First off:
I haven't seen A Serbian Film.
damatotomato wrote:Westminster Council from what I hear, deny this. The BBFC did not HAVE to make the cuts, whether for a festival release or a general release. And maybe they should have the power to decide on cuts subject to a festival release, seperate to a general release.
Isn't that going to cost distributors more money? They already have to submit for a general release and now have to pay again for festival screenings? To what end? The overwhelming majority of movies go through uncut anyway, so what would be the point?
Frighfest organisers are saying dumb on the subject (they like to vocally slag off Argento films at festival events because they don't really understand the director's work) but they don't comment on refunds and reasons for films being pulled.
Personally I'd have thought if there was anyone who did really understand Argento's work, it's Alan Jones....
They also promised us that ISOYG would be uncut. Anyway - I still think that, even if the BBFC cut this film for general release (and what the Guardian says has no bearing on truth for me at all, sorry!), the decision sucks.
It's not FrightFest's call, though. It's Westminster City Council's call. I think everything in the festival's entire history that hadn't already been seen by the BBFC was nodded through. I don't think Martyrs, The Girl Next Door or Inside had any problems.
And who is that person going on about A Serbian Movie being 'morally wrong' ??? The scene is symbolic of rape from birth, of a country, of a person. It's also not real and not detailed.
I guess you're talking about the baby scene here - but do we actually know whether that's one of the scenes that's been cut? There's still nothing on the BBFC's site.
Murder on Poirot is illegal and the actuality horrible. But it's simulated. It's not real. Murder is as nasty as any kind of rape. It's all nasty. But sweet old ladies from Torquay dig Murder Mysteries.
And most Poirots are rated U or PG. It's not just the content, it's how it's done. If Lucio Fulci had directed an episode of Poirot and filled it with rotting corpses and things going into eye sockets, it would have been 18 and those sweet old ladies would have pooed themselves senseless.
The BBFC cut a scene from Ages of Lulu with a naked baby at the start (gee - and who will this corrupt, the one person in every 10 million who think it's exciting in some way? - pah!) and thereby defeating the whole point of the film, and the film's title!
The scene's cut because it's an indecent image of a child and potentially falls foul of the Protection Of Children Act! Are you seriously suggesting that the BBFC should pass child pornography? Even if the scenes from Ages Of Lulu doesn't excite - and pornography is in the wrist of the beholder - it's still in direct contravention not of internal guidelines, but of the law. They didn't cut it because they wanted to - they cut it because they had to.
The BBFC are essentially bods in suits who care little about films but have a career as a social services type - this is true, you won't become a BBFC examiner without this kind of career background!! The BBFC should be made redundant and an advisory panel instated. This latest decision has exposed them as complete idiots, once again, after a few years of improved relationship with genre fans.
And replace them with what? What is this advisory panel going to do? More specifically, what is it going to do that the BBFC doesn't do already? They've still got to abide by the legislation covering animal cruelty, indecent images of children and so forth. All you're doing is changing the letterheads.
And as for the Guardian article you link to - news journalists suck, and know nothing about genre movies. The Guardian can't even spell horror. I don't trust or care about anything written by hacks. Magazine journalism in magazines such as Shivers (RIP) or DVD World etc I trust. Fangoria mostly sucks. And mags such as Empire are magazines about films for the under 16s. Use your own opinions. Form your own values.
I'd agree about Empire, and Total Film as well: there was an issue in the goodie bag and I couldn't make much headway. I think they're pretty much unreadable as anything other than promotional Hollywood fluff. There'll be a few pages of interest, a few good articles, a good critic with a good writing style, but the bulk of it is about shallow mainstream studio fare for lowest common denominator audiences.
I'm afraid that this country is denied freedom of expression because of the likes of the BBFC and horror 'fans' who are scared off by real symbolic horrors of society (which most horror fans do not revel in seeing on screen, but accept is part symbolic, part trangressive media). I don't actually like 'real' horror, I prefer stylised horror - Argento, Fulci at al. But I support it's right to be shown.
I don't believe it's that much of a freedom of expression matter. Don't forget that we haven't yet seen the BBFC's detailed list of cuts. Again, if it's material involving children in sexual scenarios: however well it's been staged, however cleverly it's been edited together, it falls foul of criminal law.
And yes, the BBFC pass films such as Salo. But not A Serbian Movie. Because Sight and Sound 'dig' Salo. They don't dig us - we are the underclass, the scum, the Araki unwashed (allegedly, and probably not, so don't edit me mr moderators!).
You're now trying to turn this into a class issue which it absolutely isn't. It's the criminal law. You're also not making sense here. Surely it's not the underclass that would see the symbolic context of A Serbian Film, it's the Sight And Sound intelligensia. Stick A Serbian Film in front of what Charlie Brooker refers to as "multiplex livestock" - the great unwashed, the village idiots at the Trocadero on a Friday night - and they won't see that context. They'll see the sex and violence and baby raping and the Heinz 57 other varieties of depravity. That context, I gather, isn't contained within the movie itself. What the director and writer said about it in an interview isn't admissible.
The BBFC person apearing on Monday NEEDS to be presented with angry opinion and needs to have nerves of steel - let's challenge the cutters, the ruiners of film and artistic freedom, let's hurl our symbolic rom-com dvds across the room - let's show the doubters that horror is a vital and real part of film and the only genre that delves deep into the horrors of the mind, the body, the political system, and the soul.
Romcoms? Romcoms? You know why the BBFC pass romcoms? Because studios submit them. The BBFC have to classify them, and there's no reason not to pass them. There's nothing in them to warrant restriction. There'll be mild swearing, moderate sex references, but that's all.
Like I said at last year's Giallo screening - if you don't get Giallo, you don't get Argento, and you don't get horror.
I'm sorry, but this is just wrong. I think I do get Argento; I know I love the best of Argento's movies - but Giallo was absolutely terrible. That's not necessarily Argento's fault - in the case of Giallo and in the case of Mother Of Tears the scripts were just not up to scratch - but it is his name on the finished product.
If you don't get that the BBFC have a grudge against horror and genre films, then you don't get why the BBFC is essentially ready to be placed in the recycle bin, and a more modern system introduced. That's the truth of the matter. Deal with this.
The BBFC don't have any such grudge - look at how many they pass, for crying out loud. Hundreds of them. And what are you going to replace them with?