Yes, ban all films and burn all books. Our society’s morals are eroding for every minute we do not destroy art.
Of course should books and films be banned, but only if they´re not in accord with Catholicism. That´s what freedom is all about. But here in Latin America and also in Europe can one buy Maquis de Sade books in every bookstore, I don´t think that he´s still banned in many countries. I know that Viridiana had been censored in Spain, and Salo wasn´t the Vatican´s favorite so they had to get rid of it´s director, but I think that honestly it had more to with his references to religion and fascism than his use of violence and nudity. There´s still a rigid moral in many Muslim countries, and many films that contain nudity get banned there. Restriction in art are nothing new, and especially Iranian filmmakers learned how to make the best out of it. Chinese censorship is still very haevy, but nothin g compared to how it was during the Cultural Revolution.One could question if a government should even be allowed to decide about artistic creations since most politicians are no real experts in this field, but it would soon become a political and theological discussion without any results. I´t´s obvious that everyone on theauteurs would prefer to see as many uncensored films as possible, but it´s not up to us to decide unless we dedicate ourself to politics and religion.
" . . . but it´s not up to us to decide . . . "
That’s the problem. A small group shouldn’t be able to decide what’s right for the rest of us.
" . . . but it would soon become a political and theological discussion without any results."
How do you think change happens?
“Only the bad ones.”
Well Elliott, eventhough that would be absolutely wonderful, there is freedom of expression. So in a rather strange way, even Michael Bay films must not be banned. In this way, people have the freedom to choose what to watch. Show me someone who can make a fifteen year-old to watch “Belle de jour” instead of “Transformers”. Nobody has the right to make people watch a film they don’t like simply because it is of poor quality. That would be a new kind of censorship.
[[Still, cinema would be better without Michael Bay. But making bad films is not a crime. Nobody’s perfect…]]
I was kidding when I said we should ban the bad ones. I’m against censorship, and if people would rather watch Transformers than an art house film, I don’t have a problem with that. People have different interests; that’s fine. (Just don’t drag me along.)
And besides, I love so-bad-they’re-good movies. :)
“Developed”, “democratic” and “civilised” countries in the West that boast of freedom of expression have often banned films- whether France over The Battle of Algiers or Paths of Glory, Japan over Ai no Corrida, or the films and countries mentioned in the thread-starter. In some countries it is illegal to deny the holocaust, in others inciting racial hatred is a criminal offence etc, so presumably film-makers who commit such offences would be punished and their films banned accordingly? In any event the TV news channels and media run by the rich and establishment do their own censorship in deciding what to put on as part of the general brainwashing. All news is propaganda.
Nothing should be banned. Not Nazi hate propaganda, not porn of any kind, not snuff movies.
fuck religion,fuck politics,fuck militarism and fuck economical marketings and authoritarian distortions..
the reason why the majority wishes to watch Transformers instead of Bell de Jour is because those fucked up money-making assholes have brainwashed the moronic public with all sorts of commercials,toys,tag lines,numbed trailers etc etc etc..i won’t repeat stuff that’s been said in essays and critical researches over and over again..censorship is done in a way to manipulate people what to watch and pick..censorship in books for example during the 1700’s was a common phenomenon and if i start telling u extravagant situations of banning like in China where they banned Alice n Wonderland because of…talking animals…then i feel i’l be hit hard by people who might feel “insulted” = conformists.
i am not against banning mindless pictures as well because once in a while,a McTiernan appears and offers some fine entertainment,mindless as well but nothing frightening so as to lower our IQ like Boll or Tamahori does..
my point is..it’s the majority that needs to change,as long as this majority is withdrawal and conservative and moralistic..then it’s no wonder why Australia still has Salo as a forbidden film :(
Outright bans have been a fact of life everywhere. The last governmental ban I can think of locally was Massachusetts banning Fred Wiseman’s “Titicut Follies”. Now they had good reason, the film shined a real spotlight on government malfeasance and they couldn’t have that.
Still, it isn’t an issue in Western states but I believe there is a de facto issue of control of distribution which makes it difficult to see non mainstream films in many areas. That’s changing but you still need a push to get you of the main road every now and again.
