The Censorship Poll

Yeah but whilst I'm in a thread and editing I don't know if you've replied or not. I don't care for the accusation.

This assumes that people are always going to air such gripes, doesn't it? Not to mention that making-of documentaries are going to be a lot better for this sort of determination when made about modern films than older ones, one would think.

Perhaps we can assume that we can usually rule out a complete us-vs-them disagreement between director and studio if they're not at each other's throats, but what about subtler influences? What about respectful disagreements, some of which the studio will inevitably win? Most directors don't have free reign, and even the ones that do have to contend with this. They make mention of those sorts of compromises all the time in the making-ofs you're referring to. They might not be quite as stark as in the hypothetical question, but they really don't have to be to make the point in question.

And heck, what about the writers, while we're at it? I hear people talk about the director's vision a lot more than the writers. The moviemaking process involves so many people, and so much money, that I think the idea of a pure "vision" emerging in most instances is implausible, and I'm not entirely convinced that a film is made inherently better by its proximity to this vision. I'm sure some people will disagree, but that's what I'd hoped to talk about by asking the question.

It's not an "accusation." I wasn't stating -- nor implying -- that editing your post constituted a breach of etiquette or some standard of fairness. I made note of it so that my post would still make sense for anyone who happens to read the entire discussion after-the-fact.

My second paragraph wasn't actually a reply to your 'hypothetical question' but a general reply to this thread.

Ah, I see. Feel free to disregard my reply, then, naturally.

Regarding the point about preferring one cut to another, though it doesn't necessarily involve studio interference...what about your own namesake?

The phrase "Used Future" comes from George Lucas, who, as we all know, decided that the original Star Wars films were not close enough to his original vision, editing and re-releasing them decades later.

Every Star Wars fan I've ever met hates this fact, even though it represents the purest version of Lucas' vision for the films that we have. Does that make the recut versions better than the originals?

Anyway Yoda it's pointless me getting into a discussion with you on this subject because we're coming at it from completely different angles. I'm referring to the archaic UK censorship laws and many of the video nasties and 70's exploitation flicks that were heavily cut (some still to this day) for their depictions of sexual violence and gore (not studio interference, or the MPAA who come off as a bunch of old prudes if you ask me).

The rest of Europe have been showing uncut versions of these films for years and I don't see law and order crumbling there. Only now are the BBFC loosing up regarding these flicks thirty years after everyone else. My point being that the fans who wanted these films uncut invariably imported them from overseas, and people who'd be offended by such stuff aren't likely to come into contact with them anyway. So what's the point of censoring them in the first place? None I tell you, none

Methinks you're just fishing really hard for an argument here...


Intentional or otherwise, this is just patronising...

No offense Yoda, I like Star Wars and all, but I really couldn't give a rat's ass were this is concerned...sorry.

I'm fishing for discussion, and I figured an example of what I'm getting at would help with that.

Why? I realize that you know where the phrase comes (I saw you explain as much in another post awhile back), but not everyone else will, so it's necessary to explain it.

I'm not really sure what you mean by this; are you saying you don't have any opinion about whether the recut versions are any better or worse than the originals?

Great insight on not such a cut and dry issue.

So is art no longer art if altered? Actually it is still art, but if its better or worse is in the eye of the beholder.

One of my favorite movies of all time is The World According To Garp. Another one is JAWS. I read both books after seeing the films, and in both instances felt the movies were superior. Books have the freedom to go deeper into storyline, but sometimes too much is not always a good thing. In Garps case Irving was absurdly weird, and Benchley was dull.

heck I even remember cram-reading Misery a week before the film was coming out. Good book, and damn graphic. So Im watching the movie knowing the movie is good, and getting nothing out of it whatsoever. In retrospect the movie was better. The book book spoiler she cut off his foot, and used a blowtorch on him after. Her "hobbling" him I thought was a better touch.

