Barney Rosset is a tragic hero. He says so himself at the end of Obscene, stating—by way of a colleague’s parting shot—what this very fine documentary makes unstintingly and yet wistfully clear. Beginning with Rosset’s 1989 appearance on a delightfully vulgar cable-access show and a question about how he managed to lose his publishing imprint, Grove Press, in an unexpectedly hostile buyout, Obscene then reels back some 50 years, tracing the Chicago origins of a kid who grew up to fight perhaps the pre-eminent publishing battle of the 20th century: censorship. Much of the film (screening through Wednesday) is culled from Rosset’s stunningly replete photo archives, and an assortment of artists, publishers, and literati appear to champion and chide the man who first brought Lady Chatterley’s Lover, Tropic of Cancer, and Naked Lunch to the starving bosoms of the American public. Today, the 86-year-old settles for the modest life of a cult figure with some kick left; his lit-and-naked-ladies journal, The Evergreen Review, now exists online. (NR) MICHELLE ORANGE

Nov. 21-26, 7 & 9 p.m., 2008