466-467 Empire of Passion and In the Realm of the Senses

[Tommaso]

(In fact, is there any other artistically significant film that features a record of child sexual abuse clearly shown to be causing pain?)

David's comparison to "Salo" is to the point and the most obvious answer to your question. Given the legislation, especially in Australia as David points out, I still wonder how companies around the world get away with releasing it, UNLESS it's for the clear status of that film as a work of art. So why could the BFI release "Salo" uncut when it's still not possible to show "Senses" unaltered? Okay, the actors there are not exactly children, but clearly supposed to be underage teenagers, at least some of them, as David points out. But I still don't understand the difference if it comes to the Child Protection Act.

[MichaelB]

So why could the BFI release "Salo" uncut when it's still not possible to show "Senses" unaltered? Okay, the actors there are not exactly children, but clearly supposed to be underage teenagers, at least some of them, as David points out. But I still don't understand the difference if it comes to the Child Protection Act.

Two absolutely vital differences:

1. All the tortures in Salo were simulated;
2. All the actors were consenting adults (regardless of the onscreen impression).

So the Protection of Children Act doesn't apply. Believe me, if it did, there's no way the film would have got through unscathed - the BBFC was extremely careful with this title, given the notoriety!

In British law, the crucial distinction is between a staged representation of animal cruelty/child abuse and a recording of the real thing. Salo doesn't quite cross that line, but Ai no corrida does. From what David says, it sounds as though Australian law/censorship policy doesn't admit such a distinction.

[bigP]

So why could the BFI release "Salo" uncut when it's still not possible to show "Senses" unaltered? Okay, the actors there are not exactly children, but clearly supposed to be underage teenagers, at least some of them, as David points out. But I still don't understand the difference if it comes to the Child Protection Act.

Two absolutely vital differences:

1. All the tortures in Salo were simulated;
2. All the actors were consenting adults (regardless of the onscreen impression).

So the Protection of Children Act doesn't apply. Believe me, if it did, there's no way the film would have got through unscathed - the BBFC was extremely careful with this title, given the notoriety!

In British law, the crucial distinction is between a staged representation of animal cruelty/child abuse and a recording of the real thing. Salo doesn't quite cross that line, but Ai no corrida does. From what David says, it sounds as though Australian law/censorship policy doesn't admit such a distinction.

It all seems to be a very thin line to tread between these various protective acts. To allow adults to appear underage and go through simulated tortures, and to draw the line at actual unsimulated "child abuse" strangely makes me think that the good people of the BBFC are somewhat on "our" side. I mean that it appears the BBFC will not step in and impliment cuts unless their hands are all but tied.

Once a law is in place, it is almost impossible to overturn, and to allow exceptions, when they are clearly as controversial as that which is highlighted in Oshima's film, would be absolutely scandalous. All it would take, as MichaelB points out, would be one headline in the Daily Mail and it would ensure an absolute riot from the "good citizen's" of the UK to follow single file onto a witch-hunt bandwagon. The BBFC would be villified by the masses who will campaign for the most base morality system, and damn whatever values and integrity the offending material may offer. As a result, certain BBFC heads would roll to appease the chaos, the (already very leniant in the grand scheme of things) protection acts will be tightened in the extreme to make it appear that these were the opinions of only a few select individuals who have since been slung out of office, and the future possibility of a fully uncut release of In the Realm of the Senses would be all but extinguished, at least set back by a number of years at best.

It's a shame that I can't get to see the complete version of a film that I hold in high esteem, and I have to settle for my imperfect, six plus minutes missing in the Nouveaux release (which incidentally, I think I read, was a distributor edit for excess dialogue, and no cuts were implimented by the BBFC other than the Optical Zoom in the offending shot, all the sex scenes are intact (I think)). In all honesty, I wouldn't care less if Criterion were to produce an export friendly version of the film (which I assume would be out of the question given that they are by law only supposed to be producing films for sale in North America and Canada) with that 8 second shot optically zoomed or even deleted. It is hardly the burning passion behind my need to see the film again, I just want my six plus minutes back.

