Quote:
Originally posted by Epona:
Leonis, you made a good point in your first post, I have to admit I wasn't thinking of it in those terms. I was thinking more about allowing a wider audience to enjoy the film!
But then on TV here in the UK, films are often edited - not to edit out any parts considered unsuitable viewing, but to fit it in to a particular time slot. And viewers aren't told, it's only if you have seen it before that you realise there is something missing. In my opinion that is worse, even if permission has been sought from the copyright holder to do so (and I assume it has, perhaps films are sold to TV on the basis that editing is allowed?) - it seems deceitful somehow.
I can see that a director may well be unhappy with his artwork being tampered with, it would indeed be only right to gain permission before any such edits are taken place, in some cases it could well change the director's intention when he shot a scene.
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Epona, good points! I was also thinking of the 'edited for television' stuff we see here in the US. Sometimes it's for the reasons you mentioned, gotta have that commercial time [img]tongue.gif[/img] , but sometimes it's also to edit violent or sex scenes or just the language. However, most of those, to my knowledge, do note at the beginning of the movie that they have edited and more often than not it tells you for what- like edited to fit the screen (originally shot in wide format) or edited for adult/mature/violent content (language and sex/violence).
I do object to seeing a few minutes shaved off a scene to add a soap advertisement or one more shaving gel commercial...*mutters and sputters* but I don't necessarily get all bent out of shape if it says they edited it for violence or sex and it's being shown during hours when kids might be watching it.
This is very interesting...Jim and I watched a show on 'censorship' of tv a week or two ago and for the most part, I just laughed at most of it and considered some of it silly or outdated(it was a semi-humorous show), but when they got to one film (and I cannot recall the name...grrr) that had a scene of teen girls raping another girl in the shower of a reform school, a scene with a broom handle made me physically ill. It wasn't 'graphic' in the sense we think of for 'porn' movies, but it was bad enough and the scenes of the girls face stuck with me for a long time afterwards. Now I know some people wouldn't bat an eye at things like that, but I have to say it really upset me. Spoiled my mood and gave me bad dreams. I can't imagine how a young person, especially girls, would feel seeing it. This was some time ago (at least 10-15 yrs) and the station got so many complaints they never aired the film with that scene in it again. After seeing that, I remembered some other similar things I've seen more recently on tv/movies that didn't get edited and frankly, some of them made me ill too, so I can't outright say "nope I'd never agree to watch an edited film!" because in those cases I'd opt to not see it or only see the edited versions.
It's not as black and white issue as I was thinking at first. Films not made for tv, which are rated would be different, since one knows or can guess from the ratings and reviews what the content might be like and avoid things you'd as soon not see.
edit: forgot to add about that disturbing rape scene/movie- the actress (by then much older than when she shot the movie) was interviewed in the censorship show and said she "didn't know what rape was before doing that scene but afterwards"...she "felt raped". Also, they reported that there were several incidents of teens doing things just like that to young girls after the film aired. At the time several of the incidents were attributed to film having been shown in prime time and the commentator pointed out that adults were complaining and saying they shut it off, but teens were 'fascinated' and watched it all.
[ 11-20-2002, 11:06 AM: Message edited by: Cloudbringer ]