Adult Themes: British Cinema and the X Certificate in the Long 1960s

The Swinging Sixties were mirrored by a swinging adult cinema: films that dared to push back the boundaries of sex and violence, relished breaking societal norms, and recalibrated cinema as a dangerous, transgressive and intellectual art form.

Adult Themes is the first to chart the X -rated strain of British cinema across this period - the long 1960s . Some of these films, from the most acclaimed film-makers of the time, including Lindsay Anderson, Jack Clayton, Karel Reisz, Tony Richardson, and John Schlesinger, are now considered masterpieces. The X ratings awarded by the British Board of Film Censors did little to diminish their audiences - and may have been a licence for film-makers to go even further. Their X ratings were a matter of punitive negotiation, and with the censor’s sharp scissors in near-constant use. And yet, such films remain as provocative and cultural artefacts of their times, deserving of critical recovery. This collection questions to what extent, and how and why, X films can be understood as the outriders, agitators, nay-sayers, and voyeurs of this emerging contemporary society.