In 1907, the Fatima’s coochee-coochee dance directed in 1896 by the Edison firm is censored with black bars in order to mask the suggestive pelvis movements of the dancer. This original case of censorship will be the first of a long streak that enamel the History of film.
From 1920, American cinema is governed by the Zukor code, “list of imperative recommendations amongst which the interdiction of indecent situations, the triumph of virtue over vice, the affirmation that an useless exposition of nude is dangerous” (Jean-Luc Douin, Dictionary of censorship in cinema, PUF). At that time, Hollywood had become a symbol of decadence following a streak of scandals. Morals and drugs cases follow and the death of the director William Desmond Taylor, the one by overdose of the actor Wallace Reid and the death of a starlet during one of Roscoe Fatty Arbuckle’sparties , provoking his banishment, lead to the creation of the Motion Pictures Producers and Distributors Association (MPPDA) headed by William Harrison Hays. In the early 30’s, Mae West incurs virtue leagues’ wrath for the salacious allusions scattering her films, Howard Hawks’ Scarface is accused of presenting a far too appealing image of its main character, the Czech movie Ecstasy wherein the future Hedy Lamarr appears entirely naked is seized a few times by American customs for obscenity… The moral stranglehold tightens, and from 1934, every film has to go through the hands of the MPPDA before it can reach the screens. It’s the official birth of the Hays code, adopted by the studios, which will be enforced until 1968. Drugs, sexuality or, even worse, homosexuality, the reconsideration of patriotism or miscegenation are, from now on, banned from movies through 28.000 rules and “revulsing” subjects to avoid. Henceforth, the game will consist, for filmmakers, in evading those principles with metaphors and subterfuges.
To the moral censorship will follow the patently political trial of the “Hollywood Ten” in 1947, accused of being members of the Communist Party by the House Committee on Un-American Activities. The committee has understood the importance of the film industry on the modelling of the mind. And if family, nation and virtue are in its schedule, it is out of question to take a chance on letting communists soak their films with their pernicious ideology. Anticipating legal proceedings, which will bring Dalton Trumbo and his “comrades” to jail, the studios meet and officially decide their excommunication. This double censorship -virtuous and political- will remain as such until the liberalization of the American society from the second half of the 60’s.
Like the American censorship, the French censorship has followed the political evolutions of the country. When >em>Intolerance from D.W. Griffith was banned for “pacifism and biased rereading of French History”, Louis Delluc put his finger, in the newspaper PARIS-MIDI on April 1919, on what will give rhythm and will motivate the essential of the French political censorship: wars. The first committee of censorship is enforced in 1916 and will be extremely active in the 30’s: Zéro de conduite is banned in 1932 because judged anti-French and because it shows school institution from a very negative perspective (it will only obtain its theatrical licence after the French Liberation in 1945), The Golden Age from Luis Bunuel is banned by Prefect Chiappe in 1930, as well as Old and New by Eisenstein.
In 1939, Daybreak by Marcel Carné is banned after the declaration of war for its “depressing, morbid” aspect. It will shortly be released in 1941, amputed from its nude scene with Arletty, before it is banned again until the end of the war. Le Corbeau by H.-G. Clouzot, judged anti-French when the Liberation comes, provokes the life suspension of his author by the French Cinema Liberation Committee, following the purge logic at that time.
The treatment of the Algerian War will be the target of a drastic censorship from the authorities. Thus, Le petit soldat by Jean-Luc Godard and Adieu Philippine by Jacques Rozier will have their release postponed to three years later. In 1972, To be twenty in the Aures by René vautier obtains a licence following the author’s hunger strike and the shooting of Nothing to report by Yves Boisset is sabotaged and its funds freezed.
The French New Wave and its anti-authority elan won’t slip through either to the self-righteous. The interdiction for people under 16, created by the governement of Vichy in order to protect the youth, is transformed in 1959 to an interdiction under 18 and will strike Breathless by Jean-Luc Godard, Shoot the piano player by François Truffaut and The Good Time Girls by Claude Chabrol, both in 1960.
The censorship in France has been the deeds of the Church and the Army for a long time. But how about today when these institutions hardly have power anymore? Who are the ones who exert pressure over the film rating committee? Learn more about this in Dissidenz’s next edition through the stunning case of Japanese director Koji Wakamatsu, whose film The Embryo Hunts in Secret was classified unsuitable for people under 18 on its first French release, in 2007, more than 40 years after its production.
Francis Chérasse
A selection of films banned or restricted to people over 18:
L’age d’or (1930) by Luis Bunuel
Zero de conduite (1932) by Jean Vigo
Le jour se lève (1939) by Marcel Carné
Les sentiers de la gloire (1957) by Stanley Kubrick
Tirez sur le pianiste (1960) by François Truffaut
A bout de souffle (1960) by Jean-Luc Godard
Anatomie d’un rapport (1975) by Luc Moullet
La voix de son maitre (1978) by Gérard Mordillat and Nicolas Philibert