I’ve talked about censorship before and it’s managed to take me off on a rant or two, especially when it’s where a third party censors someone else’s creativity believing that they are doing the right thing and that their view of someone elses work is what is better for the public at large.
Rubbish, absolute rubbish. If a Director and his team create a movie, then that’s the movie that should be shown, if there are cuts to be made then the original Director should make the call, and cuts should never be made just to squeeze something into an age bracket for a certificate. Moreover someone else should never be allowed to edit or cut the work because of what they deem as right for the public, or for the sake of groups who may be offended.
Don’t like something? Offended by it? Don’t go and see it. Only yesterday the news in Scotland is about a well known play that is being performed by a local school acting group that portrays the characters of Jesus and his disciples in a modern world as homosexuals. A Christian member of the audience left and contacted the Police asking them to prosecute on a charge of blasphemy and to close the play down. One person mind you, they didn’t just leave, they got the Police involved! They claimed it was hate inducing.
So, what has this to do with movies? Well there are two stories around just now concerning the act of censorship and rewriting. The first is about the prequel in the Exorcist series, Exorcist: The Beginning, apparently it’s awful, but for good reason.
The film was created and completed with Paul Schrader at the helm, he created a dark, moody and somber piece and took it to Morgan Creek Productions to show them. What followed will surely become one of their worst decisions ever made. They were shocked to find none of the blood and gore they had expected and desired from this prequel, instead it was a slow more psychological story. Empire paints the picture well:
…the suits went nuts… and not in a good way. According to them, the film was slow, dull and – crucially – not scary enough. The executives convened at an emergency meeting to determine how they could quickly fix their problem and produce a terrifying horror opus…
They immediately sacked Schrader and hired Renny Harlin to remake the movie, and what a wonderful decision that was. 90% of it was reshot, characters totally dropped, and CGI effects used to create a totally different movie, and this is what was released to a thunderous sound of yawning. Or as the harsh and flame-like guys at Empire state:
The slightly-less-than-brilliant plan they came up with was this: hire the director of Cutthroat Island and add CG hyenas. The rest is bargain-bin history.
Morgan Creek began back peddling and said that they would release Schrader’s version on the Harlin DVD. Yet news out this week must be making Schrader laugh with glee. He is currently in the editing suites completing his work on his Exorcist movie and Morgan Creek are releasing it in the States in 2005.
Fantastic news, these idiotic executives who thought that the dull, slow and low gore count version of Schrader’s was rubbish may well be about to eat humble pie. We can only hope that his version out sells Harlin’s weak bloody movie and shows those Executives not to muddle again.
The second story that caught my eye is about the movie versions of Philip Pulman’s His Dark Materials trilogy of books. The story is, and I quote from the BBC here:
[The books] tell the story of Oxford girl Lyra Belacqua. She is drawn into an epic struggle against the Church, which has been carrying out experiments on children in an attempt to remove original sin. As the books progress the struggle turns into a battle to overthrow the Authority, a figure who is God-like in the books.
So a little controversy there.
Pullman’s trilogy has been attacked by some Christian teachers and by the Catholic press as blasphemy.
Okay, maybe more than a little then.
Chris Weitz Director of About a boy has been signed up to Direct this first movie, His Dark Materials: The Golden Compass. He…
…is to remove references to God and the church in the movie. [He] said the changes were being made after film studio New Line expressed concern…They have expressed worry about the possibility of perceived anti-religiosity,” Weitz told a His Dark Materials fans’ website
…said New Line feared that any anti-religiosity in the film would make the project “unviable financially”.
Woa, that’s not anti-religiosity, that’s anti-christianity, and if there’s concern about this, what about the messages in DaVinci Code? How’s that going to come through? Mind you, at least the concern is for getting their money back on the movie and not upsetting any individual religious groups!
However, for the fans of the books out there, fear not, Weitz said…
…he regarded the film adaptation as “the most important work of my life”
He also talks about how the movie will be altered, and the removal of religion will merely take the form of subtle changes and modifications of terms. This is seemingly to remove the idea that this group is a religious one and to replace it with an authority that…
…could “represent any arbitrary establishment that curtails the freedom of the individual, whether it be religious, political, totalitarian, fundamentalist, communist, what have you”.
Okay, so 1984 it is then. Or Equilibrium? So where does the whole original sin idea go then? What is being talked about is the total removal of the plot and making the movie into something else. What we have here is the exact same effect as the Doom post highlighted, taking an original idea, removing almost all connections to it and making a movie that ties with that idea in only few small threads.
