At a key moment in my
conversation with Robin Duval, the retiring director of the BBFC, he uses a phrase which I never thought I would hear
from a censor: 'It's only a movie.' Duval is remembering an on-air
confrontation with BBC presenter John Humphrys regarding the board's
decision to pass the controversial rape-revenge movie Irreversible without
cuts.
'Irreversible may have been shocking,' explains Duval, 'and it may even
have been offensive to many people. But our position was that unless we had
clear evidence that it was actually harmful, we were not going to interfere.
John Humphrys had difficulty accepting that, because he belongs to the
constituency which believes that if something looks pretty brutal, then
common sense tells you it must have a malign effect on society.
'Well, I've spent 15 years reviewing that proposition and the one thing I
know is that adults simply aren't affected in a malign manner by material
which is merely shocking. Personally, I think that Irreversible was actually
highly moral, if a little sentimental. But if common sense tells us
anything, it's that it's only a movie.'
This phrase is heavy with irony, not only because it has long been a
battle-cry for those who oppose the iniquities of film censorship, but also
because it was the tagline of another violent rape-revenge movie over which
Duval and I had clashed publicly a couple of years ago.
In 2002, I had written a staunch defence of Wes Craven's long-banned
shocker, Last House on the Left, a grisly retelling of Bergman's The Virgin
Spring, in which parents wreak bloody vengeance upon the gang of killers who
raped and tortured their daughter. Described by Craven, who went on to
direct A Nightmare on Elm Street, as a depiction of the true horror of
violence, this deliberately revolting work had been uncertificated for
nearly 30 years when Duval finally agreed to pass it on video with minor
cuts. The distributors, however, were holding out for an intact release and
took their case to the Video Appeals Committee, where my written defence was
duly submitted as 'expert evidence'.
The appeal failed badly (the VAC actually concluded that more cuts were
needed), and the board received 'the first clear endorsement of our
guidelines on sexual violence by a quasi-judicial review'. So was the Last
House case, which received relatively little press coverage, a defining
moment in Duval's leadership?
'Let us say that there was a principle which was protected by that
decision which might be more important in other circumstances,' he says,
choosing his words carefully. And would he have resigned if the decision had
gone the other way, if the VAC had bought my high-falutin' argument about
Last House being 'an important historical artefact' rather than a piece of
trash?
'At the time, to tell you the truth, that option was in my mind. I did
mention to one or two people that if we lose this, and we lose it on the
grounds that our sexual violence policy was non-viable, that I would have to
go.'
There is a brief silence as I consider the prospect of having
unintentionally plotted to bring about Duval's resignation. In hindsight,
this would have been a bad thing. For despite the Last House debacle, in his
five-and-a-half year tenure at the BBFC, Duval has probably done more to
make the board open, accountable and credible than any previous chief
censor. Describing 'the introduction of transparency' as a key objective, he
is 'proud to have espoused the principle that you don't impose your views on
18-rated movies - movies for adults - unless you have the soundest possible
reason for doing so'. Accordingly, under his watch a bewildering array of
formerly banned titles, from The Texas Chain Saw Massacre to The Story of O,
have been granted uncut cinema certificates, while classics like Sam
Peckinpah's savage West Country western Straw Dogs have finally been allowed
onto the video shelves.
Parents are now permitted to make up their own minds about whether their
children are ready to watch titles such as Spider-Man or Lord of the Rings:
Return of the King thanks to the introduction of the newly advisory 12A
category in 2002. Meanwhile, adults can buy legally classified hardcore
pornography through licensed sex shops, thanks, in part, to the
establishment of 'very clear and specific' guidelines laid down by BBFC to
walk a path between the restraints of the Obscene Publications Act and the
newly enshrined freedoms of the Human Rights Act. For those who believe in
freedom of choice, Duval's leadership of BBFC has provided several rays of
sunshine.
'When I arrived at the BBFC, it was a very dark place to work,' Duval
admits, 'both literally and figuratively. The building was Dickensian, full
of dark corridors and people working in conditions to which I hadn't been
exposed since working for the Central Office of Information back in the
Seventies. There was a real air of gloominess about the place. The staff
were demoralised and a little bit paranoid.' Part of the source of this
paranoia was a stream of excoriating articles in the Daily Mail, which had
taken to 'naming and shaming' examiners responsible for passing 'filth' such
as David Cronenberg's Crash. Considering attack to be the best form of
defence, Duval decided to 'get the retaliation in first' by transforming the
board into a proactive 'centre of excellence for information'.
