The @#%&*% Haze code!!!!

[James Steven Beverly]

I had watched a documentary the other day William Wellman in which part of it talked about Wellman's 1935 film The Public Enemy, one of Cagney's best movies. I had posted a thread on the Special Effects section about some of the wild things they did back in the old days like using sharp shooters and live ammo near the actors including Cagney. Well TCM ran a retrospective of James Cagney's work on New Year's Day and one of the films was The Public Enemy. Having only seen the film once many years ago I watched the film and was utterly amazed by how honest, raw and yes violent the film was. It reminded me of much more modern films as did the original Scarface with Paul Munie. The end scene where Cagney's trussed up body, the bullet hole and blood on his bandaged head, falling into his mother's home as his brother opens the door, is one of the most powerful images in cinema. This film was made before the newly adopted Haze code was strictly enforced.

 

I have seen so many films from the mid and early 30s that had nudity, violence, and above all honesty that it makes me SO angry every time I think about the shackles this oppressive, narrow-minded, absurd, destructive set of mis-guided fanatical edicts imprisoned and constrained the artists, writers and directors with that I wonder what truth in the most expressive of arts was lost while some of the greatest changes in human history were taking place. Part of the reason I think about this is because of things like Peckinpah's The Wild Bunch being given an X rating a while back and the discouragement of dissenting views in recent years. In the late 60s when The Wild Bunch was made, dissent and self examination were everywhere. It now seems that that questioning of authority and social and moral values is more likely to be looked down on and ridiculed rather than hailed as as the enlightened social revolution that it was.

 

Maybe because I come from the 70s generation, I feel very guarded and defensive when I get the impression anyone is trying to tell me what's best for me and what's best for society in general and what I should believe. It all seems a bit un-American to me. The new conservatism may have imploded under the gross incompetence and blatant close to criminal mis-management of the last 8 years but I feel it's effects may long be with us and the responsibility lies with us, to never let this kind of censorship overtake us again because those who forget the lessons history teaches are condemned to relearn them.

Edited January 4, 2008 by James Steven Beverly

[David Mullen ASC]

Unfortunately, the Hays Code, like the later MPAA ratings system, was an internal way of circumventing external censorship and government control over creative content. There already were many censorship boards in many states by the 1930's that required their approval before a movie could be screened in that town. I think even the Catholic Church in the U.S. was threatening to tell their churchgoers to no longer go to the movies. So Hollywood announcing that they would clean-up their own films was a way of diluting the power of these separate censorship boards.

 

Yes, self-censorship is still censorship, though it was being done by creative people looking for ways to be suggestive without getting caught. It certainly helped create some of the classic sexual innuendo of 1930's and 40's movies. I was watching Sam Fuller's "40 Guns" and wondering how he got away with some of the not-so-subtle sexual references in the dialogue...

 

Barbara Stanwyck: "Can I hold your gun?" Man (handing it to her): "OK, but be careful -- it spits."

 

And just look at some of the phallic art direction in Josef Von Sternberg's "Scarlet Empress"...

[Jonathan Bowerbank]

It certainly helped create some of the classic sexual innuendo of 1930's and 40's movies. I was watching Sam Fuller's "40 Guns" and wondering how he got away with some of the not-so-subtle sexual references in the dialogue...

 

The homosexual ennuendo in "The Big Combo" is the best example I've ever witnessed.

[daniel eagan]

A lot of misinformation here. The Public Enemy was released in 1931, not 1935. And it is inconsiderate to give away the ending of a film that some people may not have seen. Paul Muni was the star of the original Scarface, not "Paul Munie." The "Haze code" should be the Hays Office, which is the informal name for the MPDAA (later MPAA), the agency responsible for the Production Code, which was published in 1927, four years before The Public Enemy was released. The Code was strengthened in 1933, but not strictly enforced until 1934, three years after The Public Enemy. The strongly moralistic ending of The Public Enemy actually conforms to what the Production Code espoused at the time.

 

Occurrences of nudity in Hollywood films are extremely limited before 1933, and almost nonexistent afterwards, at least until the 1960s. Violence was permissible only under rigid guidelines. Violence from films in the 1940s is actually more detailed and sadistic. The Wild Bunch never received an X rating; it was released as an R. I'm not sure what your argument is at any rate. The Public Enemy, released under fairly strict censorship guidelines, is still raw, powerful, and violent. The Wild Bunch, released at the tail end of censorship influence, is still firmly moralistic and safely within norms of acceptable violence. You can see more detailed violence any night of the week on broadcast television, despite seven years of abominable leadership from the Bush administration.

