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Monthly Film Bulletin December 1949

Page history last edited by FilmSociety@gmail.com 8 years, 8 months ago

A TALK WITH THE CENSOR


The appointment of Gordon Mirams as Censor of Cinematograph Films earlier this year came as a surprise to many people. Mr. Mirams has enjoyed more prestige than any other film critic in New Zealand and for many years was alone in the field of film criticism, In his book, Speaking Candidly, a study of the sociological effect of the cinema with particular reference to New Zealand conditions, and in many reviews of individual films, he crossed swords with the Censor and with the policy and practice of censorship. We thought it would be interesting, now that he has had a couple of months to settle into his new post, to find out how his thoughts were turning on the problems which faced him. When we entered his sparse little office, we found Mr. Mirams completing an original of those little Censorship forms that hurriedly flash on our screens as the pink lights fade and the curtains part. The following are his replies to some questions we asked him:


John O'Shea: Your enthusiasm for films in the past was well known. Since you have been seeing nearly all the films that come into the country can you still appreciate a good one? Has the edge gone off your appetite? Do you ever visit an ordinary theatre for pleasure?

 

Gordon Mirams:  I still regard the cinema as the most powerful and the most potentially valuable of all the media of mass-communication and entertainment. I can still enjoy a good film when one turns up, but now that I have to see everything and can therefore exercise no selection, I am perhaps more aware than I was before of the disproportion between quality and quantity. For that very reason, however, my appreciation of a good film (or what I consider a good film) when one, does arrive - often quite unexpectedly - is I think at least as keen as it used to be. As for the last part of your question, I did go to see Rope at a theatre recently but that was because it was censored before I took over. From now on it will have to be a very, very exceptional film that will get me in front of a screen except in the course of a day's work.


JO'S: Do you welcome public discussions of censorship in New Zealand, similar to those conducted in two recent discussions over local radio stations? And this interview, for instance?

 

GM: I'm glad you've asked this question, and asked it early, because it will help to clear the decks for action. Yes, I do welcome all such discussions of censorship. For one thing, even if this should in practice sometimes prove embarrassing to the Censor, I hold strongly to the belief that in any community which calls itself democratic, censorship should never be accepted casually, but should be constantly subject to enlightened criticism and challenge, (it probably will be frequently under fire, so the criticism might as well be enlightened). For another thing, there is no doubt at all that the public at present has a very inflated idea of the Censor's prestige and power. To my mind, one of the most valuable recommendations about censorship emerging from the recent Parliamentary Film Inquiry was that the public should increasingly look to the Censor for guidance: this suggests something rather more positive than his customary negative functions. But any such guidance, to be effective, demands as a beginning that the public should know just what the Censor can do - and, more important, what he can't do. The two broadcasts you mentioned indicated, at least to me, that even in these cases the background of knowledge was inadequate. I don't mean that the Censor should be prepared to argue the point with everybody, on any frivolous pretext whatever - but if there is any special group of persons who should be interested in, and are entitled to, a serious discussion of censorship, it is surely such a body as the Film Institute and members of film societies.


JO'S: In what ways do you as Censor find films most frequently offensive?


GM: Can you be a little more precise?


JO'S: Well, for example, what do you think is the most dangerous tendency in films at present?


GM: Still the exploitation of unnecessary violence, the emphasis on murder and brutality for its own sake. In other words, the tendency to sadism - which is a perversion. This may get me into hot water; but I'd say that as between sadism and sex (the other aspect of fiIms which is most frequently under fire) the latter is preferable. After all, murder is not normal for the average person, whereas sex is.


JO'S: Are you aware of any marked change in censorship in New Zealand over the last 20 years? Excluding the special provisions of the war years, that is.


GM: So far as my knowledge extends, there are the same basic concepts and attitudes as 20 years ago. Censorship is even guided by the same regulations in many respects.


JO'S: Do you think the absence of maturity in most films is due to the censorship placed upon filmmakers at the source - by the Johnson Office, for instance?


GM: That is part of the answer, of course, but the other part, the much larger part is this: that I think the absence of maturity in most films is due to the absence of maturity in most film-goers. There is also the point that, without the definite exclusion of juveniles from the cinemas, there must inevitably be a need to bear their probable presence in mind.


False adaptations.
JO'S: The Films Act gives the Censor pretty wide powers. Among them is the power to reject anything not in the interests of the public. Of course, you could drive a cart and horse through this, but do you think the Censor should endeavour to put some check on films based on phony adaptations of novels or plays? I don't mean banning them, but issuing with the Censor's certificate a note of the film's infidelity to its advertised original. This seems to me particularly bad when a trashy film retains the original title of some worthwhile novel or play.


