Chuck Mayer

Vince,
I think the concern is not with illegal acts shown in the film, but illegal acts during filmING...an underage actor appearing nude for example. Again, it's all a very fine line, with pitfalls on both sides.

Take care,
Chuck

MickeS

Chuck, exactly. Maybe I wasn't clear enough, but I meant that if something illegal was done during filming, and that is portrayed on screen, I believe it should not be shown. Obviously simulated illegal actions should be shown.

If a simluated sex scene with a child is shown, I have no problem with that (although I'm sure many people do). If it's a real sex act with a child that's filmed, I have BIG problem with it, and I believe it should be illegal to show the film.

Of course, there are still problems with jurisdiction, as Vince points out. I bet that isn't a real problem in 99% of the cases, though.

/Mike

[Edited last by MickeS on November 16, 2001 at 01:26 PM]

Richard_Huntington

Thank you. I am not a guy who wants censorship. I think the MPAA is nothing more than a body of people who censor and should be changed to allow films like Basic Instinct and the various horror trash/etc. etc. to be released in a form that the director wants, but with a rating that will not result in it being banned from theaters. We need to get rid of the standard R and replace it with R-13, R-17 and bring back the X. What problems this would solve.

Now as for things in films that I am against, 20 years ago certain things and images would never even be contemplated. But now, they are. As society ages, we become more and more tolerant of things and some really horrible stuff is unfortunately included in that. I consider the images of children undressed and engaging in sex acts to be just that. Horrible.

Now, if a film like LOLITA casts an actress who is not a minor in the part of a minor, than I have no problem with that because you have a legal adult making a decision on her own. But cast a minor in the role, then you have a problem. The line has to be drawn somewhere and it is best, in my opinion, that we be cautious about it, rather than risky. This will harm no one, where as being risky can and might harm someone.

Responsibility is so important in the arts and with modern society, it seems as though anything goes and those that say, "Hey, wait a minute" are being called Nazi's and censors and that is a serious danger.

------------------
"My wife actually prefers widescreen"

Mark Pfeiffer

I think a few things are getting confused in the heat of the argument.

First of all, Fat Girl was filmed in France, so any U.S. laws being discussed are irrelevant as far as the matter of where it was shot is concerned.

Second, the banning of the film has occurred in Canada. For all I know, this film has not had problems playing in the U.S. (It played at the New York Film Festival and entered limited releas on October 12.) I know Entertainment Weekly had a decent-sized (and favorable) review of the film a few weeks ago.

My memory is a little hazy on what seems to be one of the sticking points. I remember that there was proposed legislation a few years ago where it was feared, through interpretation, that any film in which a character portraying a minor was engaged in sexual situations could be a prosecutable offense (or something of that sort). The big controversy wasn't so much an issue of using an underage performer but that if the character was underage or the performer looked like he/she was underage, it would still be equivalent to using a minor. (Obviously this creates problems for many productions, ranging from high school sex comedies to Romeo & Juliet.) I don't believe this ever took effect legally. (I could be incorrect on this, but I think people react so strongly to this that they don't bother to get the full story.)

The word censorship tends to throw people into fits. Although I don't agree with censorship, I do think artists have the responsibility to show creative restraint.

As to the film in question, most of us discussing it are doing so secondhand. We simply haven't seen it. While I don't doubt much of Fat Girl is as shocking as it sounds, words sometimes can make things sound worse than they actually are. I don't know since it hasn't opened here.

Breillat's Romance was very provocative and did feature the performers engaging in sex and not simulating it. (I thought the film posed some interesting questions and did so with style, but I also thought it ultimately collapsed under its own weight, for what it's worth.) As a director she has walked the edge and will likely continue to do so.

Using underage actors is a dicey issue. I know I was surprised with the nudity in Walkabout, Nicolas Roeg's 1971 film. I suppose where I wasn't bothered by it there when I likely would be bothered by it in Fat Girl is context. Really, context is what the whole issue revolves around. It's not what is being shown--the naked human body--but the setting within which it is being displayed.

On a partially related note, I know that the rumor has been that a body double was used for Thora Birch in American Beauty. I swear that this very subject came up in one of Roger Ebert's Movie Answer Man column (the archives of which do not go back that far). I thought that it was confirmed that Birch did the scene, but her parents consented and were on the set at the time.

------------------
Read my reviews at www.dvdmon.com

Most recent reviews: Down from the Mountain, The Night Heaven Fell, Plucking the Daisy, Bridget Jones's Diary, Withnail and I: The Criterion Collection

Vince Maskeeper

Don't know, but I find it hard to bleieve that parental consent would be much of an issue as it has been traditionally parents who are responsible for child pornography or prostitution in the USA and beyond.

