LECTURE FIVE
Terms:
The concept of symbols is important in terms of understanding defintions of abstract concepts like sacred/profane; public/private and so on
Pornography is a concept which is hard to define. Clarence Darrow convinced a jury that obscenity is in the mind of the reader (although this may be true it is reasonable to assume it can also be in the mind of the creator of the work).
Defining pronography as a film genre is difficult enough, but then trying to decide which films fall into that category and which do not is often very personal. A film may be seen as having a message or subtext which might be one way to deal with the situation, but there are problems about whether someone has read something INTO the text or whether they are reading OUT of the text.. In reading into the text, the reader imposes something on the text not put there by the author, while reading out means finding the nessage the author out into the work. But how can anyone know?
While the Hayes code was developed by the film industry out of fear that they government might censor the industry and it was better to be self censored rather than other centered. The code specified many things – in part criminal acts had to be punished, religion must be treated with respect, and sex should be purged rom the films. Even married couples required double beds.
American censorship is often rooted in religion and America is the most fundamental of the Christian countries. Some feel that in Europe the union of a religion with the state made religious factionalism difficult. To be against the State religion was to be against the state. In America that didn’t happen so conflicting sects developed including heavily fundamentalist ones.
As a result, European films were more able to develop without the severe censorship fears in America (although there was some censorship). Sex and nudity appeared more in European films and these came to America where they played in “art houses”. Among the more important films in this breaking of the rules here were:
Last Tango received an “X” rating (when the rating were (GMRX general, mature, restricted and adults only) It has been controversial. ever since. It got an Academy Award nomination for Brando and Bertolucci while Italy convicted Bertolucci on obscenity and he got a short suspended sentence and loss of civil rights (voting) for 4 years,
The Night Porter while not as graphic sexually as Last Tango had problems with women’s groups and Jewish groups who saw the film as arguing that both groups want to be debased.
Salo or the 120 Days of Sodom is a wild film which has had nothing but problems when released. The director Passolini had been murdered before the films release and as a result was not involved.
Ai no Corrido which deals with an intense sexual relationship which develops in sado masochistic ways and winds up with murder and mutilation was seized by the police in America but has since also become available.