Powell.

 

Fine movie.. I've been wanting to re-watch this, since its been years.

 

I’ve always thought Peeping Tom collapses at the climax, where Carl Boehm produces a spike two feet long and a mirror the size of a dinner plate and is supposed to have kept these things inside his coat without anyone noticing.

 

Peeping Tom , a review by Mark Kermode

 

Hollywood’s first taboo film-maker might have been Erich von Stroheim - especially with Queen Kelly, which was abandoned because he was shooting scenes that would have been simply impossible to put on a public screen at the time. (Apparently. Most of the second part of it doesn’t exist any more.)

 

I recently saw Wicker Man for first time, I was kinda shocked and this was made in 1974.

The Wild Bunch, too. I don't know if that's Taboo, but dang it was graphic, real, and lusty.

 

The whip scene is still weird almost 100 years later.

 

M (1931).

Don't know if this counts, I've only seen it once and that was a long, long time ago. It is about a child murderer so that would seem a taboo subject although how the film handled the subject I really can't remember.

 

And even nowadays not many movies would make a plot point of the female lead taking her panties off and throwing them to an admirer.

 

Perfect example, and a great movie in general.. Might be the best thriller I've seen.

 

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

 

Shoes (1916)

 

This was infamously rejected by MST3K

 

good lord. awesome.

< if the whole flick is like that preview, it's better than Citizen Kane