If parental consent is all it takes, what would stop a parent from exploiting their own children? Parent sets up a kiddie porn website of their teen daughter to make a few bucks.

I don't know what was used in the film, but I do have a friend who has worked as an assistant at a few major FX houses, and he said that CFC/MVFX (where I think he worked at the time) did work on a shot for Americn Beauty which composited an underage actress's face with an adult body double's breasts.

I don't for sure if they used it in the film, but it certainly looks like an effects shot to me!

-Vince

------------------

AIM: VinceMaskeeper

Do you want SOUTH PARK on DVD in order, rather than themed sets? Join our overwhelming majority!!

Ted Todorov

Seth Paxton

I agree with Ted's definition. Unless Song Remains the Same is child porn. For gosh sakes, a strong argument could be made that nudity is a beautiful thing and that only it's "modern" cultural ties to sexuality make nudity "bad". Unless National Geographic just became kiddie porn, considering kids under 18 being shown topless or naked all the time, along with adults.

(don't worry, I'm not about to start running around naked myself )

And again I defer to someone who has seen the film. I was open with the fact that I had not seen it, and my only point above was to defend the CONCEPT of a film being both boring and disgusting. It can be (and often is) done.

Vince Maskeeper

Ted,

I believe that there would be a great difference between child bathing and filming a teen of a sexual nature. The material presented in American Beatuy would certainly be legally considered pornography if distributed as commercial video of a 17 year old changing clothes.

I think the sexual context is the key. Similar video to what is presented in AMERICAN BEAUTY has been prosecuted as pornography in the past. There was a story just a year ago of an Ohio teen who had video of various girlfriends stripping... he wasn't even distrubuting this material, rather just owning it and he was convicted as well as his father who knew the videos were made.

The footage was by consent, granted not by the parents- but I think parental consent is probably not one of the legal standards- although I could be wrong.

-Vince

------------------

AIM: VinceMaskeeper

Do you want SOUTH PARK on DVD in order, rather than themed sets? Join our overwhelming majority !!



[Edited last by Vince Maskeeper on November 16, 2001 at 07:05 PM]

Ted Todorov

Vince,

I obviously can't make my case (with you) using American Beauty but look at my other movie examples -- the nudity in both Pretty Baby & Romeo and Juliet clearly was in a sexual context -- Brooke Shields (12 at the time) played a child prostitute who was posing nude in provocative poses, and in R & J, Olivia Hussey (16) was nude in the context of having sex with Romeo. Just last year there was a well publicized photo exhibit in Soho of a nude (11? year old) Brooke Shields, wearing lots of make-up, and striking provocative poses. Clearly non of these works are considered illegal -- and since there are minors involved, they must not be pornographic (in a legal sense).

For something to be considered pornographic (and therefore child pornography if minors are involved), there has to be either actual sex, or the intent of the work in the case of simple nudity has to be meant to arouse in the "men's magazine" sense as opposed to being being part of a work of art as it is in Sally Mann's photographs or Louis Malle's films (plural, because Murmur of the Heart falls in to the same category.)

I am not familiar with the the Ohio case you cite, but I can readily see it falling into the category of nudity that is not art but is meant to arouse. Now I will grant you, there have been a number of cases involving mothers being dragged off to jail because some Photomat clerk called the cops when he saw nude photos of their 4 year old playing in the back yard in the film he was developing, but to my knowledge none of these cases got very far.

Ted

[Edited last by Ted Todorov on November 16, 2001 at 10:56 PM]

Matty B

The whole basis of pornography is the intent. Any of you familar with the modern art culture in the US have heard of Robert Maplethorpe. He was convicted in Cincinatti of child pornography (Im not sure WHICH law). Upon appeal to the supreme court the conviction was over turned because the photos WHILE containing children and while being VERY VERY VERY explicit! (Urination into childrens mouths, simulated sex with adults and YOUNG children) the intent was NOT to arouse, the intent was artistic. The intent of Fat Girl I ASSUME as I havent seen it and MOST of us have not, is to SHOCK, NOT to arouse.

Bill McA

Believe it or not Ted, but Pretty Baby was indeed banned here in Ontario back in 1978, as was Gary's favorite, The Tin Drum (this is no longer the case).

The appeal for Fat Girl is this coming Tuesday and the motion to ban the film has met with opposition from local filmmakers, Atom Egoyan, Ron Mann,