[MichaelB]

It all seems to be a very thin line to tread between these various protective acts. To allow adults to appear underage and go through simulated tortures, and to draw the line at actual unsimulated "child abuse" strangely makes me think that the good people of the BBFC are somewhat on "our" side. I mean that it appears the BBFC will not step in and impliment cuts unless their hands are all but tied.

This is absolutely correct - if the BBFC likes a film, they really do bend over backwards to try to make sure it passes through the system unmolested. I used to work for the distributor of Celia (recently disinterred by Second Run), and remember the correspondence there over a brief sequence of apparent animal cruelty - the BBFC said that they were delighted that we could prove that it was faked, because the examiners genuinely admired the film and didn't want to cut it. I was only peripherally involved with Léolo, but from what I hear they were frame-precise in determining what was actually illegal (a few seconds) versus what merely looked dodgy in the extreme (most of the rest of the film!).

Once a law is in place, it is almost impossible to overturn, and to allow exceptions, when they are clearly as controversial as that which is highlighted in Oshima's film, would be absolutely scandalous. All it would take, as MichaelB points out, would be one headline in the Daily Mail and it would ensure an absolute riot from the "good citizen's" of the UK to follow single file onto a witch-hunt bandwagon. The BBFC would be villified by the masses who will campaign for the most base morality system, and damn whatever values and integrity the offending material may offer.

The problem with that particular shot is that while you can certainly defend it on a narrative/psychological level (the BBFC fully appreciated this, which is why they suggested an optical zoom rather than a cut), there's pretty much no way you can couch this argument in a way that would effectively counter the point that this is footage of actual child abuse, staged specifically for the film. At least not if the argument is designed to appeal outside the confines of forums like this - which it would have to do if the Daily Mail got involved. It is virtually impossible to have a sensible mainstream debate about material like this, as demonstrated both by the existence of the Brass Eye paedophile special (which would never have been made if there hadn't been an insane amount of media hysteria to satirise) and the frothingly demented reaction when it was broadcast.

As a result, certain BBFC heads would roll to appease the chaos, the (already very leniant in the grand scheme of things) protection acts will be tightened in the extreme to make it appear that these were the opinions of only a few select individuals who have since been slung out of office, and the future possibility of a fully uncut release of In the Realm of the Senses would be all but extinguished, at least set back by a number of years at best.

This is broadly what happened to James Ferman, who was quietly "retired" in 1998 after unilaterally passing a number of hardcore porn films without consulting the Home Office, Customs or the police beforehand. I think he was testing the water in the wake of the election of the first Tony Blair administration in 1997. Ferman had long been keen to establish a distinction between consensual and coercive hardcore, and he was one of the prime movers in getting In the Realm of the Senses a BBFC certificate in the first place. (This happened at about the same time that he passed a load of graphic "sex education" videos for general public consumption with a plain vanilla 18 certificate).

Ironically, the floodgates were well and truly opened less than three years later, when Ferman's successor liberalised the BBFC to the point where long-term anti-censorship campaigner Mark Kermode now cites it as one of the most liberal and enlightened such organisations in the world - but their hands are absolutely tied when it comes to the criminal law. Even if the 1984 Video Recordings Act was revised to remove the BBFC's responsibility for video classification, this would merely shift responsibility onto individual distributors - who'd probably be a lot more cautious. (One of the reasons many distributors actively welcomed the VRA is that it offered them a fair amount of protection against arbitrary seizure and prosecution, as was happening all the time in the early 1980s - but the quid pro quo was that their releases had to respect the criminal law.)

It's a shame that I can't get to see the complete version of a film that I hold in high esteem, and I have to settle for my imperfect, six plus minutes missing in the Nouveaux release (which incidentally, I think I read, was a distributor edit for excess dialogue, and no cuts were implimented by the BBFC other than the Optical Zoom in the offending shot, all the sex scenes are intact (I think)).

The BBFC website is unusually explicit about this - presumably because loads of people blamed them for the missing footage!

[Perkins Cobb]

The BBFC website is unusually explicit about this - presumably because loads of people blamed them for the missing footage!

Distinguishing between a cut and an optical zoom for the purpose of censorship is hair-splitting indeed!