I find censorship to be subjective at best. Considering that criteria for material that should be censored is relative. A film could show graphic depictions of gratuitous violence, a peppering of some choice words, and yet it's a three second shot of human anatomy which tips the scale.

The prospect of censorship seems ridiculous to me. What's next, censoring reality? A group of paratroopers all trained to obscure and omit offensive situations? We have a rating system, use it.

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...uh the post is up there...

No, I'm saying I don't give a rat's ass that Lucas recut the films. The new versions just represent the definitive 'director's cuts' to me (so yeah I do think they're an improvement on the originals). But I don't see what this has to do with censorship, or studio interference. The only reason Lucas tinkered with them was because of the technological and budgetary constraints he had back in the 70's. It had nothing to do with censorship. Sure you could say the studio was in control of the meager budget he had for his original Star Wars, but this is totally different to censorship. This is all about the limitations of technology, and as I'm sure you know was the reason he founded Industrial Light and Magic and Lucasfilm. But really, I couldn't give a rat's ass

EDIT Regarding your other comments re my user name, and the argument thing maybe I got the wrong end of the stick on that one one; so apologies there.

No sweat dude. I should have said "As you know" to make it clear I wasn't talking down to you or anything.

You're right, Lucas' changes were not the result of censorship. I'm trying to make a more abstract point, though, which is that getting closer to a director's vision isn't necessarily a good thing. Most people really, really dislike his recut versions (I'm among them, for the record), even though they're closer to what he said he wanted. If you don't care much about Star Wars either way, then I admit it might not be a terribly compelling argument. I think a lot of MoFos have strong feelings about Lucas' tinkerings, though.

George Lucas never needed a censor but an editor or just someone to take out all his derpy camp crap. That last Indiana movie was...very bad, and Ive never seen episode 3 cause the first two were mostly stupid + built towards toys to be sold.

Trey Parker and Matt Stone made a mockery of the ratings bureau. When making their South Park movie they kept resubmitting the film, always with even more gross scenes rather than less, and exhausted them till they got the R. Both of them couldnt believe they got away with as much as they did.

Basically censorship is so misused that its inept, but what can you do? No Id hate to see graphic sex in a mainstream movie. No Id hate to see gratuitous sadistic films like Hostel either. Hostel is alot more destructive. That doesnt mean the solutions to say "Aw screw this! Anybody just go ahead and make anything with no ethical, moral, or sensible consideration!" You think what would result from that is a cinematic renaissance?! I think there would be a wave of crap, and all of us Mo Fos would wish for the good old days of today. Similar to how the old B&W movies have alot of class to us now. I dont want cinema to get shallower. Do we want our filmakers to never be challenged?! Film would suck. Filmakers unhindered would become softer, but thats just my opinion.

I prefer Apocalypse Now to the Redux version.

I understand your hypothetical point but I don't think the director's right over her or his vision is the main reason to why people oppose censorship. I think what people get upset about is the fact that someone - a specific authority or self-censorship - stands between the filmmakers and the audience and decides what the audience can or cannot see.

Neither do I think that the differences between censorship by an authority or indirect censorship by the market are that big. If the content of a film is limited or altered or in some way changed in order to get the proper distribution for the film, then it is a form of censorship. It's censorship because it's morals and not disagreement over artistic direction or even economy that decides if the film gets the distribution or not. And morals are - as opposed to money - highly subjective. This creates a system where those who agree with a certain set of moral standards dictate what kind of film that should be the most accessible to the rest of the society.

Unrated films could, I guess, be compared to CD:s with "Parental Advisory" tags on them - they actually work as a sales booster. The difference though is that - at least as far as I know - the CD:s, although they contain "explicit lyrics", are still being sold in the stores while the unrated movies aren't let in to the big theater chains. In other words, they are excluded from the assortment. I could be wrong though...

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The novelist does not long to see the lion eat grass. He realizes that one and the same God created the wolf and the lamb, then smiled, "seeing that his work was good".