 

And doesn't censorship, or at least some set of agreed-upon conventions, help protect consumers from things like snuff films?

[Brad Grimmett]

And doesn't censorship, or at least some set of agreed-upon conventions, help protect consumers from things like snuff films?

I don't know. Does it? We hear about snuff films, which leads me to believe that they at least exist to some extent. Or maybe they're more myth than anything else? I don't know. Regardless, MPAA or not, theaters wouldn't ever be playing snuff films. They would self censor. Which is what they would do in other cases as well I think.

[David Mullen ASC]

Some degree of content control is inevitable for something as popular with the masses as movies are. The question is how much regulation of content there should be and who should do it.

 

Should it be done at the time of origination by the filmmakers, right after post by the distributors, or right after the distributors for a national organization like the MPAA, or by a national governmental body, or by smaller local organizations and government?

 

Seems to me that given a certain public climate, the filmmakers themselves should have the largest control over their content. And the worse-case scenario would be city-by-city censorship boards.

 

No, it's not a pretty situation no matter how you look at it.

 

I do think it is a bit silly though that for risky material meant for intelligent adult audiences, there isn't an easy outlet due to the restrictions by newspapers and TV stations on carrying advertisements.

 

I also admit that the pre-Code movies of the early 1930's can be fun, and by modern standards, are pretty tame. My wife and I joke about how much "naughtiness" is suggested in the later movies made under the Hays Office restrictions by people like Lubitsch and Wilder.

[John Sprung]

I don't know. Does it? We hear about snuff films, which leads me to believe that they at least exist to some extent. Or maybe they're more myth than anything else?

Al Qaeda shoots videos of some of their suicide bombings -- that would seem to qualify. In fact, they did several beheading videos, too.

 

 

-- J.S.

[Valerio Sacchetto]

Al Qaeda shoots videos of some of their suicide bombings -- that would seem to qualify. In fact, they did several beheading videos, too.

 

I wouldn't call those snuff movies, they're really a different thing. They're not movies. If you place those among snuff films then you'd have to treat news reports and amateur videos the same way and that wouldn't be good at all.

I know that's just arbitrary but in the end isn't that the very nature of censorship, costumes and morale?

[James Steven Beverly]

A lot of misinformation here. The Public Enemy was released in 1931, not 1935. And it is inconsiderate to give away the ending of a film that some people may not have seen. Paul Muni was the star of the original Scarface, not "Paul Munie." The "Haze code" should be the Hays Office, which is the informal name for the MPDAA (later MPAA), the agency responsible for the Production Code, which was published in 1927, four years before The Public Enemy was released. The Code was strengthened in 1933, but not strictly enforced until 1934, three years after The Public Enemy. The strongly moralistic ending of The Public Enemy actually conforms to what the Production Code espoused at the time.

 

Occurrences of nudity in Hollywood films are extremely limited before 1933, and almost nonexistent afterwards, at least until the 1960s. Violence was permissible only under rigid guidelines. Violence from films in the 1940s is actually more detailed and sadistic. The Wild Bunch never received an X rating; it was released as an R. I'm not sure what your argument is at any rate. The Public Enemy, released under fairly strict censorship guidelines, is still raw, powerful, and violent. The Wild Bunch, released at the tail end of censorship influence, is still firmly moralistic and safely within norms of acceptable violence. You can see more detailed violence any night of the week on broadcast television, despite seven years of abominable leadership from the Bush administration.

 

And doesn't censorship, or at least some set of agreed-upon conventions, help protect consumers from things like snuff films?

 

I stand corrected, I also stand by my statements. The police will protect us from snuff films because actually murdering someone for whatever reason including but not limited to movie making, is...what's the word.... oh, yes that it...ILLEGAL! however take Hotel and House of a Thousand Corpses and Last house on the Left and The Devil's Rejects and Pulp Fiction....Some of which I hate and won't watch and some of which I love and will watch again and again. WHO AM I to say Hotel should be censored because IIII don't like it or the concept of it? You're right about The Wild Bunch never being rated X it was only THREATED with an X AND an NC-17:

 

Following the film's production, it was severely edited by the studio and producer Phil Feldman (in Sam Peckinpah's absence), cutting its length by about 20 minutes - remarkably, none of the excised film was violent. Due to its violence, the film was originally threatened with an "X" rating by the newly created MPAA (Motion Picture Association of America), but an "R" rating was its final decision. The film was restored to its original "director's cut" length of 143 minutes and threatened with an NC-17 rating when submitted to the MPAA ratings board in 1993 prior to a re-release in 1994, holding up the film's re-release for many months. The reinstated scenes (including two important flashbacks from Pike's past, and a battle scene between Pancho Villa's rebels and Gen. Mapache at the telegraph station) depicted the underlying character and motivations of the leader of the Bunch. With numerous, elaborate montage sequences with staccato shifts, the film set a record for more edits (3,643 shot-to-shot edits at one count) than any other Technicolor film up to its time.