[MichaelB]

The BBFC website is unusually explicit about this - presumably because loads of people blamed them for the missing footage!

Distinguishing between a cut and an optical zoom for the purpose of censorship is hair-splitting indeed!

Actually, there is a difference - because in the zoomed version you can at least work out what's going on (she's obviously done something unpleasant to the child as you can see the two of them in shot and hear his reaction), whereas if the shot had been cut outright it would have been far less clear. A cut would obviously have been far cheaper to execute, but also overkill.

To respond to David Hare, the BBFC also has serious issues with simulated violence and hardcore sex in the R18 category (i.e. porn titles that can only be shown in licensed sex shops) - they hardly ever reject films outright these days, but they turned down something called The Texas Vibrator Massacre last August. As far as I can make out, this is essentially a remake of Tobe Hooper's film (complete with the same grungy, grainy aesthetic) only with hardcore sex scenes - but because the latter would mean an automatic R18 (real sex is permitted at the plain vanilla 18, but only in extreme moderation and with justifying context - see their explanation re Nic Roeg's Puffball for a good example), thus automatically pigeonholing it as "a work primarily intended to achieve sexual arousal" they felt they couldn't pass it.

I suspect they're being extremely cautious at the moment because of a threatened tightening-up in the law on violent pornography - even though I suspect The Texas Vibrator Massacre is entirely tongue-in-cheek, I can see why it fell foul of current guidelines. The BBFC is in a fairly precarious position when it comes to issues like this - it's a huge advantage that it's not an official state body (because the government can't intervene directly in its decisions), but if something they'd passed was ever successfully prosecuted under the Obscene Publications Act or similar legislation, the calls for the board to be abolished would be deafening. And I seriously doubt the replacement would be an improvement - for starters, it would almost certainly be run directly from central government and answerable to the whims of (perceived) public mood as gauged by the louder tabloids.

[RodneyOz]

Just a small sidenote (I'm not going to say 'correction') to David Hare's comments regarding the Australian classification of In the Realm of the Senses. It's my understanding that the film IS legal uncut AND UNALTERED in Australia, having being passed at an R rating in both 2000 and again in 2005. The original Madman DVD release (2001) has no optical zoom (nor do the VHS tapes from that time) but the more recent Umbrella DVD release contains the zoom version because it was sourced from a British print.

So this is a weird case where there's no NEED to have a censored form, but that's the one that predominates in the marketplace at the moment. Of course, post-Bill Henson debate, if the wrong people took a look at the film the issue would quite possibly come back and the film would be examined AGAIN with who knows what result (so I'm buying my Criterion asap).

I looked through the 'Refused Classification' website to confirm the dates for this post, and there's no mention of the classification being re-examined after 2005.

[MichaelB]

Of course, part of the problem is that distributors/DVD producers have to be very careful that they've got their hands on uncut masters, and this is the sort of thing that's sometimes very hard to establish without an uncut copy to hand for reference. (Certainly easier now than it was back in the late 80s/early 90s, when I first got involved with arthouse distribution, but still a pain - and situations like Salo with the brief Gottfried Benn sequence are more complicated still).

Mind you, even if distributors know they're handling a compromised version, they often can't (or can't be bothered) to do anything about it. James Ferman actually told the distributors of Videodrome that he'd happily pass the uncut version when he saw that they'd submitted a pre-censored cut, but they decided to go ahead with that version anyway. I imagine scenarios like that drive the BBFC up the wall, because they know they're going to get all the blame for any censorship!

[RodneyOz]

David, I'm actually agreeing with you (and MichaelB)... I was indicating (in a not very clear way) that the current form of the film that we have in Australia (I don't know if the Madman DVD is out of print or not, but the Umbrella version is the one in all the shops so it is effectively "it" as far as the 'Australian version' of the film goes) is more a result of the collusion of interests that you refer to, rather than just a matter of the classification board insisting on cuts. Government censorship, odious as it is, is generally visible and a good target. Cut-happy distributors (or, citing MichaelB's post, ones that just don't care that they're using an altered port), and a collusion of interests between the state and the distributors, are harder targets to fight as the problem is deeper and more invisible. I find it absurd that if I tell someone to watch the film, chances are they'll end up watching a mutilated version because that's what's out there -when there's not even a legal reason for that to be the case.

