[Frameworks] banned films?

Sun Mar 30 01:28:31 UTC 2014

I'm also not sure what it means for a film to be "banned," at least in this
day and age but we certainly do know about continuing access problems with
such films as "Titicut Follies," "Cocksucker Blues" and other films.
Apropos to this discussion (and in response to Abigail Severance), I
believe the film that got the Ann Arbor Film Festival in trouble a few
years ago (2006 I believe) with the Michigan State Government was Brooke
Keesling's "Boobie Girl." I found an article here:
http://blog.mlive.com/extra_iddings/2007/03/film_festival_busted_for_boobi.html
And the film's website is here: http://www.boobiegirl.com/boobie.html

Ann Arbor FF followed this attack (after raising a ton of money from
supporters in a very sort time) with an extensive series of "banned" films.
I tried but cannot find this series listed online.

Another interesting "banned" film is David Wojnarowicz' "A Fire in My
Belly," which, in 2010 was removed from video display at the National
Portrait Gallery after complaints (about supposed desecration of religious
imagery) by John Boehner, Eric Cantor and others. This actually led to (I
believe) the revocation of a huge ($100,000; that's huge right?) grant from
the Andy Warhold Foundation for the Visual Arts which had been granted in
support of the exhibition. Also in response, many other art museums and
orgs exhibited the work concurrent with the controversy.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Wojnarowicz#.22A_Fire_in_My_Belly.22_controversy
haha, if you can't make it to the National Gallery (in a time machine), you
can watch the film on youtube here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gHRCwQeKCuo

(As an aside, I'll say that I hold Wojnarowicz in the highest esteem
possible--I believe he was in fact a model American--and the ability this man
has to continue to provoke people from long beyond the grave is amazing.)

When it was a new film, there was talk of Luther Price's film "Sodom"
(1994?) being "banned" from some film festivals (particularly gay film
festivals). This accusation never quite made sense to me (since are all
films not selected for exhibition necessarily to be considered "banned?"),
even though I think (duh) that it's a great film.

There was this series presented in 1992-1993 at Pacific Film Archive:
http://www.bampfa.berkeley.edu/filmseries/FS4167

On November 1, 1998, San Francisco Cinematheque presented "FILM UNDER FIRE:
AN EVENING OF OBJECTIONABLE ART" which included "Sodom," original poster
Scott Stark's "Noema" (1998) and works by Anne Severson, Lewis Klahr, Valie
Export, Kurt Kren and others. While this program's (curated by Steve Anker)
accompanying program notes reference Karen Finley and Canyon Cinema's
(independent) problems with the NEA, I'm not sure that any of the films in
the program (other than perhaps "Near the Big Chakra") was "banned." The
only online documentation I can find is in the Internet Archive's
electronic copy of Cinematheque's compiled 1998 Program Notes:
https://archive.org/stream/sanfranciscocine98sanfrich/sanfranciscocine98sanfrich_djvu.txt

There you go...

Steve Polta

On Sat, Mar 29, 2014 at 1:28 PM, Andy Ditzler <andy at andyditzler.com> wrote:

> Brakhage's "Lovemaking" was not banned; rather, Stan pulled it from
> distribution himself. (source: Scott MacDonald's Critical Cinema interview)
>
> I recently screened Jan Nemec's "A Report on the Party and the Guests" -
> one of a handful of Czech 60s films to receive the official designation
> "banned forever" from the government there. (Obviously, forever didn't
> last.) (Accounts differ on what the other films were, but some include
> Evald Schorm's "Courage Everyday.")
>
> It can be tricky separating out (speaking about here in the U.S.)
> instances of outright banning from neglect and suppression for commercial
> reasons, from censorship by private as well as government agencies. My
> understanding is that L'Age D'Or was unavailable for decades because
> Bunuel's patron was scandalized by it, more than from any "ban." (The
> effect, of course, is the same.) It also can be hard to find concrete
> evidence of banned films. For example, Fuses is the kind of film that seems
> like it would have run into problems, but I don't recall ever reading
> accounts of outright banning (as opposed to the many instances of audience
> outrage). Same with Christmas on Earth - intended to be destroyed by its
> author, yes, but actually banned?
>
> A few years ago, my collective presented a site-specific screening of
> Warhol's Lonesome Cowboys, near the site of its 1969 bust by Atlanta (and
> Georgia state) police. The film was seized, the projectionist arrested, and
> the audience was lined up and photographed (yes!). The film re-appeared
> later in the year, with cuts (according to Variety). I think that counts as
> censorship (of the whole film as well as the cut scenes).
>
> Un Chant D'Amour was according to historical accounts intentionally
> projected by Mekas together with Flaming Creatures to trigger a bust and
> court case which he thought could be won. Genet's literary reputation was
> key in that gambit.
>
> My understanding of Frank's Cocksucker Blues is that it was suppressed by
> the Stones themselves. Perhaps others on the list will know more about
> this.
>
> The New York State Censorship Office's rejection of Deren/Hammid's The
> Private Life of a Cat (for a birth scene) was one of the reasons that Amos
> Vogel converted Cinema 16 to a private membership club (i.e., film
> society). With such a club, he no longer had to submit films to the censor
> board before screening.
>
> Andy Ditzler
> www.filmlove.org
> www.johnq.org
> Graduate Institute of the Liberal Arts, Emory University
>
>
> On Fri, Mar 28, 2014 at 9:43 AM, Scott Stark <sstark at hi-beam.net> wrote:
>
>> Hi friends, I'm looking for ideas for a "banned films" program for a
>> local (Austin) erotica-based film festival. Flaming Creatures is definitely
>> top of the list. Any ideas for other films that have been banned, censored
>> or otherwise disparaged for risque content? (experimental preferred)
>>
>> thanks,
>> Scott
>>
>>
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>
>
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