Whittam Smith on the Exorcist

Immediately after the announcement that the BBFC had awarded The Exorcist a video certificate, Whittam Smith appeared in several press interviews. The following is a selection from interviews published in The Daily Telegraph and The independent. 

Whittam Smith is just over a year into his job and is still fresh enough to shudder at the thought of some of the films he has had to sit through. People generally assume that if you do have to watch a lot of this stuff, it hardens you. In fact it works the opposite way and I think you become less tolerant of violence on screen.

Whittam Smith was appointed as president of the BBFC at the instigation of Home Secretary Jack Straw, at the height of a wave of media indignation about censorship - or rather, the lack of it. Whittam Smith took up the role on January 1, 1998 with the condition that his was the real power within the board, not that of the director. So when the previously all-powerful James Ferman retired, to be replaced this year by Robin Duval as director, the balance of decision-making shifted. Whittam Smith was seen as a sort of liberal puritan, a tag he rejects, who would put the brake on permissiveness that Ferman had allowed to start rolling.

The sort of films he is talking about are are likely never to receive a licence for video release. These are videos of unremitting, murderous, sexual violence. I suppose I have seen half a dozen in the past 13 months. They are horrid. But one of the nastier things about this job is that I only get asked to look at the horrid things, to make difficult decisions, policy matters.

In comparison, the viewing of The Exorcist, granted a licence for video release with an ordinary 18 certificate this week, was a breeze for Whittam Smith. He admits that but for the adverse publicity "baggage" that the film carries with it there would have been little doubt about its release.

Going into it, with all that had been said and knowing of all the reactions to it, I thought, what must it be like?," he says. "I timidly pushed the button on the video machine; but it wasn't that bad. Quite often, your worst fears are never realised. The fact is that what you are seeing is simply an extremely good film. The story is well told and very simple. There aren't really any sub-plots, it's a very formidable piece of work. But there's no question that all the press reports at the time do tell us that when it was first shown people rushed out of cinemas in hysterics. When you see it now, of course, you are seeing effects which were brilliant at the time but which look rather dated now.

The central problem for us is that this particular film has a well-reported power to frighten young people and we can't, of course, assume that the 18 certificate for a video means that the under-18s won't see it. The question isn't for us whether it will frighten people, because lots of people pay good money to be frightened. The question is whether the fright, the terror, could in any way be said to be permanently damaging. That's the bottom-line question for us. And the fact is that there is no solid evidence that The Exorcist has done.

The film, he points out, has been on cinema release for 25 years; was relaunched last year on its silver anniversary; and has been freely available in Holland and Germany with certificates for 16 and 14-year-olds respectively. This last fact is an indication of the gulf that exists between our own and European standards on film and video classification.

Whittam Smith, though in some ways an ardent European, resists harmonisation across the Union. These are cultural differences For instance, British people are profoundly unhappy with swearing on screen. Not with all swearing on screen, but there is a list of words which help to determine your classification level because British people are concerned about language, for whatever reason. This doesn't even extend to Ireland. I'm not sure why it is, but these are facts as far as I am concerned."

But there is a cloud of European unification on the BBFC's horizon. The incorporation of the European Convention on Human Rights into British law will mean that it will be easier for video companies to challenge decisions by the board to refuse a licence.

It will probably mean that where in the past we might have been minded not to license something, now we might have to ask for a substantial number of cuts instead. It might come to the same thing, mind you, because the distributor might say, 'Well if I have to make all these cuts, I have got nothing left, it's a worthless thing commercially'. (He shows as much respect for the Law as I do for censors!)

But he doesn't think it will make much difference to the cinema. For a start, we haven't refused a licence on a film for cinema release for eight years. Cinema is to some extent an open road, and I am very keen to keep that road open if I can. Because the cinema is well-regulated - I have no evidence of 13-year-olds running into 18 films - and adults know what they are going to see when they go to the cinema. Television and video are unbidden. However, more important to him than Europe's influence on British censorship is the gradual change in public opinion.

Two of the most important tides of today, at least this is my feeling rather than anything that I can prove, is that public toleration of violence on the screen has diminished, but public toleration of sexual explicitness has not and is indeed still growing.

Even governments are not strong enough to stand against these deep social currents. After all, no government has wished to see the steady increase in single parent families. In many ways I am pleased to find that governments are powerless to stop these social changes. Even less is the tiny little Number 3 Soho Square able to hold up its hand and stop such social pressures. (Hey for once I agree) But people do want us to be there, parents want us to be there to help us regulate their children's viewing. (Well stick to classification then and stop telling adults waht they can watch)

Andreas Whittam Smith - Why I believe 'The Exorcist' can do no harm in the home

The substantial differences between going out to the cinema and watching films on video at home - at least in the minds of the mysterious authorities who govern our lives - are vividly illustrated by the history of the The Exorcist.

