Impact (Mar 1972)

fate though in an extreme case even the majority’s finding could be overruled by one of its executives, Mr. Silverthorn or Mr. Belcher. Just how often this happens is something the Board doesn’t talk about. For the five basic viewing members of the Censor Board however, the five who look at most of the films most of the time (though in fact the rules require that only three be present at any one time to constitute an official screening), life must sometimes resemble an incredible, never-ending endurance test. Five days a week they sit there in the darkened viewing theatre being bombarded by an average of three or four movies a day. And of course there’s no question of selectivity, they must see everything; all the terrible bottom of the bill features, the dreary shorts, the promotional films and advertising trailers, all the hundreds of ethnic pictures in their native languages without subtitles, everything that plays for a price in the province of Ontario. The problem of retaining one’s sense of judgement and equilibrium under such trying conditions must be acute. The sheer volume of films passing before the weary eyes of these beleaguered censors is staggering. Figures are not yet available for the 1971-72 censorial season but it is safe pv to assume that well over 700 feature films will have been submitted for examination by the time the totals are taken. And if the precedent of other years holds true, just about a hundred of them will have had cuts of one kind or another made to them, a fairly substantial percentage. These cuts vary as to cause, nature, and length, but they fall into three main categories; violence, language, and nudity (with and without sex). In all categories it is difficult if not impossible to state definitively what will be allowed and what won’t. The Board can’t tell you what its criteria are, they’re too fluid, they depend on the context, the treatment, the intent. In the area of violence it’s the new genre of western with its emphasis on slow motion death scenes and closeups of bullets puncturing flesh that draws the particular ire of the Board. The classic case of this of course is The Wild Bunch of a couple of years ago. Despite the outraged protests of its producers it was significantly cut and the Censors have remained true to form ever since by handling its subsequent imitators in a similar fashion. Italian and Europea erns have been f the censor’ : ~ Cy ..for the 1971-72 season over 700 feature films will have been submitted...And if the precedent of other years holds true, just about a hundred of them will have had cuts, 14 a fairly substantial percentage... re parts, The Hunting Party for example. But, say the members of the Board, they are not against violence per se, just when it is, in their phrase, ‘‘without esthetic justification.” Straw Dogs, directed by the same man, Sam Peckinpah, who gave us The Wild Bunch, and considered by many to be even more graphic in its portrayal of brutal physical violence than its predecessor, got by unscathed. The language issue is something else again. Though the proliferation of four letter words and obscene jargon on the screen is a subject of the greatest concern to Mr. Silverthorn personally (and judging from the letters he receives, to theatre patrons as well) he is finding it increasingly difficult to justify a hard-line stance in this area. As he puts it, “When you can open just about any book and see these words on a printed page, how can we keep cutting them out of films?” The answer is ee of late at least, visas door i i < e basis. sa long way in a0" s in total arri permitted. r. Silverthorn the ough case was The Boys In bre Sox: Band. The Board passed it on the grounds that its liberal sprinkling of obscenities was “artistically merited’? and thus set the precedent for things to come. But what it also did was make sure that all theatres cxhibiting it carried a special notice in their box-offices warning prospective patrons of the nature of the film and its language. Since then the same solution has been used for other pictures of a similar ilk, most recently Carnal Knowledge. And it seems to be working. As it stands now cuts for langu age are usually confined to pictures