To be fair I haven’t read the books, and there may be a lot more to them than this short blurb, but there seems to be a lot of discussion about this move and quite a few concerned fans.
Mr Pulman’s agent told the Times newspaper:
“Of course New Line want to make money, but Mr Weitz is a wonderful director and Philip is very supportive.
“You have to recognise that it is a challenge in the climate of Bush’s America.”
Ah. An interesting stock phrase there, and I’m unsure as to what connection they are making. The changes have to be made because the books are deemed (by Christian leaders and teachers) as anti-christian, and that is connected with anti-terrorism how?
Madness. The butchering of excellent movie material and of the movies themselves is not helping to produce an exciting or entertaining movie experience, neither is it instilling any confidence in Directors, Screenwriters or other members of the development teams that they can actually create something new and exciting. Unless of course you are known by your last name alone like Spielberg, then you can make anything you want and take the Studios with you.
Just look at Lord of the Rings to see how a Director and his team devoted to the original works can produce some amazing movies, commercially viable and true to their original content. Look at the Batman series, the best were those that were true to the novella Batman, and there the series comes full circle after having abandoned its source. John is making this very point with his Blade post, it too is leaving its source and flagging.
Thanks for bearing with me through this long post, for those of you who have made it this far, I wonder what you feel about censorship in general and in particular third party censorship, and also what is happening to His Dark Materials, and what has happened to Exorcist: The Beginning? I’d really like to get your views on this.
I completely agree with all that you said about censorship.
As a long time fan of the books, I’m appalled, but not shocked. It’s something I worried about the moment I heard about them making a movie of the trilogy. I tried to hope, but alas…
I do think the books are anti-religious, but so what? If you don’t like that, then don’t see it. I’m an atheist, and knew I wouldn’t want to see Passion of the Christ, so I DIDN’T SEE IT. It’s really quite simple, once you think about it. All it really entails is: not going out and getting in your car (on the bus) and not traveling to your local movie theatre and not purchasing a ticket to whatever movie you deem offensive and not viewing it. Where is that difficult, exactly?
But, that aside (it was to be expected anyway), is anyone else wondering where the Hell good ol’ Phillip is in all this?
Why, he’s off telling the press how amazed he is by the director√¢‚Ǩ‚Ñ¢s “ideas” (complete revamping of the plot) and has “all confidence in his abilities”! WTF?! What is going on here? Part of me is running about in pointless little circles screaming, “They’ve abducted him! They’re holding him captive and have a look-a-like out there fielding press calls to make them look good! He’d never sell his soul (as it were) to the film makers so he can get rich on percentage royalties!!!”
Unfortunately, the more rational part of me (the bit not running around in circles) says that good ol’ Phillip has been bought and paid for. I mean, why else would he agree to such a terrible shredding of the original plot, the original POINT?
I met good ol’ Phillip once, when I was a little girl. He was doing book signings and answering questions from readers about the 3rd book (which hadn’t been written yet) in a tiny little bookshop near Detroit. He was a little grouchy about a question I asked about Will’s endlessly-bleeding-knife-wound, but I would never have thought him a sell-out.
I hope I’m wrong. I hope that he really was kidnapped and has been stoically refusing to give his blessings to this terrible destruction of a wonderful story, but I fear I’m wrong.
I know a friend who has actually been in correspondence with good ol’ Phillip. Perhaps I can wheedle an address outta her and write an appalled (but not shocked) letter to him. If she doesn’t forbid me, I’ll post it on here, so you all can write him and plead with him to DO something about this situation, and, of course, state your (strong) feelings on the matter.
I was just browsing through looking for information for my Independant Study unit on “His dark materials” and i stumbled across this. It appalls me that they would take out the church references, it deletes the wholes sense of the book. When pullman wrote the trilogy he was intending to create a sort of “paradise lost” for young adults, with a few changes. if they eliminate the references to religion in the creationof the movie, it would be a disgrace to Pullman’s fantastic writing abilities and his views. Sure, the books may be anti-religious, but tehy aren’t anti christian, Pullman is aiming to portray that religion is, in essence, an institution to make pleasure and knowledge wrong, and to trap it’s followers in innocence. It in no way deminishes the right to faith and beliefs. If the reason to change this trilogy as it meets the mainstream is an attempt to ensure that no Christians are offended, than why, praytell was Passion of the Christ allowed? does it not, on the same plane offend athiests in the sense that what tehy choose to believe (or not believe) is wrong?