I like Umbrella most of the time, but their handling of this has really annoyed me ](*,) . Bring on April so I can import the Criterion.

[bigP]

This website has put up a small statement made by Umbrella claiming:

"We had several reasons for opting for this print, namely the transfer quality, and did not mention that the film was Uncut or Uncensored anywhere on the DVD."

I guess in all fairness, Umbrella must have weighed up the odds and decided upon quality over completeness. It sounds like a double-edged sword as far as their choices went, and criticism would be slung one way or another. I guess they also decided that what people don't miss (many people won't know there is 6 minutes 15 missing from the film) won't hurt them, and the optical zoom could be forgiven.

[Rich Malloy]

Though I consider myself a 1st Amendment maximalist, I confess my hope that Criterion excises this scene even as I suspect it will be released intact.

I'm not offering a legal justification nor would I attempt to carve out some rational exception to artistic free expression, much less do I wish to engage in an argument over censorship. But on a personal level, the scene crosses over from being an expression of a character's pathology mediated by the artifice of cinema and returns me to a discomfitting reality. And that reality is a child on a soundstage being subjected to actions that clearly are causing him extreme discomfort and anxiety, if not outright pain. At that point, I'm no longer in the film, my disbelief is unsuspended, and the feverish sexual reverie is replaced by my feelings of anxiety on behalf of the child.

Much like the reel-change advice provided to projectionists, I've found that on the French disc one can forward to the very next scene due to a fortuitously placed chapter marker (hit [>>] when the shot of the well being pelted by rain comes onscreen). Perhaps Criterion can place a chapter marker there, as well, for those of us with more tender sensibilities.

I also prefer the Japanese title. I hesitate to say the "original" title, as I believe the film was also French financed under the "In the realm..." moniker, but nonetheless I'd prefer it was released by Criterion under the Japanese title. Just another personal thing. And I also think it's a very worthy release, even if it's not my favorite Oshima either.

[Perkins Cobb]

Though I consider myself a 1st Amendment maximalist,

But you're not, though. See how:

I confess my hope that Criterion excises this scene

[Napier]

I will flood Criterion's in-box with spam and hate mail if they cut ANY fucking scene out of this film. You don't need Obama to tell you that what's great about our country is choice. You don't have to buy it man. If the film makes you uncomfortable, don't watch it. I really almost shit myself when the announced this on blu.

[fiddlesticks]

I will flood Criterion's in-box with spam and hate mail if they cut ANY fucking scene out of this film.

Luckily enough, the scene in question is one of the few non-fucking scenes in the film.

[Napier]

I will flood Criterion's in-box with spam and hate mail if they cut ANY fucking scene out of this film.

Luckily enough, the scene in question is one of the few non-fucking scenes in the film.

Oh, touche. That's probably the biggest laugh I will have today. I love this forum.

[jojo]

Wow. I don't know what to say. I didn't know anything about this stuff at all.

[The Fanciful Norwegian]

The cut version released by Umbrella (and Nouveaux and even Madman, whose version was otherwise uncensored) seems to be some sort of international/"Western" edit -- even the French DVD was cut, but it at least offered the missing footage as "scènes inédites."

[bigP]

For anybody interested, the western cut that seems to be in France, UK and Australia, features the following edits to the print:

1976 French/Japanese erotic film by Nagisa Oshima (Nouveaux Pictures)

The cinema version was passed in 1991 but the video version was withheld for a long time due to it's hardcore content. It was finally passed in August 2000.