[James Steven Beverly]

Unfortunately, the Hays Code, like the later MPAA ratings system, was an internal way of circumventing external censorship and government control over creative content. There already were many censorship boards in many states by the 1930's that required their approval before a movie could be screened in that town. I think even the Catholic Church in the U.S. was threatening to tell their churchgoers to no longer go to the movies. So Hollywood announcing that they would clean-up their own films was a way of diluting the power of these separate censorship boards.

 

Yes, self-censorship is still censorship, though it was being done by creative people looking for ways to be suggestive without getting caught. It certainly helped create some of the classic sexual innuendo of 1930's and 40's movies. I was watching Sam Fuller's "40 Guns" and wondering how he got away with some of the not-so-subtle sexual references in the dialogue...

 

Barbara Stanwyck: "Can I hold your gun?" Man (handing it to her): "OK, but be careful -- it spits."

 

And just look at some of the phallic art direction in Josef Von Sternberg's "Scarlet Empress"...

 

That's because Fuller didn't give a f*ck :D You ever see that wonderful documentary on Fuller, The Typewriter, the Rifle & the Movie Camera? It's a terrific account of Fuller and his work if you haven't. The man is positively inspirational! Tarantino had a great comment about how Fuller wasn't an indy film maker and that it was amazing what he got away with under the studio system! Gotta love him! B)

Edited January 5, 2008 by James Steven Beverly

[James Steven Beverly]

I stand corrected, I also stand by my statements. The police will protect us from snuff films because actually murdering someone for whatever reason including but not limited to movie making, is...what's the word.... oh, yes that it...ILLEGAL! however take Hotel and House of a Thousand Corpses and Last house on the Left and The Devil's Rejects and Pulp Fiction....Some of which I hate and won't watch and some of which I love and will watch again and again. WHO AM I to say Hotel should be censored because IIII don't like it or the concept of it? You're right about The Wild Bunch never being rated X it was only THREATED with an X AND an NC-17:

 

Following the film's production, it was severely edited by the studio and producer Phil Feldman (in Sam Peckinpah's absence), cutting its length by about 20 minutes - remarkably, none of the excised film was violent. Due to its violence, the film was originally threatened with an "X" rating by the newly created MPAA (Motion Picture Association of America), but an "R" rating was its final decision. The film was restored to its original "director's cut" length of 143 minutes and threatened with an NC-17 rating when submitted to the MPAA ratings board in 1993 prior to a re-release in 1994, holding up the film's re-release for many months. The reinstated scenes (including two important flashbacks from Pike's past, and a battle scene between Pancho Villa's rebels and Gen. Mapache at the telegraph station) depicted the underlying character and motivations of the leader of the Bunch. With numerous, elaborate montage sequences with staccato shifts, the film set a record for more edits (3,643 shot-to-shot edits at one count) than any other Technicolor film up to its time.

 

OH and BEFORE you feel the need to correct me again as you did with mis-spelling Paul Muni's name, I meant Hostel. I wouldn't want to offend your anal-retentive sensibilities. :rolleyes:

[Leo Anthony Vale]

I don't know. Does it? We hear about snuff films, which leads me to believe that they at least exist to some extent. Or maybe they're more myth than anything else? I don't know. Regardless, MPAA or not, theaters wouldn't ever be playing snuff films. They would self censor. Which is what they would do in other cases as well I think.

 

Michael and Roberta Findlay's 'Snuff' was advertised as having actual mutilations and killings and they paid protesters to picket

the movie.

The advertising slogan was "A film that could only be made in South America, where life is CHEAP!"

 

This is the origin of snuff films, the stuff of urban legend.

 

M.Findlay was decapitated in a helicopter accident atop the PanAm building while heading off to France to demonstrate a new 3-d system.

