Larry Flynt: The Right to Be Left Alone

Basing himself on the constitution, Larry Flynt claims 'the right to be left alone', but whether he leaves other people alone is a different matter. The wealthy publisher of the satirical nude magazine Hustler persecutes every fellow citizen he suspects of hypocrisy; from moralising politicians to erophobic TV preachers. "There are two types of people that don't like porn: those who do not know what they're talking about and those who don't know what they're missing," Flynt comments about feminists who express their abhorrence of pornography. Subtlety has never been the forte of professional provocateur Flynt, who repeatedly had to claim his right to the freedom speech in court and endured some sharp blows himself. For example, when someone attempted to kill him in 1978, he became a permanent paraplegic and he publicly renounced the Christian faith. Later, he disinherited his eldest daughter Tonya, because she had turned a Christian anti-porn activist. And he saw his fourth wife Althea run to seed due to drug abuse and Aids until she died. In this portrait, Flynt, 65 now and speaking with difficulty, looks back on his turbulent life and points his arrows at political leaders and the US media that, he feels, have degenerated into sheer entertainment. (International Documentary Film Festival Amsterdam)