Under his leadership, an extensive public consultation exercise was
carried out, resulting in the publication of newly defined and clarified
classification guidelines in September 2000. For the first time, the board
got a press officer and its website was revamped to make running times and
cuts information freely available to the public. Meanwhile, Duval set about
untangling the various 'problem cases' which had festered under the reign of
his autocratic predecessor, James Ferman, none more notorious than the
unofficial banning of The Exorcist on video for more than 15 years. 'I was
always on your side about The Exorcist,' laughs Duval, who was aware that I
had become the film's most vocal supporter, regularly bemoaning its
mistreatment by the BBFC. 'In fact, I had a confrontation with Jim [Ferman]
about it as far back as the Eighties when I was working at the Independent
Broadcasting Association. Jim had rung me up to tell me that he expected the
IBA to forbid any transmission of the film, and I had to tell him that I did
not agree with his worries. Then when I came to the BBFC, Jim, who was still
around, got wind that we were contemplating passing it uncut on video. So he
again gave me his standard lecture on how unwise this would be, how it would
traumatise viewers, particularly young women. But we had trawled through the
film's history around the world and we knew that the stories of its
traumatising effects were exaggerated. So we passed it. At which you, Mark,
should be happy.'
While I was indeed delighted about such decisions, Alexander Walker, the
Evening Standard's fiery film critic, regularly charged Duval and his
colleagues with dereliction of duty for failing to protect the public from a
'tide of filth'. 'I do miss Alex,' says Duval with a hint of genuine
sadness. 'Since his death, our profile in the Evening Standard has virtually
disappeared.'
Walker's favourite ploy was to pen outraged reviews, claiming that the
BBFC had passed material which was clearly in breach of its guidelines, or
even of the law itself. Did such claims ever worry Duval? 'Well, I remember
that in his review of Gone in 60 Seconds, Walker accused us of passing
material which showed audiences in graphic detail how to break into a car. I
hadn't actually seen the movie at the time, because the examining team had
been clear that there were no problems whatsoever. But when the story came
out, I rushed to the local cinema to watch it for myself. I was relieved to
find that Alex was wrong and the examiners had been entirely correct.'
On the subject of pornography, Duval maintains a world-weary detachment.
Having helped to establish a 'pretty specific set of criteria' which
redefined the boundaries of consensual screen sex, he now exudes an air of
depressed resignation about the mechanics of enacting such standards.
'No matter what anybody imagines,' he says, sighing, 'regulating porn is
the least attractive and most exhausting task of an examiner at the BBFC. We
have had to be vigilant that at no point should any of our examiners start
to find themselves overwhelmed by this stuff. Nearly 20 per cent of all
submitted porn has to be cut, and the reason is simple: the distributors
have been using us as their editors. They save money and time on viewing
their films by simply sending them straight to us. You ring up and say, "You
do know there's bestiality in this film?" And they say, "No, we didn't. But
thanks for telling us!"'
Less shocking, but rather more troublesome, is the issue of the 12A
certificate which has presented some unforeseen problems. 'When we
researched the idea of an advisory 12 category, 70 per cent of those
questioned were in favour. And although we expected a certain amount of
people to complain about five-year-olds being able to watch a James Bond
film, we were caught off guard by complaints that those five-year-olds are
so bored that they run up and down the aisles and disrupt the film for
everyone else. Put bluntly, cinema staff are indiscriminately letting
babes-in-arms and toddlers in to see 12A rated movies, despite a very clear
understanding that it was not expected to accommodate very young children.'
So will the certificate be rescinded? 'No, I don't think so. But what
might happen is that a formal lower age limit may be imposed, which is what
they have in Sweden and Finland. But of course, that does to some extent
undermine the whole principal of the 12A, which is asking parents to take on
the responsibility to be media literate.'
For Duval, such media literacy is the key to the future of the BBFC
itself. To his successor, David Cooke, who takes over tomorrow, Duval has
this advice: 'Watch out for opportunities, because if you don't, you may
find that the things you took for granted are going to slip away. The future
has to do with providing information rather than taking preventive measures.
I see the BBFC becoming a gold-standard of classification and advice
information across all the different channels of communication. And
classification is, I think, going to thrive. But what probably is going to
go away, in the very long term, is the mandatory element.' As for Duval, he
is taking the opportunity to return to the noble profession which he once
plied before becoming a regulator. 'I was actually briefly a film critic in
a former life. And in a curious way, the latter part of my professional
career has been a move away from what I wanted to do. So now I'm going to
give myself some time and do some writing.'
