Paarungen Cut

The Wellington Film Society's May premiere film Paarungen has fallen victim to the censorship laws. Our print, which came from Australia where it had been approved with an R18 certificate, has been given a 'film societies only' certificate after two brief cuts have been made. Both cuts involved what the censor's official cutting notice refers to as 'copulation'.

The first cut, of about 5 seconds, showed a nude couple from the waist upwards. The second cut, in a later part of the film, involved a soft-focus picture of a couple fully-clad. In both cases the censor has given his approval to preceding shots which establish what is going on, but he has insisted in the first instance that a closeup must be removed, and in the second instance, that the sequence must be reduced to a minimum. The Federation of Film Societies, at the time of printing this magazine, was undecided on whether to appeal.

The Paarungen case is the first time in ten years that the censor has made cuts in a film intended only for film-society members. The last occasion was in 1963. Long-term members can recall only one other occasion when the censor felt impelled to interfere with a film-society film; this was in 1956 when a film showed a man slapping a woman - this scene had to be reduced from three slaps to two. Times, of course, have changed. But there can be no satisfaction with a law which permits film-society films to be cut before they can be seen by members at private screenings.

- from Sequence, May 1973.