Sex and Film ― The Erotic in British, American and World Cinema

Sex and Film: The Erotic in British, American and World Cinema is a frank, comprehensive and insightful analysis of the cinema's long love affair with the erotic – and how society is reflected through the many and bitter censorship battles that have accompanied all attempts by filmmakers to broaden the limits of what is acceptable. Barry Forshaw's lively and scholarly study moves from the sexual abandon of the silent era and the 1930s through the enforced innocence resulting from the restrictive Hays Code (and the ingenious attempts by filmmakers to circumvent censorship) and the demolition of taboos by arthouse directors such as Ingmar Bergman in the 1950s and 1960s. The book highlights all the key moments in this incendiary area, including the shocking exploitation and pornographic movies of the 1970s, while a discussion of the graphic and explicit imagery of today's mainstream cinema takes the book up to the present – and beyond.

Barry Forshaw is a writer and journalist specialising in cinema. His books include British Crime Film, Italian Cinema, British Gothic Cinema, Death in a Cold Climate, Euro Noir, British Crime Writing: An Encyclopedia, Nordic Noir and The Rough Guide to Crime Fiction. He has written for a variety of newspapers, edits Crime Time, and broadcasts on fiction and film.