I Love The Smell Of Movie Censorship In The Morning
This was the editorial I wrote for the Scroll this past week. I was very proud of it (after all the revisions) and actually won story of the week for it. This is cool because I spent 3 years on Scroll before I one an award. I take what I can get.
Anyway, enjoy the article
I Love the Smell of Movie Censorship in the Morning
CleanFlicks is a Utah-based company that rents and sells edited copies of previously released movies. According to its Web site, the company removes “profanity, graphic violence, nudity and sexual content.” So, if you rent Steven Soderbergh’s award-winning film, Traffic, about the violent underworld of illegal drug-trafficking, you get a family friendly film about drugs.
Editing movies for commercial use has been a hot legal topic in America since August 2002, when CleanFlicks of Colorado brought a lawsuit against 16 prominent Hollywood directors, saying that the company had a constitutional right to edit their movies. Since then, these directors, along with eight major film companies, have filed a countersuit, stating that this editing is a violation of copyright laws. On July 6, 2006, U.S. District Judge Richard Matsch agreed with the directors.
Judge Matsch ruled CleanFlicks and those like it including Family Flix, Clean Films and Play It Again Clean Video were violating copyright laws. The companies were ordered to stop “producing, manufacturing and creating” films within five days after the ruling.
These type of businesses claim to be performing a public service. The owners of these companies believe that removing certain scenes in a movie is equal to someone fast-forwarding through undesired material. According to the CleanFlicks Web site, their movies are marked with a disclaimer letting the customer know that editing has taken place.
Korey Smitheram, the owner of CleanFlicks of Colorado, said his stores don’t carry movies that would need excessive editing. “There are some movies where we mute one or two words in the whole show.”
Much Ado About Nothing, the 1993 film based on the Shakespeare play, is a perfect example. The soundness of that film would remain intact without the bathing scene early in the film.
Smitheram also said the editing has been done in a way that preserves the integrity of the film. “Has the movie been completely damaged, and no one will get the feeling of what the director was trying to prove? I don’t think so,” he said in an interview with the Associated Press.
Perhaps editing works for some movies, but not all. Saving Private Ryan, Steven Spielberg’s Academy-Award-winning film, has been praised for its historical authenticity, including the opening scene depicting the storming of Normandy Beach.
Some directors of these films believe their work is being illegally and unethically tampered with. Michael Mann, director of The Insider and Ali, said in an interview with the Los Angeles Times, “The idea that somebody can arbitrarily take our works apart and destroy them in any manner they want and represent it as still being that film is a breach. There’s no polite word for it — it’s stealing. It’s stealing from the consumers and from the copyright holders, and it’s certainly stealing from us.”
Brad Silberling, director of Casper and Lemony Snicket’s: A Series of Unfortunate Events, had this reaction when he saw the edited version of his 1998 movie City of Angels. “I was actually shocked. It went beyond language and nudity. I was really floored by what had been done to my movie. If every director saw what these people are doing to their work, it would make them even more upset.”
In an article from DGA Magazine, the President of the Director’s Guild of America, Martha Coolidge, said, “What these companies are doing is wrong, plain and simple. It is wrong to cut scenes from a film — just as it is to rip pages from a book — simply because we don’t like the way something was portrayed or said, then resell it with the original title and creator’s name still on it.”
These companies don’t have a right to change a director’s work. No one would support a company that chiseled clothes on Michelangelo’s David because his nudity offends some people or drew a mustache on the Mona Lisa because she already looks half like a man. The public’s obvious response to that would be, “No, you don’t mess with art.” Well, movies are art, too, and they deserve the same respect.
The fact remains that certain movies are made for certain audiences. Directors realize this as well as movie production companies. Gladiator is not appropriate for little kids. Ridley Scott, director of Gladiator, did not set out to direct a family film. Edited or unedited Gladiator is still a movie about people forced to kill each other to survive.
Thanks to the MPAA rating system, no one has to see a movie they don’t feel comfortable with. The rating system allows parents and other concerned individuals to feel comfortable taking their families to movies without seeing something offensive. So, use the system. Don’t expect directors to curb their vision of what their film should be to meet your standards. For that matter, don’t give your business to a company that curbs the director’s vision to meet your standards.
