A Portrait of Barney Rosset and Grove
Press
Madman Entertainment
R4 DVD
Barney
Rosset was a maverick. He grew up in a family that encouraged education and
freedom of thought and was encouraged to find his own creative outlet. While
fascinated by film, he found his niche in publishing. In 1951 he purchased the
small art house publisher Grove Press and soon turned it into a powerhouse of
creative expression at the edge of radical thinking.
Believing
strongly in the value of literature and in the dangers of censorship he stood
against the then influential postal censorship system by publishing Lady
Chatterley’s lover. Taking the battle through the courts he won the case and
set the stage for a flood of radical and counter culture literature. Each title
he published seemed to trigger a legal battle from the Tropic of Cancer to
William Burrough’s Naked Lunch. So many of these titles were denounced as
pornography and yet went on to become major classics within modern literature.
Barney
Rosset also began the Evergreen review which published an ever growing sequence
of controversial works from the wildly erotic homoerotic poem Howl to an excerpt
from the diary of Che Guevara. The Evergreen Review while denounced by the
conservative establishment became the voice of the counter culture and a
vehicle for an every growing creative literary movement.
Of
course this did not go unnoticed by the authorities with constant FBI
harassment and legal cases. Even success in the supreme court was not enough
with local authorities passing their own laws against Grove titles. Rosset and
Grove suffered death threats, a grenade attack and even the occupation of the
premises by enraged feminists and unionists (possibly backed by the FBI).
In
the end the constant threat of legal action brought the Grove Press close to bankruptcy
with Rosset selling his private land to keep it afloat only to find that a
supposed friendly takeover would lead to his sacking. Today Rosset is left
living on a very limited income with his books and dreams.
Obscene
is as much the story of a man obsessed with literature and freedom of speech as
it is the tale of a publishing company. It is also the history of American
censorship and the value of freedom of expression. Featuring music by Bob
Dylan, The Doors, Warren Zevon, and Patti Smith, Obscene is directed by first
time filmmakers Neil Ortenberg and Daniel O'Connor and is a fine example of
compelling documentary making.
Image ©DOUBLE O FILM PRODUCTIONS, LLC
This review will appear in Volume 2 No.4
(2009) of the digital and print edition of Synergy Magazine.
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