Pound of Flesh

Noah Melville never quite understood how life works in the demure, lie-riddled and violent United States. As a professor for English literature in a small but prestigious Southern Californian college he doesn’t need to anyway. He simply continued living like a graduate student, making the secluded campus his private paradise. A place where learning and languishing go hand in hand. Here, beautiful young women surround him. He sponsors and uses them for a special escort service. They are conciliated to rich and bored men like the millionaire Cameron Morris played by Timothy Bottoms. One day, one of these women is found near the campus in a pile of trash – and suddenly reality catches up with the Shakespeare expert Melville. Malcolm McDowell gives an irresistible performance as the libertarian scholar, who only wants the best for his students. Like Noah, director Tamar Simon Hoffs rebels against current America with her bitter moral tale. The 60s are long gone but hope remains as long as there are artists like her.