Fuck (2005)

A documentary on the expletive's origin, why it offends some people so deeply, and what can be gained from its use.

Director:

Steve Anderson

Stars:

Reinhold Aman, Drew Carey, Billy Connolly

Cast

Cast overview, first billed only:
Reinhold Aman	...	Himself
Steven Bochco	...	Himself
Pat Boone	...	Himself
Benjamin C. Bradlee	...	Himself (as Ben Bradlee)
Drew Carey	...	Himself
Chuck D.	...	Himself
Billy Connolly	...	Himself
John Crossley	...	Himself
Sam Donaldson	...	Himself
Janeane Garofalo	...	Herself
Ice-T	...	Himself
Timothy Jay	...	Himself
Ron Jeremy	...	Himself
Alan Keyes	...	Himself
Janet LaRue	...	Herself

Storyline

This documentary takes a look on all sides of the infamous F-word. It's taboo,obscene and controversial, yet somehow seems to permeate every single aspect of our culture - from Hollywood, to the schoolyard to the Senate floor in Washington D.C. It's the word at the very center of the debate on Free Speech - and everyone seems to have an opinion. FUCK exams how the word is impacting our world today through interviews, film and television clips, music, and original animation by Bill Plympton. Scholars and linguists examine the long history of fuck. Comedians, actors, and writers who have charted and popularized the upward course of fuck are heard from, often while defending the Constitutional Right of Free Speech, all the way to the Supreme Court. FUCK visits with those who actually fuck for a living. We hear from advocates who oppose fuck and its infringement into our everyday lives. We watch some of the most famous and infamous film and television clips that feature fuck, we hear some...

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Plot Keywords:

word | free speech | interview | f word | comedian | 

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Taglines:

The movie that dare not speak its name

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Genres:

Documentary

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Certificate:

Unrated

Details

Official Sites:

Official site

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Release Date:

10 November 2007 (Japan)

Also Known As:

F*ck

Filming Locations:

Los Angeles, California, USA

Box Office

Opening Weekend:

$5,299 (USA) (10 November 2006)

Gross:

$19,791 (USA) (8 December 2006)

Company Credits

Production Co:

Bad Apple Films, Mudflap Films, Rainstorm Entertainment

Technical Specs

Runtime:

93 min

Sound Mix:

Stereo

Color:

Color

Aspect Ratio:

1.78 : 1

Did You Know?

Trivia

According to this documentary, the first major Hollywood film to use the word "fuck" was MASH, while some of the more profane films since have been Scarface which uses it 182 times, Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back which has 228 examples and the first season of Deadwood which racks up 861 utterances in its first season alone.

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Goofs

The narration says that "fucking" in the phrase "fucking brilliant" is an adjective, but it's an adverb.

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Quotes

Billy Connolly: "Fuck off." It's such a lovely pair of words! And it's international. I don't care where you are - if somebody's fuckin' with your bags in Lhasa Airport in Tibet and he's got a shaven head and saffron clothes on and you say "hey, fuck off!", he knows *exactly* what you mean. Exact - he will fuck off. Off he will fuck! 'Fuck off' doesn't mean 'go away.' 'Fuck off' means 'fuck... *off.*' And everybody feels what it means, nobody can write it down. There is no English equivalent for 'fuck off,' ...
[...]

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Crazy Credits

A Very Special Double Fuck You To ... Cancer A Very Special Fuck You To ... Steven N. Kurtz A Special Fuck You To ... Carlo Cavagna George Parker Steve Bickel M. Muzatko C. Martin Shawn Levy Sean Mantooth Dr. Manwaring Dr. Wong Brett Doyle Terry Fisher Brian Moss Tony Sodano Chris Sorenson Dan Dye Adam Sampson Bob "Pork-it" Loftstrom

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Connections

Features Clerks. (1994)

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Soundtracks

"Porn King"
Written by Dany Almeida
Performed by The Funky Filter
Courtesy of Dance Plant Records

User Reviews

not quite long enough to really dig into it all, but as a term-paper-type look, it's not bad, and even funny

How do I talk about a film where I can't even mention its title in this review (in the IMDb comments the word of the title of this film cannot be put in, unless in the form of f*ck or sh*t)? I can talk mostly then about how the filmmakers go around the use of the word f*ck. F*ck is the word that gets everyone's ear up, and depending on the context or meaning behind it can get some people riled up enough to do something about it- like reporting to the FCC on violations if done on TV or radio. The hypocrisies and oddities are of course on display, like with the now legendary George Carlin 'Dirty Words' case where the one and only person to report that the segment played on the radio was wrong was on the Decency board in the 70s. Or, of course, Lenny Bruce, who also had a fight that he ended up losing miserably, however much he paved the way for everyone else in his field. There's also a good segment done on the f word in politics and religion, even in poetry (I'll have to look through Ulysses now to see where it's at).

But even with the laughs that are obvious to come with such a given for scandalous material, including various movie clips featuring said word (Pulp Fiction, Punch-Drunk Love, South Park, Scarface), and even with the Presidential utterances and sound-bytes of the word (Nixon's the most obvious yet still unnerving), and even with some of the interviewees really giving some food for f***ing thought on the subject (Billy Connolly is arguably the funniest, with HST being low-key and observant, and Allen Keyes and Pat Boone delivering very straight-laced answers) with the two-side arguments, there doesn't seem quite enough here to be totally satisfying. In fact, the structure, however hokey and joyful in its wicked little ways, has to start delivering on more interesting grounds. Maybe it's just me, but by around the 100th time one's heard the word in such a span of several minutes, the word has already lost all of its power (albeit given context by a scene of coitus on a music stage, a very controversial story at the time, among others), and there should be even more dirt available, aside from the usual historical asides. For example, I would've liked to have seen more on the F-word in music (where's the MC5 when you need em?), or the section of children, which should be a topic that could at least cover a lot more of the film, especially since the filmmakers obviously want to leave it as something of a climax...so to speak.

Yet, if you want a successfully shallow, goofy take on the subject that might raise some eyebrows and just be another night watching a DVD for others (who knows if the record setting 800 times is just another night at the bar for some guys), it's worth the rental. I'm glad the filmmakers took the equal-time interviews for those who are in it all-not that it occasionally preaches to the choir- and that the bases covered are given enough coverage to get a full understanding of how such an infamous word can become even more so in the 21st century, under a government that has raised the ante on the conservative agenda within the free speech guidelines, and that the censorship ends up spreading to other areas as well. Bleep, I say.