Censorship and Self-Regulation – Richard Maltby

Censorship and Self-Regulation

A blend of ‘governmentally administered systems of control over the expression of political ideas in film’ and ‘systems of self-regulation operated by entertainment cinema industries to ensure that the content of films conforms to the moral, social and ideological mores of their national culture’

Censorship

        • Form of market censorship
        • Power to those in control of production

Self-Regulation

• “The most effective form of market censorship prevents movies from being made rather than  suppressing them after production, but in either guise, censorship is a practice of power, a form of surveillance over the ideas, images, and representations circulating in a particular culture.”
• Hollywood’s dominance due to form of self-regulation

Main Argument

Page 48…

        • In 1915, US Supreme Court:
            • motion pictures ‘a business pure and simple, originated and conducted for profit’
            • is not ‘part of the press of the country or as organs of public opinion’
            • as a result, not protected by First Amendment
            • Liable to state/municipal censorship
            • Legal definition = implicit censorship

Film Censorship History

• “In practice, the great majority of film censorship, at least in the English-speaking world, has been concerned more with cinema’s representations, particularly of sex and violence, than with its expression of ideas or political sentiments.”

Light Bulb Moment

        • 19th century Europe, Americas, and Australasia:

• Divided public entertainment performances into two categories
• ‘legitimate theatre’ vs ‘spectacles de curiosite’ (marionettes, cafes-concerts, magic shows, panoramas, animal exhibitions
• 1906; theatrical censorship ceased, but cinema (spectacle) controlled by local authorities

Origins Continued

• Proliferation (rapid growth) of local controls led to self-regulation national institutions in US, Britain, and Europe ~ censorship of Europe vs. States
• Conflict between municipal public safety regulations and emerging national distribution industries (circulation of product)
• American National Board of Censorship (NBC) created in 1909

Origins Continued

• Motion Pictures Patents Company (MPPC) created in 1908
• Developed standardized formulas of acceptable content (prohibitions and encouragements)
• Narrative strategy encouraging respect towards moving pictures (order and explanation of dominant ideology, and implicit political censorship of triumph of virtue)
• NBC lost authority after The Birth of a Nation

Origins Continued

• 1915, essential strategy in place; system of containment, overseen by internal regulation more subtly compulsory and pervasive than any legal prior censorship might be
• Outcry today vs. then
• The justification for censorship was invariably paternalistic. Cinema was held to exert a powerful influence over its viewers, particularly over those susceptible groups which comprised the bulk of its audience: children, workers, and those described by colonial rhetoric as ‘subject races’ (or, in the USA, immigrants).”
• Industry censorship/self-regulation lead by fatherly example

Argument Enhancement

• “The aim of censorship was to police exhibition rather than to prohibit it, and both distributors and exhibitors recognized that it was in their economic interest to co-operate with established censorship practices.”
• Self-regulation after code    
• Vigorous pro-censorship not due to explicit sexuality of movies, rather larger social factors:
• Labour
• Post-war depression
• Resulting in middle-class anxieties; disruptive condition of working class
• Protestant groups guiding these protests

Social Factors

• Former Postmaster-General
• President of the Motion Picture Producers and Distributors of America, Inc. (MPPDA); established in March 1922
• MPPDA constructed as an instrument to resolve contradictions of efficiently restricting Hollywood’s extravagance
• Hays: movies are to offend as small a proportion of country’s cultural and legislative leadership as possible

Will Hays

• Public relations policy affiliated MPPDA with civic and religious organizations, women’s clubs, and parent-teacher associations
• Hays: quality of pictures (movies) should not need censorship
• Self-regulation as form of industrial self-determination

Will Hays Continued

• “In part he achieved this by conceding that there was no dispute over the need to regulate entrainment or over the standards by which it should be regulated, only over who possessed the appropriate authority to police the apparatus of representation.”

Re-Imagining American Communities: Hollywood, Hawks, and Ford in 1939 - Belton, John

Belton summarizes Boardwell who argued that classical Hollywood cinema is character centered and that its narratives are driven by dramatic agents in clearly defined goals. Progress is then built around the central character encountering and overcoming a serious of obstacles and closure occurs with that characters attainment or failure to achieve those goals. Belton also paraphrase Boardwell in that the obstacles that each character faces throughout the plot are set so that the characters may redeem themselves and re-invent their character so that he/she can be accepted by society or to restore the respect of their community that they once had. One of the main points that Belton tries to make about stagecoach and the western genre of the time is that individuals are only successful when they join a
community.

The film which Belton uses to prove these points is Stagecoach. In the film the passengers treat each other according to their positions in the community. Neither the Doc nor Dallas are respected by the other passengers, the Doc for being an alcoholic and Dallas for being a prostitute. While Mallory is highly respected for being considered high class and the wife to a calvery officer. This is proven in the film when their reach their first stop and the officer asks Mallory if she wishes to continue with the trip, due to the danger of Geronimo attacking. The officer doesn’ t think to ask Dallas what she thinks until Ringo points out that she is a lady too and should be asked. Another instance is when they are on the stagecoach continuing the journey and Mallory is offered water, she is served in a silver cup whereas Dallas isn’ t even offered any until Ringo once again points out that she is a lady too and should be offered water, even then she is made to drink out of the canteen instead of the silver cup.

As the film progresses these characters are faced with the obstacle of having to help Mallory give birth. The Doc is forced to sober up and deliver the baby and Dallas stays up to help Mallory take care of the child as she sleeps. The Doc is thanked and cheered after the deliver and Dallas is accepted as a kind and caring lady after helping Mallory in her time of need.

Fear and Favour

Media moguls have often promoted politicians who would serve their interests. But at Fox News, it isn’t stopping there. http://www.nytimes.com/2010/10/04/opinion/04krugman.html

David Bordwell – Classical Hollywood Cinemas: Narrational Principles and Procedures

In the Bordwell reading Classical Hollywood Cinema: Narrational Principles and
Procedures he focuses on the structure of classical Hollywood cinema and the
way it is represented to form normalized options for representing the fabula (plot) and
syuzhet (story) and how this dictated classic Hollywood style. In Classical Hollywood Cinema, representation, structure and act are the 3 types of narration that reveal deeper levels
meaning. Films are structured by the basic storyline (Canonic story) and the
Syuzhet Pattern. Hollywood narration generally has two plots and is separated
by unity of time, space and action.
Main themes and ideas present in Classical Hollywood Film:

• Psychologically defined individuals who struggle to solve a clear cut problem or to attain specific goals
• Characters enter into conflict with each other or with external circumstances
• The end of every story is either a decisive victory or defeat, a resolution or an achievement

These sequences are marked by stylistic features such as the fade, wipe-out, or a sound bridge. The camera is use to manipulate the narrative structure through the body language of the characters,
the editing, and the mise-en-scene. The classical style of this cinema is to
motivate style compositionally, encourage the spectators to construct a
coherent consistent of time and space of the fabula action and to limit the
number of particular technical devises.  These structural principles of
Hollywood cinema are presented to an audience which is consciously aware of the
canonic storyline and knows what to expect from the fabula and syuzhet. The
audience develops their own hypothesis about the film based on their previous
knowledge and unresolved issues focus the spectators view to the following
sequences. Quick information and repetition keeps attention of the issue/plot
in the moment. Furthermore Classic Hollywood cinema is structured in a way that
stories can be told through the representation and manipulation of stylistic
elements.

questions

1. Based on the readings/ presentation what are some of the main characteristic
that identify classical Hollywood Cinema.

2.How did these characteristics of classical Hollywood cinema influence other
cinema? and why does Bordwell say that classicism cannot be identified with
Hollywood cinema?