One of the foremost attorneys in the area of First Amendment rights, Edward de Grazia fought for I Am Curious-Yellow, as well as the novels Naked Lunch and Tropic of Cancer. In tonight's lecture, he will discuss the court battles that surrounded Sjöman's film and an equally controversial work, Genet's Un Chant d'amour (see November 13). Both of these films were dogged by litigation that pursued them to the U.S. Supreme Court. This lecture offers a unique chance to hear about major cases involving obscenity and film from a veteran of the fight for civil liberties. De Grazia is Professor of Law at the Benjamin Cardozo School of Law, Yeshiva University. His book, Banned Films: Movies, Censorship & the First Amendment (1982) remains the single best reference on the subject of film censorship. His most recent book is Girls Lean Back Everywhere. (Jag ar Nyfiken-Gul). I Am Curious-Yellow centers on several days in the life of Lena Nyman, a serious young woman intent on self-discovery during the social upheavals of the sixties. Sjoman uses a self-referential style gleaned from cinema vérité and the New Wave. Wandering through the bustle and seeming indifference of Stockholm, Lena questions everything in her path-the distribution of wealth, the Vietnam War, the Social Welfare system, women's rights-with the fervor of a political activist. It is with this same fervor that Lena undertakes to re-invent her sexual life. Her partner in sexual activism is Börje, a car salesman who at best is nothing more than a philanderer. Before Lena unmasks his duplicity, they manage to have a number of deadpan (but graphic) sexual encounters, the funniest of which takes place in front of the National Palace under the nervous eyes of a royal guardsman. The explicit nature of the sexual scenes is in keeping with Lena's sober pursuit of knowledge, and it seems to be this studied candor, coupled with the political awakening of a contemporary woman, that scared the pants off the censors.