Pretty Baby
Screening on Film
Directed by Louis Malle.
With Brooke Sheilds, Keith Carradine, Susan Sarandon.
US, 1978, 35mm, color, 109 min.
With Brooke Sheilds, Keith Carradine, Susan Sarandon.
US, 1978, 35mm, color, 109 min.
The inspiration for Malle's first American film was E. J. Bellocq's Storyville, a remarkable photographic record of New Orleans' red-light district, in the early years of the twentieth century. A fourteen-year-old (Shields) is cheerfully sold into the trade by her mother (Sarandon) and becomes involved with Bellocq himself (Carradine), who finds her a compelling subject of erotic and aesthetic interest. Malle and cinematographer Sven Nykvist achieve the luxuriant look of the period in vivid detail and combine it with a timeless sensuality that has made the film a succés de scandale to this day.
