Censors Working Overtime

It may not be common knowledge, but the British Board of Film Classification celebrates its centenary in 2012, see this useful piece by Andrew Pulver in the Guardian recently.   Recently, along with my colleague Alexander Sinclair, I have been working with the BBFC on a book project that celebrates this centenary. Our chapter broadly covers the years 1975 to 1982. These were exciting years, and our chapter covers the extension to the Obscene Publications Act and the passing of the Protection of Children Act, along with the release of important films such as Salo, The Life of Brian, Taxi Driver and Pretty Baby.
The book is due out in November 2012, but those of you who have read the blog previously will have seen a series of pieces about the history of our own Cinema at the University and the campaign to revive the birthplace of British cinema, see earlier posts such as this.  Drawing upon these links, we are hoping to run some joint events between the University of Westminster and the BBFC in 2012. More details to follow as I have them.

Finally, apologies for the pun in title, but it does give me a chance to make reference to my beloved XTC, and happy new year to all.

A Fire in my Belly

I have posted before on the relationship between art and law, and in particular the policing of 'contentious' art, yesterdays Guardian provided another great example with news of the National Portrait Gallery in Washington pulling an exhibit from the Hide/Seek exhibition. Over 18s can watch the video in question, A Fire in my Belly, here. It's an interesting piece created by the artist David Wojnarowicz in 1987 to mark the death of his lover Peter Hujar, but was removed from the exhibition following pressure from the Catholic League. Religion and sex in art, and especially the 'same sex' variety, are often targets for moral outrage and attempts to prohibit. What is particularly interesting here is that it marks another attempt to censor work not by using more traditional avenues such as criminal law, but by the threat of withdrawing funding. It reminded me of the Sensation exhibition, and the furore surrounding Chris Ofili's  The Holy Virgin Mary. Its a great piece of work, and was shown recently at Tate Britain as part of a retrospective of his work, but when it was shown in New York in the 1990s it was vandalised and the then mayor Guiliani threatened to withdraw future public funding from the gallery. The picture below shows the piece protected by plexi -glass in the gallery. For more on this see art crimes.

The Filth and the Fury

It may not have escaped your notice that last week saw the publication of a 50th Anniversary edition of D.H.Lawrence's celebrated novel. This edition looks interesting on a number of fronts, not only does it include the unexpurgated text, but also essays by Geoffrey Roberston and Steve Hare, but also a timeline  of events around the trial and is supported by a useful website. For a useful piece on the effect the book has had on our cultural and legal landscape see Geoffrey Robertson's piece in the Guardian, The Filthy Fifth Columnist. We are looking at a number of events and initiatives in the Law School at Westminster  to celebrate this, watch this space...

Policing Art - Brooke Shields and the Metropolitan Police

The Tate Modern's new exhibition, Pop Life, looks to already have created a furore. I have not visited it myself yet, having preferred to take the short walk from work to the Royal Academy to see the superb Anish Kapoor exhibition, but will report back once I have done in the next few weeks.  On 1 October, the day the exhibition was due to open to the public, the Guardian reported  that the Tate had pulled one particular exhibit, Richard Prince's Spiritual America.  His piece contains an image of the 10 year old Brooke Shields, authorised by her mother and originally taken by the photographer Gary Gross in 1976 for the Playboy publication, Sugar and Spice. A cropped version of this image appears above. The photo was subsequently used by Richard Prince as the basis for his own piece. Initially, he put the photo in a gilt frame and displayed it, without any label, in a shopfront in a part of run down New York. Apparently there was very little complaint when it has been  shown previously, including recently in the US as part of a Richard Prince Retrospective at the Guggenheim. For the Tate installation of Spiritual America, the photo hung, in  its tacky frame, on its own inside what Adrian Searle called a 'dark red and womb like' room. However, the gallery was visited by the Metropolitan Police and the display has been, to use the words of the Tate, 'temporarily closed down' and the catalogue withdrawn from sale. I have blogged before about the regulation of art, and indeed discussed a visit to the exhibition Seduced last year with my LLM students. This case also appears to have echoes of previous problems galleries have had involving the use of images of children, involving Robert Mapplethorpe and Tierney Gearon amongst others. No doubt time well tell what will become of this particular exhibit, and a view of the comments via the Guardian website shows that the area is one that provokes strong emotions, but a moot point is whether we feel the police should be regulating art, and how the law operates in this area? This question is one that will run and run.

