BEIJING â€" Just three years young and kicking off tomorrow, the Beijing International Film Festival has risen fast through the ranks. Then last week an old problem in China reared its head: censorship that threatens to cast a pall over the event, according to Chinese and non-Chinese commentators and film experts. At the very least, it’s going to be a major talking point at the festival.
Within minutes last Thursday, Quentin Tarantino’s widely-hyped movie “Django Unchained,†was pulled from screens in China on its opening day - in mid-showing in some places, as the Global Times, a newspaper owned by the Communist Party’s People’s Daily, reported.
The festival is going ahead as planned â€" according to its Web site, the actor Keanu Reeves, the directors Luc Besson and Nikita Mikhalkov and the singer Sarah Brightman are all expected, to name just a few of the international and domestic stars. But many people, especially industry executives, directors and other insiders are asking: is China really easing away from the constraints on freedom of expression and artistic freedom that have for so long blighted both the creative and business side of film here, as Chinese directors have often said Recently, people had begun to hope that an apparently greater ease of dealmaking with Hollywood was a sign China was slowly joining the global mainstream.
Django’s tale of a peasant uprising may do very well in China, if it’s ever released, and my colleague Michael Cieply just reported it may very well be. Like in the film, China sees regular peasant uprisings. Yet most people seem to think it wasn’t political sensitivities, but nudity, that may have gotten it pulled.
In a stinging piece in the Global Times, Shi Chuan, vice president of Shanghai Film Association, said it didn’t matter why. Pulling it was a disaster and the government should explain what happened, he said.
“I believe the unexpected cancellation will do far more damage to China’s image than the sight of Jamie Foxx’s bare bottom could do to a Chinese audience,†the newspaper cited Mr. Shi as saying, in a story it said was compiled by a reporter from an interview with Mr. Shi.
“’Django Unchained’ is a much acclaimed and Oscar-winning movie. The release of this movie in China, coupled with this incident, confirms the negative image of China’s film censorship. The sudden pulling of the movie is disrespectful to both the market and the audiences,†he told the newspaper.
As a film lawyer, Mathew Alderson, wrote Sunday in the China Law Blog, calling it a “hot topic†here: “Why did the Chinese censors pull Tarantino’s ‘Django Unchained’ on its opening day in Chinaâ€
Overall, there were “serious drawbacks†in China’s film management system, said Mr. Shi, and pointed unmistakably to one: capriciousness among censors. The headline of the article read: “Django unclothed does less harm to audiences than screeners’ whimsâ€.
Mr. Shi said that some censorship of nudity or violence was “understandable.â€
But the last-minute pulling of a film that had already passed the censors, with cuts already made to please them, smacked of something else: arbitrariness.
Censorship “has obvious characteristic of ‘the rule of man’ rather than the rule of law,†Mr. Shi said. “Different censors have various standards,†he said. “But generally speaking, China’s censorship is too strict and overly rigid.â€
This is tough language in China, especially in public.
For weeks, Beijing bus stops and other public areas had shown giant posters advertising the film, as my colleagues Gerry Mullany and Michael Cieply reported last week. They called the pulling “a surprising move that underscored the fragility of Hollywood’s evolving relationship with the Chinese movie industry.â€
Mr. Alderson, the film lawyer, listed four other “hot topics†of discussion he expected at the festival, including: what will the government’s powerful new radio, film, television, press and publishing agency, that is in charge of censorship, the newly fused SARFT and GAPP, be called
Rendezvous asks: SARFTGAPP, SAGAPPRFT, or GASARFTPP Or, what