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They had temporarily escaped the factories, the warehouses, the slaughterhouses, the car washes - they'd be back in captivity the next day but now they were out - they were wild with freedom. They weren't thinking about the slavery of poverty. Or the slavery of welfare and food stamps. The rest of us would be all right until the poor learned how to make atom bombs in their basements.

Censorship

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I agree. That's what prompted my question; to get at the root of why people dislike it. Clearly it's not because they think it always makes for a better film; we can definitely find examples of the contrary. So the objection must be quasi-moral in nature, which I find interesting.

The difference is massive. In the first instance, the government is actively controlling what people can see. In the second, people are making financial choices based on their own property. Even if some situations would lead to the exact same film, how it came to be and who chose it makes all the difference in the world.

What if a dictator, for example, would make the same choice in a given situation as a freely-elected leader? Wouldn't that actually be quite different, even if the result was the same? Being compelled to do something doesn't become okay simply when it happens to coincide with what you were going to do, anyway, after all.

"Indirect censorship" is a choice. Direct censorship from an authority is not. That makes all the difference.

I find this a little hard to follow. It sounds like (please correct me if I'm misunderstanding) that you're talking about a hypothetical situation where a film is limited or altered -- for non-economic reasons -- to obtain distribution. But does this actually take place, let alone often? The distributor is always concerned with economics, and the viability of selling the film is, I believe, always the primary driving force between any such decision. If they wish to limit or alter it, I would think it would always be because of economics, and probably never because of the morals of those at the distribution company. Unless said company was known for wholesome family entertainment, I suppose, but that's an economic judgment as well (albeit a long-term one).

Also, you say that these people are dictating what the "rest of the society" should find most accessible. But their judgments are invariably based on how accepting they think the rest of the society will be. That's the whole idea, really. Their entire business model is based around determining what other people will or will not accept it.

And as you point out, they're not even deciding what people can or cannot see; just which things they're going to throw their weight behind and make that much easier to see, which is another major difference between this, and actual censorship.

You're mostly right, though some stores won't sell songs with explicit lyrics.

I'm not sure how one fixes this situation, or whether or not it needs fixing. Big theater chains know they won't make much money from those sorts of films, so they're not included. Makes sense to me. And, in true capitalistic fashion, lots of smaller movie houses have popped up all over the country for films in smaller release, or with less typical content or subject matter. A little harder to get to, but that's what happens when someone has narrower taste in film than the rest of the country. If something's popular it's easier and cheaper to get, and if it's not, then it's a little more trouble. This seems eminently reasonable to me.

That is inappropriate. But it's not a censorship issue, it's a scheduling issue. I agree whole heartedly that kids shouldn't be allowed to watch it, but should the film have been censored so adults can't either? And interesting that you mention the drugs and the swearing but not the extreme violence. Interesting also that you mention the rape; this is a point where I think ratings should be tougher. I think portraying sex between consenting adults in a relationship should be treated differently to rape. The film The Duchess was given a 12a rating in the UK despite a rape scene, which I thought was wrong.

Well, yes. But I still maintain the naked body is not such a terrible thing to have to see on screen. And if the nudity is not in a particularly sexual context, shouldn't need to be heabily censored/ highly rated.

The OP started off implying it with his 'American audiences aren't ready'

I would think violence is sadly easy to impersonate, as things like school shootings demonstrate. I would hope they do have a stronger natural inclination towards sex than violence! And my original point was that things such as nudity and sexual scenes don't need to be censored for adults, simply rated so that younger viewers aren't allowed to watch them.

I just think you're approaching this issue from the wrong angle. It's not a question about being for or against censorship depending on whether the films become better or worse with or without the censorship. It's about making the film you want to make the way you want to make it. It's a matter of freedom of speech, really.

Actually the two go hand in hand, and it does not have to be a govermental authority. The MPAA in America exists merely to prevent the government from doing the classification of films, but the fact that it's a non-governmental authority doesn't increase the filmmakers influence over their own work in any way. The MPAA functions in the exact same way as any governmental authority with the difference that MPAA is much more sensitive to lobbyist activities.