GM: I am, as a friend of the cinema, as much concerned about this as anybody. I mean as an individual. But you are, for a start, suggesting that the Censor should do something which he doesn't officially possess the power to do. You are also asking him to possess a knowledge of all novels and all plays; sufficient for him to pass judgment on the fidelity of the film versions, Above all, I think you are asking him to do your job for you: I mean, to usurp functions which, I believe, are more properly the function and duty of film critics - and of film societies. It is to such quarters that one ought chiefly to look to carry out the job of encouraging the public to appreciate good pictures better and to stay away from bad ones- which is something that one might regard as positive censorship.


Distortions of history.
JO'S: I notice that in your book, Speaking Candidly, you say that "censors might all do better if they concerned themselves less with trying to protect our morals and more with trying to protect our history books.” Have you thought of any way you could protect our history books? A Film Institute witness before the Parliamentary Film Inquiry last year said that he thought the Government should prevent the cinema undoing what the education system of the country was trying to do.

 

GM: This just goes to show that nobody, especially a film critic, should ever go on record with any opinion, lest he should at some later date suffer for his sins by being appointed a Censor and having his own words quoted against him. But my answer to this question is much the same as it was to the previous one: though I think you should know that it has happened in New Zealand for a film to be challenged by the Censor on the score of historical distortion. And I suppose that if he had the statutory power (and I doubt if he has at present), it might sometimes be a good idea if he could preface a film with a title to the effect that it was not a truthful reconstruction of history. But aren't you expecting the poor Censor to know an enormous amount of history?


JO'S: Could you have an advisory panel on specialist matters?


GM: Yes, I suppose I could. Wouldn't it be better if schoolteachers saw "historical" films and, where necessary, applied the correctives themselves?


Foreign Films
JO'S: Do you censor the original sound-track in non-English dialogue films?


GM: Well, I'm glad to say that I understand the dialogue in French films much better than I did two years ago; but until such time as New Zealanders in general understand French, Italian, or German as well as many Continental people understand English I don't think there's much need for the Censor to add this problem to his other headaches.


JO'S: In general, is there a difference in the kind or degree of censorship necessary in English-speaking films as compared with non-English?

 

GM: Yes.  Since, as I've just indicated; it is unlikely that the average member of a New Zealand audience will understand the foreign dialogue, and since (partly on this account) it is unlikely that children will be attracted to see the film but only, in general, the more serious and mature picturegoer, it is possible to adopt a rather more liberal attitude.

 

Political Content 

JO'S: Another local critic, John Reid, has written recently that the chief object of censorship is to watch for political implications rather than moral values. Reid clams that the things which most disturb the authorities are political themes and propaganda of a kind likely to cause heartburn to big financial interests. He cites soft-pedalling of Leftist themes and observes the heavy propaganda in favour of the status quo, American capitalism and the American Way of Life.  Do you think he is justified in claiming that movie-makers are concerned mainly with the preservation of political privilege? Should censorship in New Zealand even attempt to combat this?

 

GM: So far as the object of New Zealand censorship is concerned, I think the authority you quote is off the beam. I can only assure you that I have had no instructions to watch out for anything in particular. On the general point you seem to be making, since you quoted from my own book against me just now, do you mind if I answer you from the same source? "Hollywood may have 'editorial policy' in favour of retaining the status quo. I think it has. But it is no more the result of sinister, concerted design on the part of unprincipled capitalists than the editorial policy of the average newspaper is the result of inherent wickedness and rapacity in its proprietors... It is just that the way of life and the standard of values which the majority of films present as being good and desirable are the way of life and the standard of values which appeal to the people who make pictures and to which they themselves have became accustomed."

 

JO'S: Have you any intention of indicating the authenticity of films that claim to be documentary? I am thinking of such pieces as Street With No Name, Lost Frontiers, Call Northside 777, and The Iron Curtain.

 

GM: There is a difference between intention and desire. Intention implies ability or authority to do something. I doubt if I possess that.


JO'S: What is your attitude to the many films that are likely to be imported shortly which are propaganda against the Soviet Union? "R.A.", the film critic of the Auckland Catholic paper, Zealandia. recently attacked the film Walk a Crooked Mile, as a pernicious fear-mongering film, and suggested that if movie-makers were given their heads, Hollywood would only add to the problems of international relations by its blundering war hysteria.

 

GM:   I envy "R.A." the freedom which, as a critic, he possesses to express such forthright and interesting observations. But as Censor I must remember that I can myself no longer speak as a critic.

 

 

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