Did I direct that?
Marshall Herskovitz
The debate over the acceptability of so-called film sanitizing -- those companies that buy DVD's of popular films and edit them to remove sexual, violent or blasphemous content, then sell or rent the edited DVD's to the public -- has centered on the subject of family values.
Hollywood films are seen as part of a general media assault on the moral foundations that have made our nation great, and these companies allow millions of people to see movies that otherwise would be too offensive.
Though I am a film producer and director -- and therefore part of the assault -- I share the deep concern of millions of parents regarding our children's exposure to toxic ideas and images, but I believe this discussion of values has been superficial and limited.
One of the most important values in a free society is respect for the integrity of the artist. One need only look at the rigidified art produced during the Soviet era to understand what happens when artists' rights of free expression are repressed. The role of the artist in history has often been to see what others cannot yet see, to express what others find objectionable to express.
The great artistic works of our civilization are littered with objectionable material: the nude sculpture David, the brutal murder in "Crime and Punishment," the horrific blinding in "King Lear," and on and on and on. And none of those great works would have been produced without their societies' commitment to the integrity of the artist. Free of censorship. Free of editing. Free of distortions of the original work. David was not sculpted with a loin cloth, and one can imagine Michelangelo being less than pleased at such a revision of his masterwork.
So what are we to make of the Family Movie Act, which passed in the House of Representatives last week, which allows the sale of DVD players that are pre-programmed to edit out so-called indecent content from thousands of movies, without the permission of the creators?
What I make of it is that it's a clear violation of copyright law. The company in question, Clear Play, claims that it is not infringing on copyright since its machines use the original DVD of the film in question and make the changes in the hard drive of their player, all in the sanctity of the customer's home. Sounds good, but the reality is different.
My argument is not with the end-user: any one of us is free to do whatever we want with a DVD we've purchased -- edit it, rip it up, eat it if we want to.
My argument is with Clear Play, which is editing films without the artists' permission, then commercially distributing that edited version. Look on the title page of any book -- this is clearly what copyright law prohibits. These issues are explored in AMC's new documentary, "BLEEP! Censoring Hollywood?" The documentary shows before-and-after sanitizing scenes from movies such as "Troy" and "Traffic," which I co-produced.
The bottom line is that in a digital age, the artist's work can be boiled down to a series of numbers, a unique binary code. That code can be stored on a chip or a hard drive or a DVD, it doesn't matter. But any changing of that code by a third party for commercial purposes -- again, we're not talking about what you do in your own home -- without permission of the artist is a copyright infringement.
And make no mistake about it, Clear Play is just the tip of the iceberg.
There are constituencies right now who would pay to see films edited to be free of smoking, or alcohol consumption, or abortion, or blacks or Jews. There are even plenty of people who would pay to see films made pornographic! We are entering an era where "customization of content" will be entirely the norm, unless we act to protect the original vision of the artist.
The solution for parents who fear their children will be harmed by objectionable films is for them not to purchase them. The children will survive the deprivation, and Hollywood will survive the loss of income.
The greatest concentration of media toxicity is in broadcast television anyway, which is not covered by the First Amendment and therefore subject to federal regulation. I support efforts by parents to remove objectionable influences from network television, because it is so hard to control who will come in contact with those influences.
But a DVD has the same legal weight as a book, and if you find either of them objectionable, our laws have for hundreds of years provided only one recourse: don't buy it.
Marshall Herskovitz produced the Academy Award-winning motion pictures
"Legends of the Fall," "Traffic" and "The Last Samurai," and directed "Jack the Bear" and "Dangerous Beauty."
This story appeared in The Daily Herald on page 2
http://www.harktheherald.com/modules.ph ... =0&thold=0
