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.
