Dear all,
after having talked a little bit about Orson Welles' "The Trial" last week, during the next classes Prof. Conde - from the University of Huelva (Spain) - will really introduce us to the Law and Cinema movement from the very peculiar point of view of censorship. I am sure you will enjoy it!
ABSTRACT
after having talked a little bit about Orson Welles' "The Trial" last week, during the next classes Prof. Conde - from the University of Huelva (Spain) - will really introduce us to the Law and Cinema movement from the very peculiar point of view of censorship. I am sure you will enjoy it!
ABSTRACT
*
The lectures will introduce the ‘law and cinema’ contemporary scholarship, trying to look critically (from a european perspective) at some of its premises and results.
Therefore we will focus on underline one of the possible intersections between law and films: that of ‘cinema in law’ (or law on cinema). This approach is by far much less attended (and maybe less ‘funny’, more ‘serious’) than the classical ‘law in cinema’ studies or the (amusing and even ‘worrying’) ‘law as cinema/cinema as law’ debates.
More specifically we will tackle some US Supreme Court decisions (and indecisions) to concisely describe the way in which censorship on films has been –constitutionally and legally- formulated in the twentieth century.
The account should serve as an example –and encouragement- for those students interested in the development of similar subjects, which are not necessarily involved with totalitarian regimes or tendencies.
And above all, it is a proposal –and a provocation- concerning the unavoidable (self)analysis about the (individual, social, juridical, economical) limits and burdens of freedom of speech.
The lectures will introduce the ‘law and cinema’ contemporary scholarship, trying to look critically (from a european perspective) at some of its premises and results.
Therefore we will focus on underline one of the possible intersections between law and films: that of ‘cinema in law’ (or law on cinema). This approach is by far much less attended (and maybe less ‘funny’, more ‘serious’) than the classical ‘law in cinema’ studies or the (amusing and even ‘worrying’) ‘law as cinema/cinema as law’ debates.
More specifically we will tackle some US Supreme Court decisions (and indecisions) to concisely describe the way in which censorship on films has been –constitutionally and legally- formulated in the twentieth century.
The account should serve as an example –and encouragement- for those students interested in the development of similar subjects, which are not necessarily involved with totalitarian regimes or tendencies.
And above all, it is a proposal –and a provocation- concerning the unavoidable (self)analysis about the (individual, social, juridical, economical) limits and burdens of freedom of speech.
*
READINGS
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A)
- The Yale Law Journal, Vol. 98, No.8, “Popular Legal Culture” (June 1989) (“Introduction”, pp. 1545-1558; Lawrence M. Friedman, “Law, Lawyers, and Popular Culture”, pp. 1579-1606)
A)
- The Yale Law Journal, Vol. 98, No.8, “Popular Legal Culture” (June 1989) (“Introduction”, pp. 1545-1558; Lawrence M. Friedman, “Law, Lawyers, and Popular Culture”, pp. 1579-1606)
- Stefan Machura/Peter Robson (eds.), Journal of Law and Society, Vol. 28, No. 1, “Law and Film” (March 2001). The “Introduction”, pp.1-8, includes a selected bibliography (1986-1999)
B)
B)
- “Motion Pictures and the First Amendment”, The Yale Law Journal, Vol. 60, No. 4. (April 1951), pp. 696-719.
- John Wertheimer, “Mutual Film Reviewed: The Movies, Censorship, and Free Speech in Progressive America”, The American Journal of Legal History, Vol. 37, No. 2. (Apr., 1993), pp. 158-189.
- John Wertheimer, “Mutual Film Reviewed: The Movies, Censorship, and Free Speech in Progressive America”, The American Journal of Legal History, Vol. 37, No. 2. (Apr., 1993), pp. 158-189.
*
Esteban Conde's CV:
*
Esteban Conde (Barcelona, 1971), Legal Historian (Universities of Barcelona –Autónoma- and now Huelva), received his Ph.D. in Law in 2003. He has written two books (1998, 2006) about the main (and constructive) role played by ‘enlightened’ censorship in Spain, and several articles on police power (its metaphores, tradition and development at the end of the Ancien Régime).
Over the past five years, he has used some interdisciplinary approaches as a tool to teach legal history: litterature and law, and more recently cinema and law.
Over the past five years, he has used some interdisciplinary approaches as a tool to teach legal history: litterature and law, and more recently cinema and law.
Good morning everybody!
RispondiEliminaI’m looking forward today’s lesson! I love cinema and I am really curious thinking about law in cinema for example and for this reason I’ve just made a little research on the web. I’ve just found a movie entitled “Denied rights” that is about the violation of personal freedom and fundamental right in immigration. It’s a French film by Philippe Lioret, maybe our French classmates will know him.
