More arcane and inconsistent decisions from the movie censor, The British Board of Film Classification.
I can't see why it should give an 18 to The Baader-Meinhof Complex when it only rated The Dark Knight Batman film a 12A. Of the former it notes the strong language, nudity and "intense scenes" - an odd phrase. Baader-Meinhof is certainly an intense film in that it is a serious dramatisation of terrorist actions and motivations. It's a movie for a grown-up sensibility.
Dark Knight features highly stylised violence and many scenes of brutality, such as when Batman repeatedly beats the Joker during an interrogation or when the Joker appears to push down a man's face onto a sharp object. The BBFC makes a virtue of the "disguising" of these actions. That's not the word for it. There is no question about what we are seeing: if the speed with which the camera looks away is the major criterion, then someone needs their head examined. Violence here is a crucial feature of its commercial appeal: it's part of the genre.
Oliver Stone's W. has a mystifying 15 for its "strong reality footage" which "includes sight of some badly disfigured corpses, including children. Although the images are quite brief it was felt that they were too graphic and potentially upsetting to younger teens." But these teens probably see images of this sort on the evening news every week. The violence implied by these images is actual, not an exploitative element of a genre.
I can't help but wonder whether the BBFC takes too much account of the seriousness of a movie in relation to sex, violence and language. W. and Baader-Meinhof are serious in intention: both throw light on dysfunctional establishments and war. Batman is a fantasy, something that colours the BBFC's perception of the effect of its violence.
At some level the nitwits of the BBFC plainly factor in political intentions in their assessment of a movie, as if to say, "Oh, this is a serious film, that fact alone magnifies the effect of the sex/violence/cuntings." And let us not forget, Warner Bros and others lobbied the BBFC for the more lucrative 12A rating of The Dark Knight.
6 comments:
The violence warnings in themselves seem designed to titillate...
You always knew you were in for a good video when Simon Bates appeared before it, almost tutting and telling you that you were about to watch something with "sexual swear words"....
He even looked like he felt dirty saying that...
Yes. Same with the news. Journalists must feel so much more up there when they issue the warning "Some viewers may find images in the following report distressing."
On the subject of movies, the BBFC needs a restructuring of thinking.
Could there also be an element here whereby the film industry wants to make sure that children do not go and see "boring" films which will make them restless in the cinema? So they can see Batman because it will keep them pinned to their seats with fear, while they would get so bored by the Baader-Meinhof movie that they would start talking and crying...?
That's an interesting and smart idea - I might respect the BBFC more if it appointed itself the guardian of anti-boredom. Indeed there's a case for an Interest Value being added to the film category based on a biorhythmic evaluation of the BBFC people who watched and rated the movie - did any get turned on, for instance ... but anyhow .... The problem would then fall on the kind of people appointed to such tasks: usually run-of-the-mill types who still think newspapers matter, etc. Breeders, skiers, you know the ghastly sort.
My own feeling is that kids have a good instinct about films they're not likely to stay awake through; bit like adults. Your average hoodie from Stockwell is not likely to to want to sit through W. though The B-M Complex might be worryingly inspirational. Then again it's long and it's subtitled from the German. Movies have their own in-built prophylactics against unsafe viewing.
May I suggest that you Madame Arcati and your fiancee Molly Parkin join the BBFC. I would be most intrigued to see what would result
BMC: All I could think of was what the Disney version would be like.
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