Film Censorship in a Cultural Context - (Traditions in World Cinema) by Daniel Sacco (Paperback)

About the Book

Compares censorship's distinct and varying profiles across five different national contexts - U.S.A., Britain, Canada, Australia, and France.

Book Synopsis

This book examines a sampling of cinematic works that provoked censorious impulses throughout the shift away from formal film censorship in the late modern West. The public controversies surrounding Fat Girl, Irreìversible, Ken Park, The Brown Bunny, Wolf Creek, and Welcome to New York, each highlight significant stages in this cultural shift, which necessitated policy revision within the institutions of formal film censorship in Britain, Canada, and Australia. Parallels and distinctions are drawn between governmental film regulation policies in these countries and social control mechanisms at work within a wider network of institutions, including news media, film festivals, and advocacy groups. The study examines the means by, and ends to, which the social control of film content persists in the "post-censorship" media landscape of Britain, Canada, Australia, and the United States, and how concepts of film "classification" manifest in commercial market contexts, journalistic criticism, and practices of distribution and advertising.

Review Quotes

A rich multi-modal account of international censorship as the conceptual and historical backdrop to films that linger at the far reaches of notoriety. Measured and thoughtful about this most heated of global conversations, this is essential reading for anyone engaged by limit cases of media representation.--Tim Palmer, Author of Brutal Intimacy: Analyzing Contemporary French Cinema and Irreversible