Anyway, enjoy the article
I Love the Smell of Movie Censorship in the Morning
CleanFlicks is a Utah-based company that rents and sells edited copies of previously released movies. According to its Web site, the company removes “profanity, graphic violence, nudity and sexual content.” So, if you rent Steven Soderbergh’s award-winning film, Traffic, about the violent underworld of illegal drug-trafficking, you get a family friendly film about drugs.
Editing movies for commercial use has been a hot legal topic in America since August 2002, when CleanFlicks of Colorado brought a lawsuit against 16 prominent Hollywood directors, saying that the company had a constitutional right to edit their movies. Since then, these directors, along with eight major film companies, have filed a countersuit, stating that this editing is a violation of copyright laws. On July 6, 2006, U.S. District Judge Richard Matsch agreed with the directors.
Judge Matsch ruled CleanFlicks and those like it including Family Flix, Clean Films and Play It Again Clean Video were violating copyright laws. The companies were ordered to stop “producing, manufacturing and creating” films within five days after the ruling.
These type of businesses claim to be performing a public service. The owners of these companies believe that removing certain scenes in a movie is equal to someone fast-forwarding through undesired material. According to the CleanFlicks Web site, their movies are marked with a disclaimer letting the customer know that editing has taken place.
Korey Smitheram, the owner of CleanFlicks of Colorado, said his stores don’t carry movies that would need excessive editing. “There are some movies where we mute one or two words in the whole show.”
Much Ado About Nothing, the 1993 film based on the Shakespeare play, is a perfect example. The soundness of that film would remain intact without the bathing scene early in the film.
Smitheram also said the editing has been done in a way that preserves the integrity of the film. “Has the movie been completely damaged, and no one will get the feeling of what the director was trying to prove? I don’t think so,” he said in an interview with the Associated Press.
Perhaps editing works for some movies, but not all. Saving Private Ryan, Steven Spielberg’s Academy-Award-winning film, has been praised for its historical authenticity, including the opening scene depicting the storming of Normandy Beach.
Some directors of these films believe their work is being illegally and unethically tampered with. Michael Mann, director of The Insider and Ali, said in an interview with the Los Angeles Times, “The idea that somebody can arbitrarily take our works apart and destroy them in any manner they want and represent it as still being that film is a breach. There’s no polite word for it — it’s stealing. It’s stealing from the consumers and from the copyright holders, and it’s certainly stealing from us.”
Brad Silberling, director of Casper and Lemony Snicket’s: A Series of Unfortunate Events, had this reaction when he saw the edited version of his 1998 movie City of Angels. “I was actually shocked. It went beyond language and nudity. I was really floored by what had been done to my movie. If every director saw what these people are doing to their work, it would make them even more upset.”
In an article from DGA Magazine, the President of the Director’s Guild of America, Martha Coolidge, said, “What these companies are doing is wrong, plain and simple. It is wrong to cut scenes from a film — just as it is to rip pages from a book — simply because we don’t like the way something was portrayed or said, then resell it with the original title and creator’s name still on it.”
These companies don’t have a right to change a director’s work. No one would support a company that chiseled clothes on Michelangelo’s David because his nudity offends some people or drew a mustache on the Mona Lisa because she already looks half like a man. The public’s obvious response to that would be, “No, you don’t mess with art.” Well, movies are art, too, and they deserve the same respect.
The fact remains that certain movies are made for certain audiences. Directors realize this as well as movie production companies. Gladiator is not appropriate for little kids. Ridley Scott, director of Gladiator, did not set out to direct a family film. Edited or unedited Gladiator is still a movie about people forced to kill each other to survive.
Thanks to the MPAA rating system, no one has to see a movie they don’t feel comfortable with. The rating system allows parents and other concerned individuals to feel comfortable taking their families to movies without seeing something offensive. So, use the system. Don’t expect directors to curb their vision of what their film should be to meet your standards. For that matter, don’t give your business to a company that curbs the director’s vision to meet your standards.
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