Paarungen Decision Upheld
"Tne law in relation to film censorship for adults is a unredeemed ass." That was the reaction of Haro1d White to the majority decision of the Cinematograph Films Censorship Board of Appeal to uphold the censor's decision to excise parts of our May premiere screening, Paarungen. He added that, "as a plain man I can't say I understand the Appeal Board's labyrinthine legal argument but I nevertheless congratulate it for publishing the reasons for its decision."
This decision is in two parts; the majority decision by the Chairman, Mr. W.H. Carson and Miss M.J. Clark, and a dissenting decision by Mr. W.N. Sheat. Both quote the censor's original decision that the film be approved for exhibition only to approved film societies subject to the following excisions:
Part 3 - Reduce views of naked couple copulating by deleting all close views.
Part 7 - Reduce to minimum views of Alice and Kurt copulating particularly deleting views from in front of couple.
Sounds terrible doesn't it? As reported in May's Sequence, the first cut, of about 5 seconds, showed a nude couplele from the waist upwards. The second cut involved a soft focus picture of a couple fully clad.
The majority decision, after reviewing briefly submissions by counsel to the Board, proceeds to several long extracts of court decisions which seem to prove that words can be obscene in certain circumstances, before concluding that the scenes depicted in the film would "offend against a reasonable and recognised standard of decency which ordinary and reasonable members of the community ought to impose and observe in this day and age on entertainment of this sort of a public nature."
The minority decision criticises the somewhat clinical phraseology employed by the censor in describing the scenes to be cut, and describes the context in which the scenes concerned appeared. Then after taking up a submission by the appellant counsel that "once any part of either scene is shown to the audience the "damage" (if any) is done". It discusses the provisions of the Cinematograph Films Act 1961 and finds that it would have been in the power of the censor to rule that while the material in the cuts could be regarded as "contrary to public order and decency" if shown in public cinemas, in the restricted confines of a Film Society the film as a whole should be allowed for exhibiting to members over the age of 18 years.
- reprinted from Sequence, October 1973.
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