Pretty Baby by foerstj on DeviantArt (original) (raw)

Brooke Shields
in Pretty Baby (1978)
2016-05-20
Size: 47cm x 141.4cm (IKEA Måla paper roll)

I can see why this movie was controversial. Louis Malle tells the story of Violet called Pretty Baby, who grows up in a "whore-house" in 1917 New Orleans, whose virginity is sold to the highest bidder on her 12th birthday, played by Brooke Shields at the same age. She then has a sexual relationship with a photographer, and in the end simply goes back to her family, being perfectly fine, no harm done. And Brooke's acting is so good that it makes this scenario entirely believable - which is bound to unsettle and upset a lot of people.
But if I have to guess why this movie actually was criticized so much, I quote IMDB: "Some people may be disturbed by the amount of underage nudity."

In this scene she's lying on a daybed, waiting to be photographed. The scene goes on with her losing her patience and destroying some prescious photographs.

Drawing is quite fun and very pleasing, I just wish I was any good at it. This one took me several days and I had to cheat a lot, measuring points on the screen and scaling up the distances to put them on the paper. Half of the time I struggled with her face, and in the end I simply gave up and basically copied it from the screen. It's not what I'd expect of an artist.