We are actually talking about two things here: classification systems and censorhsip which are two different things. But when a classification system isn't working properly, like the MPAA system, it leads to an indirekt censorship.

I must say that your hypothetical questions have less and less to do with reality, but okay...

So, if you, as a director, want to make a scene with nude men in it but are forced to delete it after your financier has made it clear that he will back out of the project since the MPAA are going to rate it NC17 with that scene in the film which will dramatically decrease the films commercial potential since the major DVD rental chains are "family friendly".... how does that - result wise - differ from that dictatorship of state founded authorities that I presume burdens the shoulders of people like me? In fact, there hasn't been a film since Scorsese's Casino in 1995 that has been edited by the Svenska Biografbyrån ("the Swedish MPAA") because of (in this case) very raw violent content. And they have been made to regret it many times since then... and finally we got to see the film like it was supposed to be. But apparently the American filmmakers are forced to make family friendly versions of their films all the time to please their financiers. So, in other words, the American non-governmental MPAA has a lot more direct influence on filmmaking in USA than the governmental Svenska Biografbyrån has in Sweden. I guess we're not only more progressive - we're more free than you as well.

With the exception of Casino, as I mentioned before, there is not one example of direct censorship here in socialist communist dictatorship Sweden while I think the MPAA has a much higher impact and influence on the final product in the american film industry. Which is a result of the success of powerful lobbyist groups, primarily belonging in the christian right camp.

I distinguish between making strategic decisions to optimize the mainstream success and profit of a film as opposed to actually being able to find people who are willing to finance the project and make it happen. Sure, it all has to do with money in some way or the other in the end, but there is a difference and I hope you understand what I mean.

In order to keep all kinds of art alive it's vital to fight back conformism. It's the avat garde and the directors working outside the middle lane that pioneer filmmaking - not Disney productions. To the industry it's all economics, sure. But to those who threaten to boycot the industry if they're not playing ball after their rules, it's about morals and good christian behaviour.

Hmm.. nah, that's not exactly what I meant. What I mean is that conformist conservative groups have far too much influence on the rental chains and theaters which leads to a smoothed-out film culture climate.

What's the difference if the result is the same and affects the same kind of people in the same way as if it was a direct dictatorship?


I think there is a difference in refusing to show a film because it's bad and won't make any money and because of fear of losing audience who wasn't going to see that film anyway, but who now will not go to your theater period. All because you show immoral films.

And I know for a fact that indipendent directors are finding it harder and harder to get distribution for their films because of fear of financiers of unfavourable ratings by the MPAA. I have written about it here on MoFo a couple of years ago - with lit. ref. and all, I believe - but I'm too tired right now to dig out a source right now.

I'm not suggesting that someone should be for or against censorship based on whether or not the film will be better; I'm saying that asking whether or not it makes the films better reveals interesting things about why people believe what they believe.

A governmental authority would have the power to ban films. The MPAA only has the power to rate their content. That's the difference, and it's hugely important.

They're analogies used to demonstrate certain principles. Like most analogies, they don't often relate to the topic being discussed, nor do they have to.

Well, first off, it sounds as if you think I was suggesting that Sweden is some sort of dictatorship; I absolutely was not.

That said, the difference is that in one instance you're forcing someone to do something, and in the other, you're not. A government ban is telling people they can't show the film they decide to make, period, regardless of anything else. But a producer deciding to cut a scene to achieve a rating is an instance of someone exercising control over their own property.

Now, you could make the argument (and it seems like you want to) that the MPAA's system somehow forces producers into impossible situations where they must overly self-censor themselves in order to make any money...but I don't see how one could come to this conclusion. What part of the process do you have a problem with, exactly? Are there not enough ratings? Are there too many? Should there be more people on any given content panel? Fewer? What part of this system is oppressive, and why, and how should it be changed?