Tonight at 9 pm near our university there will be the last screening of the movie, I don’t know yet if I am going but I put the link below so if somebody is interested in it, just read here:
http://www.romamultietnica.it/index.php?option=com_k2&view=item&id=6363&Itemid=10
See you later!
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RispondiEliminaERRATA CORRIGE:
RispondiEliminaThe movie is entitled "Welcome", Denied rights is the name of the festival, and it is free.
If you want to know something about the plot click here:
http://www.comingsoon.it/Film/Scheda/Trama/?key=47230&film=Welcome
Thank you! You really are our events organiser!
RispondiEliminaHi everybody!
RispondiEliminaFirst of all, I would like to thank Professor Conde for his interesting lessons. In particular, today’s lesson about censorship made me wondering about the freedom of speech and the censorship that Governments and Church make still today.
As I said yesterday, there is a very interesting movie entitled “I banchieri di Dio” God’s bankers’ that tells about the murder of Calvi and the scandal of Banco Ambrosiano Veneto, in which we discover that the Vatican, the Massoneria and some of our politicians, Craxi and Andreotti for instance, are involved.
This film has been banned for 15 years, at the end the author was allowed to play it in 2001, when I saw it.
If you wanna know more about it:
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-5325214220882305252#
http://www.centraldocinema.it/recensioni/16/a/banchieri%20di%20dio.htm
http://it.wikipedia.org/wiki/I_banchieri_di_Dio_-_Il_caso_Calvi
http://www.mymovies.it/dizionario/recensione.asp?id=33794
Unfortunately I’ve realized that censorship still exist and the idea of “secret of the State” is one way to make people misinformed about important things.
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RispondiEliminaHi! I just wanted to give you a couple of links related to the topics that we discussed yesterday:
RispondiEliminaAbout "Mein Kampf", wikipedia gives some interesting information but about the debate you can have a look here:
http://www.time.com/time/arts/article/0,8599,1831786,00.html
About "Braking the Waves" by Lars Von Trier (1996) that, in a certain way, reminded me of "Il miracolo" , well, I just wanted to tell you the title (in Italy is "Le onde del destino"). The name of the movement that he created writing a kind of cinema manfesto is Dogma95
Hi! It is an interesting article.
RispondiEliminaHonestly, as I was thinking during our final debate in the last classes, I'm not 100% sure, personally, about what would be the best thing to do with Mein Kampf (to publish or not to publish it again in Germany).
I remember a sentence by prof. Conde in which he said "It's just a book, the problem is not the book itself". It was while talking about the uselessness of censorship in these cases. Well, I think this can be right in general, but maybe Mein Kampf needs some specific considerations: with the eyes of History and in retrospect, we can easily recognize that M.K. hasn't been just a book: most of its contents have been effectively realized (racist ideas, persecutory laws, illegal military aggressions, demolition of democratic order, etc.). So, can we really say, TODAY, that M.K. has been "just a book"?
Probably we could say it if we lived in the '20s, when its author had not yet any power and he was in prison..at that time, this book was effectively "just a book".
But we live in 2010, and so we all know that in the '30s-'40s this book became REAL and the border between its paper and reality disappeared. Can or must we forget this important point?
Usually I'm not pro-censorship, I want to clarify it. What I want to say is that we should accept (I think) a book like M.K. only if it was really "just a book" and if its paper remained just paper and not became the reality.
At least, when Bavarian Government won't have no longer its copyright in 2015, I hope that the editor which won't resist to publish it again will equip it with critical annotations and explanations...
Best regards to all!
It is very interesting how Mein Kampf bring still now to the discussion. Dr. Gialdroni you have opened the Pandora's vase! ehehe!
RispondiEliminaSo I have read your links and I would show to all that in the last number of "Il Venerdì di Repubblica" (the weekly paper of LaRepubblica) there are also these news (pag. 84-87).
So the problem is that since 2016 Mein Kampf will be re-copied legally in Germany.
In my opinion, as I tried to say Friday, I think this is not really an example of "right of expression", that was a topic of the lesson of Prof. Conde (about censorship in Cinema).
I think it is more easy to consider it as a question of "politically un-correct".
I try to explain better.
Many romans emperors made did very violent things but nobody see scandal if I disguise my self as Nerone or Costantino.
About Nazism on the contrary is too particular because it was only 70 years ago so people especially in Europe have a particular point of view about it.
And especially in Germany. They tried to hide this book but so... since 2016 also Germany will do this challange with Mein Kampf. It is the law (for the rights of author).
As we said in class (and I remember we had almost all a same opinion!) it is just a book! The terrible ideas of Nazism have to be fight not with this type of censorship but with a cultural work.
And in this "cultural war" I want make my duty... I am secretary of a department of the most important italian association about the Resistance of the anti-fascism (ANPI).