 

He also directed 'Shreik of the Mutilated', in which he played, according to IMDb, "(uncredited) .... Decapitation Onlooker"

[James Steven Beverly]

He was ACTUALLY decapitated twice........good trick, he needs to show me how he did that....you know in case the issue ever comes up.....that's assuming of course that the second decapitation didn't kill him. :blink:

[Brad Grimmett]

I wouldn't call those snuff movies, they're really a different thing. They're not movies. If you place those among snuff films then you'd have to treat news reports and amateur videos the same way and that wouldn't be good at all.

I know that's just arbitrary but in the end isn't that the very nature of censorship, costumes and morale?

Why is it OK for the news or a documentary to use a shot of a suicide bomber blowing up or people really dying, but it isn't OK for a feature film to show it? I'm just playing devil's advocate here, but I'm really curious why most people (and I think most people DO think this way) think that this is OK to show this kind of thing on the news, but it's not OK in a movie. You're still seeing it. Why does the forum in which you see it matter? I think people digest it in the same way, so I'm wondering what the perceived difference is in where the footage is shown or viewed. Yes, people are used to seeing this stuff on the news, but should they be? How is the news doing us a service by showing us a dead body instead of just saying someone is dead?

I'm interested in hearing what you folks have to say about this.

[Valerio Sacchetto]

Why is it OK for the news or a documentary to use a shot of a suicide bomber blowing up or people really dying, but it isn't OK for a feature film to show it? I'm just playing devil's advocate here, but I'm really curious why most people (and I think most people DO think this way) think that this is OK to show this kind of thing on the news, but it's not OK in a movie. You're still seeing it. Why does the forum in which you see it matter? I think people digest it in the same way, so I'm wondering what the perceived difference is in where the footage is shown or viewed. Yes, people are used to seeing this stuff on the news, but should they be? How is the news doing us a service by showing us a dead body instead of just saying someone is dead?

I'm interested in hearing what you folks have to say about this.

 

My reply was mostly about the catalogation of things.

Like you said, and i absolutely agree, the news doesn't need to show you the gruesome details of a story (or the emotional part of it) but it's up to the news system to regulate itself not the censors. I'm in no way saying that it's right (or wrong) to show death, destruction or abuse, i'm saying that you have to treat information and entertainment like different things.

If you're on the street shooting something and someone kills a man in front of your camera what you've recorded is not a snuff movie, it's not even a movie!

If you stage the killing and record it with the intention of making a movie that would be a snuff movie under every aspect.

It's just semantics, i know, because if you enjoy a movie and later you discover that someone has been really killed that doesn't change what you've experienced. Essentially i agree with you i only wanted to specify what i meant.

[Brad Grimmett]

Essentially i agree with you i only wanted to specify what i meant.

Valerio,

I didn't mean to specifically refer to you, and I didn't mean to infer that you thought any differently. I was just intending to pose a question to anyone and everyone here.

[Daniel Sheehy]

I'm just playing devil's advocate here, but I'm really curious why most people (and I think most people DO think this way) think that this is OK to show this kind of thing on the news, but it's not OK in a movie. You're still seeing it.

To me, its the difference between entertainment and news.

 

I think it is sometimes necessary for the news to show some of the gory details, simply because there is sometimes no other way to really convey the true horror of what's happening.

 

I do take issue with it being made an item of entertainment, staged at will to satisfy personal taste, because it can have the effect of desensitising the public to such horrible events when they occur for real.

 

I suppose the question should be; 'What am I hoping to accomplish by showing this?'

[Brad Grimmett]

I think it is sometimes necessary for the news to show some of the gory details, simply because there is sometimes no other way to really convey the true horror of what's happening.

True, but how many times is it really necessary to convey the true horror? 911 would probably be a good example, but I can't think of many others. And very little of the footage of 911 shown on the news showed anyone actually dying.

I suppose the question should be; 'What am I hoping to accomplish by showing this?'

In virtually every case the answer to that question seems to be, "to increase the ratings".

[James Steven Beverly]

True, but how many times is it really necessary to convey the true horror? 911 would probably be a good example, but I can't think of many others. And very little of the footage of 911 shown on the news showed anyone actually dying.

 

In virtually every case the answer to that question seems to be, "to increase the ratings".