This excellent, albeit notorious, film has been regularly available in cinemas since its controversial debut in 1974, when it was given the old "X" rating. But only last week - 25 years later - did the British Board of Film Classification (of which I became president in January 1998, and thus an "authority") classify it for the video market.

Cinemas are well regulated in terms of observing the age categories. While there can be some slippage in films classified at "12" or even at "15" because children do not always look their age, it can be assumed that the "18" category is reliably policed. In other words, the "18" rating in the cinema means "adults only". Indeed I would say "informed adults only" for people must always have some idea of what kind of movie they have come out to see. In fact, the board has not refused an "18" classification for a film in the cinema for eight years, but occasionally it has insisted on brief cuts.

When videos enter the home, however, one cannot assume that the age classification will be observed. Even where parents conscientiously regulate their children's viewing, they cannot control what their young ones may see at their friends'. Like television, where viewers often have no idea what to expect as they move from one channel to another, videos can be carelessly picked up and played. Both television and videos can have the quality of being unbidden.

On the other hand, the board does not assume that every 12-year-old, for instance, will wish to watch every "18" video that his or her parents may rent. That depends much more upon the subject matter, the style and the actors.

In the case of The Exorcist, which we classified at "18", the board made two assumptions: that so famous is the title, most kids would want to see it; and that many parents are aware of the film's reputation and that they would take such precautions as they might think to be appropriate.

There is also an enormous difference between the economics of the two markets, and this has an impact on the way they are regulated. Films made for the cinema, rather than directly for the video market, are expensive to produce and to promote, and the board receives about 400 a year for classification. The bulk of them have wide appeal.

But the board is sent about 4,000 videos each year. Only about a tenth of these will have been in the cinema; the rest are cheaply produced, solely for video rental and often serve niche markets. If the cinema is still a bit like the theatre, the video market resembles book publishing with a similar ability to satisfy small interest groups.

The majority of these are unexceptional. But among the interest groups, one is pretty big - the buyers of so-called "adult" or pornographic movies, in turn dividing into heterosexual or gay, and subdividing again into specific sexual activities. Alongside explicit sex, there is also a niche market which relishes violence on screen, and, of course, often sex and violence are combined.

These two aspects of the video market - the fact that videos come into the home and that some will be more sexually explicit or more violent than is generally so in the cinema - explain why the legislation governing the classification of videos is much stricter and more precise.

As far as the cinema goes, the board carries out its work on behalf of local authorities, which are able to insist that local cinemas observe the board's classification decisions. Our legal duties are limited to making sure that works are not classified that would breach the Obscene Publication Acts, or which would infringe the Protection of Children Act (that makes it a crime to produce or publish indecent photographs of a child), or which would break the pre-war law which forbids any scene where animals were treated cruelly in the making of it.

Recently, too, the European Convention on Human Rights has been made part of English law and with it, Article 10, which guarantees the right to freedom of expression.

While all this legislation applies equally to videos, there is an extra consideration - the Video Recordings Act. This has been amended twice since it was first placed on the Statute Book in 1984. Some members of both Houses of Parliament continue to wonder whether it is sufficiently effective. (David Alton I presume)

At its centre is the notion of "harm" - harm to those likely to view the video and harm to society through the behaviour of those viewers afterwards. And it singles out five activities as being potentially harmful - criminal behaviour, the use of illegal drugs; violent behaviour or incidents; horrific behaviour or incidents, and human sexual activity.

The Exorcist contains scenes of violence and sex, but it is not these which prevented video classification for so long. The film, with its treatment of demonic possession, was found so frightening when it was first shown that some young women fainted. That has been the problem.

On the other hand, to be terrified by a piece of fiction, whether a book, a play, a television production or a film is not necessarily to be harmed. After all, many people in their leisure activities seek briefly to feel alarmed; they pay good money for frightening experiences whether at the fun fair, or on the mountains in winter, or at the cinema.

The question which has taken so long to answer is whether The Exorcist's undoubted power to induce fear can be harmful in the sense of permanent psychological damage.

You can say that this is an unanswerable problem, and I confess that many of the issues which the board faces feel like that, but, nonetheless, have to be resolved. In this example, unusually, we had something to go on. It is this. In 25 years, no cases of psychological damage arising out of viewing The Exorcist have come to light. It was available on video, uncut, in the United Kingdom until the passing of the Video Recordings Act in 1984.

It has been in video shops uncut in Europe for many years without any adverse reaction being recorded. The film was again shown in British cinemas last autumn; there was no hysteria. How do we know there has been no incidence of harm? Of course we cannot be certain; but lobby groups would have rushed to inform us if there were examples. Still, waiting 25 years was a bit excessive - even for the authorities.