The University of Westminster, film history and the passing of Tony Tenser

Some of you may have heard on Radio 4’s Last word or elsewhere about the passing of Tony Tenser on 5 December 2007, see his obituary in the Independent, accessed by the link here.


Curiously, I have been working recently on a project that celebrates in part some of the film history of the University of Westminster including some of Tenser's role within this. Below is text from a memo I sent to all staff and students before Xmas, before I heard of Tenser’s passing, and I now hope to be able to show one of his films as part of this programme. Currently these sessions are only available to staff and students, but please contact me if you would like more details or like to be put on the mailing list. The Old Cinema at the University of Westminster has an important place in film history. Perhaps most famously the first presentation of the cinematograph by the Lumiere Brothers took place there on 20 February 1896. Preceding this, whilst still called the Royal Polytechnic Institution, it was world renowned for its pioneering 'Magic Lantern' shows and still maintains links with the Magic Lantern Society. Outside of this the Old Cinema, known at various times as the Cameo-Poly and Cameo News Theatre, was also host for a time to a private members club known as The Compton Cinema Club, run by Tony Tenser and Michael Klinger, and with John Trevelyan, Secretary of the British Board of Film Classification (BBFC) between 1958 and 1971, as its founding member. A number of notable UK and world premieres have been held at the Cinema including La Vie Commence Demain and the lost mod classic Bronco Bullfrog.

The newly founded Compton Club builds upon this film legacy. Drawing its name both from the club originally founded by Tenser and Klinger, and the superb refurbished Compton Organ, the ethos of the Compton would is one of dynamism and inclusivity, and to develop ideas and initiatives that show the creativity and dynamism that exists within the University as well as paying homage to its history.

The first initiative of the Compton Club is a short film series, entitled Banned! The Regulation of Film. The first X -Certificate rated film was shown at the Cinema in January 1951, and this series looks at a number of films that have proved contentious in the period since this landmark event. The series will be open to all students and staff and will take place in Learning Futures Room at Regent Street within popcorn throwing distance of the Old Cinema, on selected Wednesdays in Semester 2. Further details will be announced early in 2008 and a website will be launched detailing these and other initiatives - more details to follow but look out for posters and emails about this in the New Year. For more details, suggestions or input please contact Guy Osborn G.Osborn@wmin.ac.uk

Never Mind the Bollocks....

The Sex Pistols reunion (more cash from chaos and more filthy lucre) and re-release of back catalogue has reminded me of the legal dimension to the Sex Pistols. There is of course the Bill Grundy show and the infamous four letter outburst, the transcript of which was captured for posterity in the Guardian 'Great Speeches of the 20th Century' series earlier in the year. There were of course the court cases and in particular the squabbles between Lydon and McClaren, but it was their output, or (some) product that really created mayhem all those years ago. Banned from performing at many venues the band were forced to tour incognito ('The Spots' - 'Sex Pistols on Tour' at one point and their recorded output was similarly maligned - God Save the Queen memorably prevented from reaching Number 1 during the Silver Jubilee and 30 years later on its reissue prompting an NME campaign to take it to its rightful place at top of charts - it failed of course!

They only released one album proper during their extremely short lifespan, and this had a number of tracks that some felt pushed the boundaries of taste and decency such as 'Bodies' and 'Holidays in the Sun'. The subject matter today seems pretty tame given what has followed it but it neatly captures the shock to the system that the Pistols were in the mid 1970's, a time when my colleague Steve Greenfield was still into Yes and Rick Wakeman on Ice, but a piece this month in the Guardian to launch the Guardian and Observer Digital archive really reminded me of an interesting legal dimension to the Pistols; http://century.guardian.co.uk/1970-1979/Story/0,,106929,00.html

The case seems like an antique now, the Indecent Advertisements Act 1889 even provided for 6 months hard labour as a possible penalty! It neatly illustrates the amorphous notion of censorship, and illustrates how many attempts to censor are very much of their time. This can be seen in film where we see different approaches to films such as Straw Dogs over the years. Anyway, an undergraduate Sex Pistols fan who wore a t shirt emblazoned with the album cover above to a tutorial reminded me of this and the ripe field of legal and extra legal censorship that they leave in their wake. anyone interested in reading more on this see for example Jon Savage's fantastic England's Dreaming and also parts of Martin Cloonan's book Banned. I believe that John Mortimer, who acted for Virgin Records in the case, also discusses the case above in his autobiography. All of this activity shows that the Pistols are perhaps ripe for a legal excavation.