The video version contains all of the explicit and hardcore images. The only BBFC alteration is the slight cut of the underage boy as per the cinema version. The video version is missing about 6:22s of dialogue and narrative scenes compared with the cinema version. It seems that the video distributors submitted an edited version probably prepared for the US market. The missing scenes are as follows (timings referenced to PAL equivalence of cinema version):

• - At 18:38s, scene cut short by 1:13s
  - At 28:32s, 14 second shot of couple's faces during sex missing
  - At 1:03:22s, entire 1 minute 56 second scene (dialogue) missing
  - At 1:10:12s, scene cut short by 38 seconds
  - At 1:32:30s, scene cut short by 1 minute 4 seconds
  - At 1:38:10s, beginning of scene (1 minute 2 seconds) missing
  - At 34:38s, there is an additional shot lasting 12s not present in the cinema version

Note that in the US NC-17 version, the image of an underage boy's penis being yanked has been cut totally.

[Rich Malloy]

The cut version released by Umbrella (and Nouveaux and even Madman, whose version was otherwise uncensored) seems to be some sort of international/"Western" edit -- even the French DVD was cut, but it at least offered the missing footage as "scènes inédites."

I'm not certain we can refer to the French disc as being "cut" exactly, but I have no clue at this point which version should be considered definitive.

The scene of the highly distressed child we've been discussing is intact in the primary cut on the French disc, and those "scènes inédites" seem to only extend a few sequences but without adding additional footage that might be considered "hardcore" (or more hardcore than what immediately precedes the additions). Nor is there any footage among the "scènes inédites" which might otherwise chafe more tender sensibilities. On memory, I believe these may track some of the additional "dialog and narrative scenes" bigP lists above (and - annoyingly - requiring that you select to view them when an icon pops up and be quick with the remote or you'll miss it!). At any rate, I recall them all to be fairly inconsequential.

[RodneyOz]

Hmm, the differences between the 'international' and longer cuts seem to be similar to the minor fracas over THAT poem in the BFI version of 'Salo'. Which is the definitive cut (once censorship purposes are removed and we're only talking about 'cuts for length'), the generally released one or the longest available one? Generally I go with the longest possible version but that isn't always the 'creators wishes' one.

[manicsounds]

The old Fox-Lorber disc which I used to have had everything intact, including the aforementioned child's penis scene. Honestly, I didn't see the big shock in that as compared to all the other scenes in the film. I'm glad I sold off that disc long ago. Quality was pretty bad on that disc.

[Rich Malloy]

Manicsounds, you are incorrect. The scene was not included on either of Fox Lorber's two DVD releases, nor the prior VHS release. The 56 seconds or so that comprise that scene have been cut from all US releases.

As I recall, there were two Fox Lorber DVD releases, the first framed at 1.33:1 and with the Japanese language soundtrack. I owned this one for years, as well as the essentially identical VHS release that preceded it. The second Fox Lorber DVD release was framed at 1.66:1, but - inexplicably - replaced the original Japanese track with an English dub. The UK DVD release - which was ported over to the Australian release(s) - used the optical zoom as discussed above to reframe the shot. The first time I ever saw the scene - and perhaps the only current release that contains it complete intact - is on the French Arte DVD release.

And though I think I've been clear, let me try to put a finer point on my objections to this scene. I don't have any problem whatsoever with childhood nudity. I have a number of films in my collection that depict children in the buff, none of which I find in the least bit exploitative, prurient or abusive. Had the scene in question been limited to the two nude children running around the room, playing and interacting just out of Sada's desperate grasping, I'd have not a single issue. But when she locks onto the male child's penis like a vice, and he looks out-of-frame crying out in either painful agony or distressed anxiety (both, I suspect), I think the scene has crossed over the line in several ways. First, the child is being abused. From his reaction, I don't think any even barely sensitive person can disagree. Second - and this is more of a judgment call - his reaction and what appears to me to be a desperate appeal to someone off-screen for help destroys all sense of verisimilute by breaking the fourth wall, thus rendering the scene a failure on a purely aesthetic basis.

[daniel p]

Blu-ray.com review of In the Realm of the Senses

Looks pretty good!

[Rich Malloy]

My god... gorgeous.

The mise-en-scene has always been rightly praised, but I've never seen this film looking so pristine with such fully saturated colors and vibrant textures that (cliche warning) nearly leap off the screen (sorry). This is overwhelming eye-candy of the sort I've never associated with this film.

I'm agog.

[oldsheperd]

That egg scene! I gag whenever I think about it.