Dimitris, the fact that you publicized your supposed open-mindedness in your profile doesn’t surprise me. Most people who claim to be open-minded are the opposite, and many people who are close-minded claim they’re open-minded. Hey, looks like you’re in the majority.
oh really?and how do u know who’s open-minded or not?and by the way,i never accused anyone around here for close-mindedness..so stop criticizing my profile post,d’accord?
Dimitris, it seems like the half the posts you make are just pure RAAAGEEE. Let’s all have a chill pill, man.
if it is rage,it’s preferably elaborate “rage”,try and live in a country where 3/4 of ur co-citizens have started to divide music,books,films,art in general in a twisted reality of U.S./UK material being…well..native(what??)and the Greek production is often measured in non-English spoken terms..is it fair?no..can i do anything?yes,striving to become a researcher in order to promote everything in equal terms..
Yes, the exact same thing is happening here but we need to understand if that’s what the majority wants, we should give it to them. Rather than take an extreme measure, we should slowly introduce better films into the market or promote cinema to youths. Imagine if a man on the street suddenly approached you and told you that your car was inferior, you should get this car; here try this car, is this not a nice car etcetera, will you not find him a little loony, him being in the minority and all, and a tad ineffective?
if he were to be pushy,then my primary reaction would be as offensive as his…
if he is kind and smooth in his manners,why should i avoid him,even if i do think that my car is superior,why should i reject another approach made in a polite attitude?
that’s the difference of art-house and blockbuster,art-house does promote its products but i find it more visible in blockbusters to be advertised in a glossy,kitsch way which ultimately transforms the public’s mind be it a good blockbuster or a piece of junk,quality doesn’t count in commercialism..that is what i hope to be stopped…
since it is impossible to gauge art on anything other that a deeply personal level, I would suggest that individual garner a highly tuned sense of self, thus digesting nothing but the best and most healthy works which aid in growth of some form or anther. Too bad even the things we hate have an effect on us… and I hate so much.
Moderated
Doinel’s example of “Titicut Follies” is good; it took many many years for that film to be screened in public.
“Men Behind the Sun” was shown once in Japan, and Mou, the director, got death threats from far-right wing groups for it.
It was not a good film, but it told a truth they didn’t want people to hear.
To expand the notion of banning a bit: I can’t think of a society that hasn’t restricted some expression at some point, but the very structure of commercial society in itself has produced a ‘new’ kind of censorship that is just as effective.
Despite the ever-expanding channels through which media reaches us, the cross-platform ownership of the vast majority of these outlets combined with the FCC laws as to what can be shown, effectively “shoehorn” content into a certain standard that is hard to get around.
If you can’t get it shown in ‘their’ movie theatre, when the time comes for TV, you won’t be able to show it on ‘their’ TV channels either.
Think of the iron grip advertizing has, not just on time slots and types of shows, but in what can be shown, including what products. The very fact that the network logos drop out during commercials should tell you what the important programming is.
The selective ‘witness-protection" blurring of images has become standard practice, be it names of restaurants on Jay Leno’s man-in-the street interviews, or licence plates and advertizing logos on people’s clothing. That’s censorship. “Fair Use” is a term that means: “anything in the street can be taped without asking permission” and it has been in place for decades. Not any more.
For those of you old enough, remember the golden promises when cable TV started?
How there was going to be ‘localcasting’, where community groups and such could air relevant programming that the big boys wouldn’t run?
How much of that have you ever seen come to fruition? Perhaps the real question is: why aren’t people more interested in such things?
One, because a lot of such stuff is just appallingly bad (and for me bad means it doesn’t know how to get its message across, regardless of technology or budget.)
But ‘two’ is very important: because the mass audience has in a sense been trained to accept the filp side side of one of the truest statements ever made about media:
Tony Schwartz’ saying “The medium is the message.”
Instead of seeing that the ‘polished turds’ that make up the vast majority of system-driven, commercial TV are the things to suspect and reject, the modern audience has developed a great level of discomfort with anything that doesn’t look or sound like “normal TV” or a “regular movie”, and this is to the great advantage of the kind of ‘virtual’ censorship I am talking about.
Hell, we live in a world where something just being in B/W is reason enough not to watch. If something becomes ‘suspect’ to an audience that easily, it doesn’t take much to completely make them reject a piece of work, let alone the message.
