One film I got particularly excited about was Natural Born Killers. Not only did I greatly admire its director, Oliver Stone, but the word in the film magazines was that it was like nothing else you'd seen visually, combining 35mm film, animation, Super 8 and black and white. Sounded like a trip. Sadly, the BBFC declared it unsafe for the general public, and promptly banned its release. I went into a teenage piss about it at the time. I loathed the idea of censorship and wondered what the hell was so bad about a movie. Did it have subliminal messages telling you to kill? That would surely be the only reason to ban it.
Eventually, and with a few more edits, the BBFC said we could see it. My friends and I bought tickets to a very early screening and queued up with a mob of other people, we were all convinced it would one day be banned again and we wanted to see it before that happened. When they opened the doors for us, people ran down the corridor towards the screening room to ensure they got a good seat, it was like a riot of our own.
As it happens, NBK is an enjoyable film, but its violence remains comic-book. Its ludicrous, over-the-top gumpf really. I love the guerilla way it was shot and cut, and I like its comment on the media because in giving the movie the attention they did, they practically proved its point.
Today then, I read that the BBFC had banned The Human Centipede 2. Now, I haven't seen the first Human Centipede. I'm not a horror fan. About the only horror film I bothered to watch lately was the first Saw movie, which I really enjoyed. I do however, know what The Human Centipede is about. Its pretty sick , I'm not sure how you'd think it up and then convince a studio to give you a million bucks to go make it. It was apparently based on the actions of the Nazis, specifically people like the Angel of Death, Josef Mengele. Either way, I knew I wouldn't enjoy it so I didn't watch it. That's kind of an important point.
Reacting to the ban, the film's director, Tom Six, has said "Apparently I made an horrific horror film, but shouldn't a good horror film be horrific? It is all fictional. Not real. It is all make-belief. It is art. Give people their own choice to watch it or not. If people can't handle or don't like my movies they
just don't watch them,"
Now, I might agree with Tom on that one. I might say he has a point...film making is an art form and it's expression. However, his defence kind of falls down when you watch this:
This clearly shows that Mr. Six revels in his quest to make something outrageously sick for no other reason than to make something outrageously sick. He didn't expect his movie to get banned when he made the trailer, so he made no apologies for it and even went to the egotistical length of casting himself in his own trailer. If Scorsese doesn't do that, I don't see why this guy thinks he has a license to.
So in my youth, I'd consider the idea of censorship an appalling one. My chief argument, was that if the members of the BBFC can watch the film and not turn into axe-wielding, homicidal maniacs, then so can I. And that may be true. But I was making the mistake that everyone is as switched on as I. I know the line betwixt fiction and fact, and maybe you do too. But there are some that don't, that will use something like NBK or Reservoir Dogs as a trigger for an act of violence.
Now, in film it works something like this: Man pisses other man off, so hits other man. Other man acts hurt, holds his injury and says something clever.
In real life, it works like this: Man pisses other man off, so hits other man. Other man isn't expecting this, so is floored by the blow, he hits his head on the pavement and suffers bleeding on the brain. He now requires 24 hour care and can't speak.
Its an extreme example, but it can happen. The reason for the difference is that its no good for the script if one of its protagonists becomes a vegetable. Life has no such problems though, its anything goes. Film tries its best to show the consequences of actions, but many times it fails miserably.
You'd have to consider the idea that if film influences others to carry out violent acts though, then the most deranged people are the censors themselves. Since they are not, you might think that the censors are like our parents, deciding what is okay for us to see. Insulted? You'd have good reason to be. You'd also be guilty of not thinking about the fucking muppets out there, who see Goodfellas not as a ground-breaking movie, but a handbook on how to be a cunt.
There has been a great deal of research on a concept called 'Priming'. Here an individual is provided - unknowingly - with a stimulus. It can be a variety of things - words, images, even temperature. One such experiment gave a group of people words to read such as Florida, Retirement, Pension. Another group were given random words to read. As they left the experiment, the participants' walk back down the corridor to the exit was timed. The group that read the words such as retirement and pension walked a great deal slower than they did when they came in. The control group walked at the same speed. The experimental group had been 'primed' to think about old age, therefore they walked slower. And for those wondering, Florida is a popular state to retire to in America.
Another experiment used temperature to prime people's opinion. One group were given a cold beverage to hold before they met someone, and another group a hot beverage. The group that held the hot drink thought more highly of the person they met than the cold, even though the questions the person asked were the same. One group 'warmed' to him, the other didn't. This is scientific, and it proves that your decisions are not as free as you might like to think.
To this end then, surely its probable that movies can prime you for actions. When Wimbledon is on the TV, more kids take up tennis. When kids of my age watched Rocky, they wanted to take up Boxing. When my brother and I used to watch the A-Team as kids, we'd spend the next few days re-enacting it. When I've just watched a Formula 1 race, I drive faster. If I watch a sad movie, it makes me sad. If it can illicit that response, that emotion, surely it can illicit others too. Yes I might be able to keep an eye on the line between carrying out an act and just thinking about it, but I am one of billions. Unless the probability for an event is zero, it will happen one day, given a long enough time line. And there's very few events that have a probability of zero. It makes sense then, that some unhinged individual will attempt to recreate things they have seen on celluloid.
Films have endings, either happy ones or otherwise. Life doesn't. It has consequences that reverberate for a considerable time. Even if YOU die, everyone else carries on, and the things you've left behind, be it art, kids, or just a bloody mess, will remain for a time after you've gone.
It could be said that the only people pissed off about the ban on The Human Centipede 2, are those that wanted to see it. If you want to see films of this nature, then I'd be quite happy to book you an appointment once I complete my Psychology degree.
