Post #499, wherein I ponder where the differences lie between exploitation cinema and some arthouse films

Specifically, I'll consider the likes of Irréversible, Baise-Moi, and Man Bites Dog in the arthouse camp, and I Spit On Your Grave, Ms. 45 and Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer. Before getting under way, though, I should mention that I've seen only three of the aforementioned films. This post is more an open question than an analysis of particular films.

Back in the 1970s and 1980s, the rape-revenge flick was a staple of exploitation cinema. Films such as Last House on the Left, I Spit On Your Grave, and Ms. 45 revelled in inflicting as horrific a spectacle as possible upon the public. Some of these films may have some merit; others may not. Like any genre, the more it filters through into the mainstream, the more diluted it becomes. In some cases, the only point of interest is that the director went on to bigger and better things.

The nature of many of these films meant that they fell foul of the Video Recordings Act 1984 here in the UK, a massive blow to the video industry, which was burgeoning at that time, with exploitation movies making up a good deal of the trade. In one fell swoop, dozens of films were made illegal, deemed to contain obscene material. At one time or another, a total of 74 "video nasties" appeared on the list, and 39 were successfully prosecuted.

The Exorcist was only awarded a nationwide UK release in 1999, since the all-pervading feeling of horror would have been impossible to remove, regardless of cuts made. (Can you believe this shit?!) What seems to be a comprehensive list of all these video nasties can be found here.

Fortunately, things changed for the better when former head James Ferman left the BBFC (British Board of Film Classification). Since his departure we have seen the un-banning of many of those nasties, as well as a more liberal approach to censorship in general. To a point... What is apparent, though, is that arthouse cinema (and particularly foreign-language cinema) has more freedom than English-language fodder with mass appeal.

This was most apparent in the early 1990s when Henry and Man Bites Dog suffered entirely different fates. Of course, it can be argued that the latter film was heavy on black humour, while the former was a miserable affair from beginning to end. Another factor came into play, though, soon after Man Bites Dog was granted a video certificate. (Note to US readers: we do not have an Unrated certificate here. All films must be rated; first for the cinema, and then for video. And it is not uncommon for a different rating to be given to the home-video version than was given to the exhibition print.)

I have previously posted (albeit briefly) on the Jamie Bulger case. What this led to was a sort of revitalization of the "video nasty" scare. Films started disappearing from video-store shelves. But worse was the BBFC's decision to amend its own guidelines. And it was all about timing. Man Bites Dog had had its home-video certificate granted before the death of Jamie Bulger; it was passed uncut. Reservoir Dogs -- considerably less violent and, in the words of BBFC head, Ferman, "what [violence] there is is contextually justified" -- came to the Board just after Bulger's killing, and it received an outright ban for home viewing.

All of this blew over again, of course, but I do find myself wondering. And this is where I come back to the question posed at the beginning of this post. Would the liberties granted for recent French fare Irréversible and Baise-Moi be held up for English-language pictures? Sure, Michael Winterbottom's 9 Songs was unscathed, but the BBFC has always had a problem with sexual violence, and yet the central and horrific nine-minute rape scene in Irréversible was spared the knife. In the same film, within the first few minutes, a man's head is pummelled repeatedly for probably at least two minutes with a fire extinguisher. Smashed and smashed and smashed until it resembles a pile of roadkill or watermelon that has been driven over. These two scenes are among the few I've ever seen that make me unsure that I want to keep watching. And I absolutely do not believe they would ever find an uncensored place in an English-language film here in the UK, even an English-language arthouse film.

Is that right, though? Should there be one rule for one and another for someone else? This privilege also extends to individual film-makers, believe it or not. Natural Born Killers was passed uncut over here only after James Ferman met with Oliver Stone, a director who he believed had artistic integrity. This integrity was what swayed the chief censor not to wield his axe.

And we're still not in Utopia yet. This page of Melonfarmers.com details the latest BBFC cuts, including Casino Royale news. And this page goes into great depth on the status of many of the video nasties.