The other censor tool is lawyers. With everyone accustomed to the idea that every schlub can sue somebody for something, killing the message in court is not difficult. By the time the dust settles and the independent documentarian is broke, the vast majority of people have forgotten he even exists.
The internet is the ‘new freedom’, right?…..to some extent, yes, still. In individual blogs and such, yes (not on YouTube.)
The sheer mass of posts and data still is great and ungovernable enough that there is a ‘Wild West’ feel to a large amount of it.
Being a silent-film buff, I can’t help but compare it to the early days of silent film making, with people shooting wherever and whatever they wanted, before the companies started corralling and regulating the screenings and the productions.
Will it last? I don’t know.
I am running on again, but I couldn’t make it any shorter.
In the U.S., films and books have of course been banned—and will certainly be banned in the future. In the presidential election of 2008, 45.7% of voters pulled the lever for McCain/Palin – nearly 60 million voters wanted a book-banning, evolution-denying homophobe bimbo Christian loon to be the Vice President of the United States. And in this fact we see that the “boiling frog” paradigm of gradual conversion over to an authoritarian/fascist/theocratic regime doesn’t always obtain: sometimes people want instant authoritarian institution of widespread ignorance. It’s not a good sign, to say the very least…
Witkacy, what are you talking about? Each society holds the right to ban anything it wants to. Do you expect everyone in every society of the world to think like you? Do you think everyone believes in evolution? Pull yourself together.
I don’t think that anything should be banned. However, to Auteur, who said “Nothing should be banned. Not Nazi hate propaganda, not porn of any kind, not snuff movies”:
What about child pornography?
Christine – Standing criminal prohibitions against the commission and filming of real crimes such as rape or murder would be apart from any social/political censorship regulations. And in the case of the MPAA in the U.S., we have de facto censorship as instituted by an industry consortium rather than a legal or governmental authority.
But surely people in power shouldn’t be able to ban books and films just because the views in them don’t accord with their own or may insult their sensitivities or seem a threat to their own authority. There’s too much control already. So many channels on the TV but so much of the same, an opium for the masses. I remember when the BBC and Channel 4 in Britain used to screen “foreign language” films quite often but that seems a long time ago now, and yet now with so many extra channels there are very few screened. Youtube can be a useful tool and there are companies like Criterion, Masters of Cinema, YesAsia, so we do have access now to all sorts of films that were inaccessible, the internet has benefits as well as dangers, but still the majority shown for mass audiences by the established media are Hollywood product. And the TV News in Britain has become ever more insular, whereas on say Al Jazeera UK, a much more international channel, you can catch all sorts of news from round the world (and expressing different viewpoints, it’s not a pro-Arab propaganda channel) effectively censored by the BBC, ITV, Sky.. To omit news and also pick which news to give most coverage to is also a form of censorship and control by those in power, but people are used to it and rarely question. Brainwashing is still brainwashing when done subtly, in fact it’s more dangerous.
Witkacy, I agree with you. However, Auteur suggested that snuff movies shouldn’t be banned, which is the taping of actual murder, something that believe should be censored. I was wondering if his/her freedom of thought and expression extended to something like child pornography as well.
The “snuff movie” is actually an interesting matter, inasmuch as it’s more of an idea conceived to confound both cinema and the law than it is a factual thing subject to criminal law. (The phenomenon also messes with verisimilitude in cinema, in a big way.) With regard to the verisimilitude of violence depicted onscreen, we face yet another aspect of the Uncanny valley
The ones I don’t like should be banned. More than that, they should be surgically removed from the minds of their fans via lobotomy.
“the reason why the majority wishes to watch Transformers instead of Bell de Jour is because those fucked up money-making assholes have brainwashed the moronic public with all sorts of commercials,toys,tag lines,numbed trailers etc etc etc”
What?! So I wont be able to buy that Belle de Jour Barbie at Toys are US?
Tie her up, she begs for more.
Rose
Just how can someone ban a film or a book ? Where is all the “artistic freedom” that a modern society is supposed to have ? There are films (Viridiana, Life of Brian, Salo, Straw Dogs etc) that were banned in several countries, for different reasons each. Well they were banned years ago, but the point is that nobody must have the right to reject someone’s vision because “there was nudity, there was explicit use of language, violence..”. And about books…Let me put it that way: If you buy any books by Marquis de Sade, make sure you’ll hide them well.