-nat.
i have read his dark materials and i have to say they are the most incredible books i have ever read. The fact is they are fictional, for the most part the film is not even set in our world and the authority/church that is percieved as evil is very different to the church we know. why cant people just stop getting so damn uptight about fictional films. okay…if it was attacking a group i could understand it but its not. it is fictional and the nature of the fantasy storyline shows this. my personal opinion is that the catholic church cant stand anything that may just have the ability to open peoples eyes wide enough so they can see through all the lies that make up the church.
Nice to see all this thoughtful discussion on a topic so important to the industry. Not what I’m used to on internet forums.
While I certainly respect that movie studios are corporations and exist to generate money, I do hope they’ll recognize that it’s all-around bad business to bastardize famous books or classic movies to make something “accessible” to a large audience. I still take offense every time I see “Cheaper by the Dozen” in a video store, considering the way it took a hilarious, heartwarming, and true story and turned it into a mound of loathsome slapstick garbage. As someone else said, hopefully the overwhelming financial success of the LOTR trilogy will encourage more faithful adaptations by people who love the source material.
If I sound angry it’s because I had huge hopes for the His Dark Materials trilogy, and having read (and loved) the books I can promise you there’s no way they can water down the story in the ways they’re talking about without ruining the whole thing. The story is all about rejecting the theory of Original Sin, so I’m wondering how they’re going to tiptoe around the idea and not offend anybody.
Everybody can makes mistakes; movie executives, directors and especially home interior decorators. But I believe that one of the essential ethics, as a “free” man living in a “free” democratic country in the 21st century, should be to use his freedom to evolve as a human being, instead of exploiting it to spread hatred. Beside that, I believe for our benefit, that we should tolerate and accept lot’s of different insights. Even if those ideas can be very conflicting to our personal believes. History has shown us that we should not be too quick on the censorship button, but instead, debate/discuss/talk about ethics, religion, politics and certainly ART. Nothing must be left unsaid. That is if we care about our freedoms as for the freedoms of our neighbours.
The movie industry, and that is why I love it, is a very useful and effective tool in this “search for truth”, because it has grown – together with television – to the vital stimulus of debate (~ movies) and the watchdog of our freedoms (~ television). Of course there are generations who will criticise this evolution from the ‘written word’ to the ‘moving image’ as a decay of civilisation. That is their right to say so, but I don’t necessary agree, since I believe that truth (or that what come near to it) is evolving. And what can be a more effective reflection of a constant evolving reality than that of a moving image. A picture doesn’t only speak a thousand words, but can also reflect sometimes that what can’t be written.
But let’s not confuse two different discussions: The one of a studio cutting some shots because he thinks it won’t sell (and so as John says he has the right and the duty to do so), or a Hollywood/Media/Individual that will censor something, like for instance a (thought-provoking and thus interesting) Christian play with homosexual participants. I would say, as a free-thinker who believes in the core message of Christianity, that this should be allowed as well as the Passion (which was less controversial than The Last Temptation of Christ). The fuss they made around those controversial movies has more often be counter productive, than resolved to any good. In difference to TV (which is a more delicate debate, because television too often considers itself as “more realistic” and thus “more true”), a movie takes time to make. You don’t wake up one day and say, “well, today I am going to bring out a movie praising Adolf Hitler with his vegetarian lifestyle and his Christian convictions”. No! It takes time, money, effort … You need to convince people, you will have to do some inside research, and then in years to come you will have to defend your opinion. And by doing this, people will support you or be more convinced of the contrary. And even though movies can be based upon facts, movies are essentially fictional. The Passion is every bit as commercial as it is entertaining. But it is an opinion of a “free” creative man in a “free” country.
Ps: Hollywood has too many pop-star-actors, sequels and remakes. So if, once in a while, there is an intelligent thought provoking movie that comes around, yes, endorse it, and if needed put more money in the project, do rewrites, whatever is required. And IF you are the prodigal genius that can make it ‘entertaining’ to see (so a lot of people ‘will’ go and see it), than I am in total admiration.
I don’t quite understand why a studio would buy the rights to a story, which they’ll alter into something that’s different from the source material, so that they can turn it into a film for the general audience. If the original stories of the “His Dark Materials” trilogy has already caused such controversy to begin with, then why bother spending so much time and effort on it? Why not focus the attention on something else?
I don’t think changing the story of “His Dark Materials” can be really considered censorship, since it does attack a specific religion. It attacks people directly.
Now if it were censoring, say, homosexuality because it would offend people, then that’s the kind of censorship to complain about. Actually, that be censorship that’s based on discrimination.
Really, though… why not work with another, less “controversial” story, rather than spending so much time and effort to change it?
Good points John, “censorship and rewriting” is the title, but I did go into a rant about censorship.