Let's think about the actual authority involved: the ratings system has no power to tell any theater what they can show. If a theater wanted to show nothing but NC-17 films, they can. If a theater wanted to show nothing but pornography, it can, too -- and such theaters exist here. The MPAA has only the authority to rate a film's content, not tell people when or where they can see it. Not only that, but films aren't even required to be submitted to them.

In other words, you can make your own film with your own money and charge people to see it...and the MPAA doesn't have to be involved in the process in any way whatsoever. And you're telling me this is virtually akin to government censorship?

You'll have to enlighten me on Sweden's ratings system a bit more: does the Svenska Biografbyrån rate films? If so, do producers, or audiences, or both, not particularly concern themselves with a given film's rating? It seems as if conflict about whether or not to cut to achieve a rating would inevitably exist in any system in which people care about ratings at all, or money at all.

Heh. If you measure "freedom" in terms of movies, perhaps. I choose to measure it in more tangible things that have the largest impact on the most lives, like economics.

Here's a potentially interesting question, though: what about the writers? In many instances they have more to do with the creation of a film that a director, who may or may not be incidental to a given film. If a director buys a script and then makes his own choices about how to change it, how is that different from a producer hiring a director and then making their own choices about how to change that?

This is one of those things everyone says, but nobody seems to be able to demonstrate. Activist groups kick up a huge fuss, but they don't win lots of major victories. The #1 film at the box office in America this weekend contains many explicit shots of male nudity and simulated homosexual sex. Why hasn't Pat Robertson stopped this? Answer: because he can't.

Activist groups stupidly protested the fact that the openly-lesbian Ellene DeGeneres was the voice of Dory in Finding Nemo...and it didn't have any flippin' effect. The film was shown all over the nation and made over $300 million domestically. They couldn't stop that one, either.

The activist groups are good at getting press, good at being loud, and obviously good at convincing people they make a difference. Actual, tangible results spurred by their efforts are a lot harder to find, however.

Regardless, even if they had the influence you imply, this would still be the example of a series of individuals exerting their own choices over their own property. The producer decides they want a certain rating, the theater decides more people want to see other films, and people decide they want to peacefully (if sometimes ridiculously) protest films. It's free choice every step of the way. I don't always like the result, but the alternative is telling people what to do with their own time and money, and I think we agree that's usually a bad thing.

I don't understand. Would you mind explaining a bit more?

And that's their right. If their concept of morality is important to them, they get to say so, just as you get to say that pioneer filmmaking is important to you. They don't wield actual governmental authority, so all we're talking about is a war of ideas, which is not only not a problem, but a good thing overall. The fact that we can debate openly about things is way, way more important than whether or not the right side wins every struggle.

I'd probably quibble with the idea that Disney productions are somehow inferior to "pioneer" filmmaking (if that's what you're implying...it might not be). I think there are many widely-accepted, classic films that will be remembered and adored much longer than more daring, experimental films. I'm a bit more impressed by skill than I am by someone doing something new for it's own sake. But that's another discussion, so I probably shouldn't have typed even this much in response. My bad.

I don't think so; the people who are only going to watch whatever's sitting in their local multiplex are basically deciding, through their apathy, that they don't really care about cinema in that sort of way. And that's okay. It's an odd thought to anyone on this site, because we all love film and most of us seek out new and different things, but people who want to find the odder fare still can, and it's probably as easy as it's ever been. Lots of specialty theaters exist, and renting foreign films is incredibly easy online.

I think rental chains and theaters reveal how smoothed-out film culture is, but I don't think they have a lot of effect on it. I'll concede that this is a far more subjective point than most of the others, though.

The difference is that we get to make choices. The fact that we can choose is far more important than the result of any one choice. The fact that we make the wrong choices at times doesn't change that.

That makes sense to me. Independent films tend to have narrower audiences and I imagine for every breakout hit there's hundreds that don't make any money at all. Investors are less likely to invest in films that don't have much in the way of financial prospects. I don't necessarily dispute this, I just don't think it's a travesty, or an example of actual censorship.