Yeah but WHO decides what is necessary? You? So if YOU don't think that showing a mutilated body in every detail is necessary, then what? ....no one else should be allowed to see it? Then what about the scene in Pan's Labyrinth where the officer's cheek is sliced open with his teeth showing? Pretty gruesome but a very effective statement, still that was done to increase box office rather than as part of a great artist's statement about the cruelty of life in the real world and therefore I shouldn't be allowed to see it? What about the soldier picking up his own arm in Saving Private Ryan during the Omaha beach invasion sequence? Was that a ratings booster or a statement from a genius film maker trying to show the realities of what those men faced? I suppose I shouldn't be able to see that as well. Hows about the blatant sexuality in Last Tango in Paris or Straw Dogs or The Sailor Who Fell from Grace with the Sea? Maybe I shouldn't be allowed to see that. Let's go with less artistically minded films how about the eating of corpses in Night of the Living Dead? Too much for decent society? what about Shaft, Kill Bill, Predator, Aliens, Ed Gein, Bring Me the Head of Alfredo Garcia, Last House on the Left, The Hills Have Eyes, Reservoir Dogs then of course there's the films about violence like Munich, Shindler's List United 93 and World Trade Center ? Are these the films the films that don't need to show the death and destruction in order to make there point or is their point and are these the ones that I should be protected from? Let me know which ones should be kept from me so protect me from...............what exactly is it I'am being protected from again? <_<

Edited January 10, 2008 by James Steven Beverly

[Daniel Sheehy]

In virtually every case the answer to that question seems to be, "to increase the ratings".

How sad.

 

I feel that war sometimes needs to shown in all its gory detail, simply to knock off the shine that politicians like to put on it with their 'death or glory speeches'.

But on the other hand, filling our entertainment with violence, real or stylized has the effect of desensitising viewers to the real horror.

[Brad Grimmett]

what exactly is it I'am being protected from again? <_<

I think you're confusing what I said. I was referring mainly to TV news, and you're referring to fiction films. Also, I never made a judgment on what I thought was right or wrong, only on what I believe to be the reason "if it bleeds, it leads" is a mantra in TV news.

[James Steven Beverly]

Oh... well that's very different....never mind. :rolleyes: It does bring up an interesting point though, if you really want to make money, make a G or PG-13 film. That's why so many films cut themselves ragged to make that "Family Friendly" and in MY opinion, completely arbitrary, rating. There's a scene in one of my favorite movies, Galaxy Quest, where Sigorney Weaver's dialog track SAYS Well SCREW THAT!!! while her lips say Well F*CK THAT!!! which, given the situation, is much more appropriate and I think, woulda been funnier. EVEN here, I gotta put a * instead of a U because of, well basically censorship. I accept this because I choose to be here, but I don't particularly like it. I feel these restrictions are restrictive and some what pandering to a climate of repression currently in vogue in these United States, but as I said I choose to be here so I try and follow the rules as much as possible. I love language, as any writer does, and to me, foul language makes statements in way that no other phrasing can. Take a Tarentino film, how could you do Pulp Fiction or Kill Bill with out course language? WHY should these films be essentially punished at the Box Office because the number of the word F*ck, exceeds 1? By the time kids are in the 6th and 7th grades, they've heard every dirty word there is, I know I had! So why pretend such language doesn't exist or isn't used? If they're under 10 or 12 or even 13, their damn parents should KNOW where they are and what movies they're watching, MINE DID! I am SOOOOOO SSSSIIIICCCKKK of the "We've GOT to protect the children" argument that I could throw up!! Protect them from what, LIFE as it is? They BETTER learn what's out there, if they wanna survive in it.

 

I don't know, it just seems to me that hypocrisy seem to rule every aspect of modern society (perhaps not so modern society as well) and it is the imperative of the artist to tell the truth but how can they tell the truth when they are confined by censorship and restriction. I think back to that Mapplethorpe exhibition a while ago and the out cry that public funds were used for the exhibit. It showed art, and I believe it was very much intended as art, that did not appeal to me but was art I had never scene before. The writings of the Marque De Sade, again, art, not mainstream art, but art none the less and art the whole human experience would be poorer without. The comedy of Lenny Bruce, who fought till the day he died for the freedom of speech to speak the truth as HE knew it existed in the language he knew would convey that truth, The film makers of the 60s and 70s that finally buried down the Haze Code and The Catholic League and the Bible Belt small town government censorship laws in order to addressed issues and ideas relevant to us all in a way they needed to be told. Nowadays we got new organizations that HAVE to make a profit and right wingers lobbying to restrict what we should see and hear. I personally NEVER want to go back to the days where married couples had twin beds on TV and a man had to have one foot on the floor if he sat on a bed with a woman, but if we don't guard the hard won freedoms we fought so long to recover after the Haze Code was implemented, we could loose them again. B)