Still, I think in a way there has been a form of censorship imposed. The power of the group which have already voiced their feelings about the books have caused the studio to turn away from the entire plot when, after all, it’s just a book. The studio have listened to that group and made the decision. Yes for monetary reasons, and yes they are a business, but what they’ve now done is ripped out the majority of the storyline and will make something totally different because of what they fear the Church will say and their followers do.
I don’t think that censorship is something that only Governments do, it can be carried out by anyone. In this case the studio has censored the plot of the book brought on by the fear of an institution.
You’re right to point out the hypocracy of the issue as well, the over political correctness. It should be possible to make it about any group, about anything at all, as long as it is not infringing on their rights, or leading to indecency, verbal assault, slander, etc.
Thanks for that Krunchie, glad you made your first comments too, don’t let them be the last now!
You are right, and that is where the rest of the team should come in and assist in the editing and fine tuning. On reflection I think I’ve missed a bit out to focus those comments on keeping the Studio side rather than the creative teams. I do know what you mean though, there are a few films I have on DVD where personally, I do prefer the theatrical version.
I think it is purely business sense, they themselves said it when they said it “would make the project ‘unviable financially'”. Still, there are so many projects developed which are great movies yet anger some group or another, even The Passion of Christ angered religious groups, but that was made unchanged. Why? Gibson, not the studios were in control.
Great comments Krunchie, keep them coming!
Hey Krunchie.
I agree. I think it really is just good business sense. Why needlessly alienate a huge demographic of movie goers when you don’t have to?
And I don’t really think when the studio steps in and pulls rank on a director that it’s censorship per se. Think of an interior decorator. You hire one to come and re-do the look of your home. He’s the decorator… but YOU are the one paying the bills… so the final say is yours… not the interior decorator. Yes, you trust the dcorator… but if there’s something you don’t like… you tell him to take it out… it’s just that simple.
And here’s a slightly off topic question… I’m facinated why it’s socially acceptable to create works that insult and malign the “christian” faith, while if the SLIGHTEST suggestion of anti-jewish or anti-Islamic or anti-anything is done people get all upset. I mean really… there have to be at least 30 or more films that deal with some dark secret the catholic church has and it needs to be fought…. ho hum… seen it a hundred times.
People have the right to see whatever they want… people also have the right to voice their concerns if they feel their group (be it political, religious, sexual, national)is being attacked. And if a STUDIO (not government) decides to make changes to a film to appease those raising their voices… then I don’t see anything wrong with that. It’s a business. It’s the studios money… HOWEVER…
Censorship becomes a great evil when the government starts to tell you what you are permitted to see or not see… what to hear or not hear. But that is a different issue.
Imagine the reaction to movie titles like these:
– All Queers Should be Beaten to Death The Movie
– Blacks Are So Stupid 2
– The Jews: Hitler had it right afterall
– Women: The Inferior Sex with Inferior Minds
– Sneaky Little Asian Bastards
– Throw Darkie from the Train
– Hey WOP!: A Look at the Problem of Italians in North America
Ok, all kidding aside… obviously any of the above people groups would feel attacked and insulted. And equally obvious would be their right to complain and voice their concerns. I don’t think that would be irrational of them to do so.
So if a Christian or Jew or Homosexual or Chineese or Black or Italian feel a film directly insults and attacks them… then they have the right to complain about it. Then, the Studio has the right to ignore their complaints (which they usually do) or listen to them and make changes. That’s not censorship. The Movie belongs to the studio, not the director.
Censorship is bad… but I just don’t know if this qualifies as censorship.
Hey there Richard, first time poster here. Anyway I think that was a great entry and I agree with your views on many points. However I do think there are times where a Director’s vision can be blurred and the outcome can be a less than the finished product. There are a number of DVD releases these days sporting the Director’s Cut of a movie and many times I’ve found that that version is less of a movie than the initial theater release. But that’s really just a side note.
I think the one quote you took that read, “You have to recognise that it is a challenge in the climate of Bush’s America,” is an interesting one. It seems that suits are starting to realize the commercial power that the Church has. Look at the success that was “The Passion”. I knew churches that rented out theaters for private screenings where church members would invite their non-believer friends in hopes to spark enough interest in their religion so those non-believers would come to their regular services. Now I’m not condemning that action at all, in fact, if it works for the Church then more power to them.
I think it just goes to show you that when Christian beliefs are involved the Church will not only but their vote behind it but they will also put their money behind it. Perhaps it’s censorship to remove all negative references to the Church in a movie script or maybe it’s just good business sense. What do you think?