Hi everybody,
RispondiEliminaI would like to say that, despite the disagreements during the discussion on Friday and also because of that, I think it was a very interesting discussion. Like I said, I do not agree with the fact that M.K. is 'just a book'. As Alessandro pointed out the problem is not the book itself, but what's in it and the real memories and consequences of it. I'm not sure about the censorship, but I believe this book is a special case and we should consider all the points carefully. Furthermore, the book is quite unclear and terrible written, so if it will be available again, it should be a reprint of the text, which is a kind of censorship as well.....
Hi to all.
RispondiEliminaI don't think that censorship can be useful, even in this case.
Censorship was always used not only for misinform the people, but also for hide something ,evaluated by who have the censorship power, dangerous for him
and that it can't be pubblic.
So,even if you try to use censorship in a different way ( and i think this is not possible),
however you do not resolve the real problem, because there will be always
people that will keep on thinking that behaviors as these ( of course i'm refering to the case of M.K.) are correct and rightful
From this point of view i agree with Emanuele. You must educate the people, so in this way they can understand what is right and what is wrong.
Surely this is not an easy task, but this offers the possibility to respect the right of who want express his ideas and at the same time
to avoid that someone could belive in so wrong behaviors.
For me this can be a solution .But a solution that can really solve the problem, surely more than using the censorship
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RispondiEliminaThis comment was written by Hélène:
RispondiEliminaHi all!
I'm a little bit late to writte about the discusses of mein kampf (next lesson is in one hour)
But I just saw a beautifull documentary about mein kampf andf I really would like to share it!
Unfortunatly the documentary is in French... but maybe some of you can understand it!
Building, necessary and one cannot convenient any more at the time when Germany wonders whether time not had not just authorized the diffusion of the book of Adolf Hitler on her territory.
Right what it is necessary to tell us a history that we let us believe to know. That of a book which made million deaths.
Because as the title underlines it, all there was announced, programmed, proclaimed what awaited us. But it was necessary to read it.
The history starts behind the bars of the prison of Landsberg in 1924 when a young putschist of the name of Adolf Hitler misleads the trouble there by writing his political project, under a title (Mein Kampf) found by the editor.
With the beginning of the year thirty, 290,000 specimens are sold by it but the observers still hold the book for the catalogue of phantasms of excited. a little later after the accession to the capacity of the Hitler chancellor, they change tone. The book becomes the bible of 3rd Reich.
Four million specimens the day before the war, twelve million at the end of 3rd Reich, a family on two. “One had it but it was not read” will say afterwards. It could means : if it had been read, one would have known.
So may we considered mein kampf as the only origin of this war? without mein kampf there be not hitler? or without hitler there be not mein kampf?
The historian Hans Mommsen goes until affirming: “It is the book less read time because it did not give any political answer”.
And so can we consider that read mein kampf is a danger?
After the war, the Germans will destroy or bury their twelve million specimens of the cursed book from now on while the libraries will lock up it in their “room of the poisons”.
Today, it is there always interdict of diffusion by the ministry for Finances of the Land of Bavaria (area of its last known residence) which holds the royalties of the book.
Officially by respect for the memory of the victims. Semi-officially because Germany is the only country where its publication cannot be made without the opinion pointing there the signs of a resurgence of the Nazism.
Today, A debate agitates the German academic world recently: insofar as the rights of the book fall into the public domain in 2015.
wouldn't it be urgent to put in building site a critical edition, with notes, foreword and comments, in order to cut grass under the foot to the negationnists who will certainly proceed to a very personal edition of Mein Kampf?
It's the solution that France adopted with the famous sentence of 11 july 1979 which one allowed the publication of my kampf in France (mon combat) only with a first annotation.
Is it a good initiative? yes on condition that not falling into the nonsense that there will be “to comment on” the passages where Adolf Hitler explains that the Jews are a degenerated race..
Anyway I let you watch the documentary which explain better than me :)
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=5867818886744966614# ("mein kampf, c'était écrit" de antoine vitkine)
All best!
Hélène Bellenger
Hi all!i really would like to point out something about"the Miracle", although we hadn't finished to watch it:this film is really emblematic, in my opinion.The fact that it is a black and white film setted in rural landscapes and that the major character talks alone, doing a monologue,portends some mysteries.In my opinion, also the music used as background for her voice helped to imagine and to try to guess the rest of the plot(the violation that the lady suffers by the person she is convinced to be S.Giuseppe).In the film we don't see anything about that, but in my opinion is exactly the fact that we don't see anything that shocks more because the role to rebuild cameos is given to imagination that is more powerful than all clear scenes.
RispondiEliminaClaudia Nardinocchi
Another thing i would like to point out:i have been really interested in the discussion we had on friday.If i can give my opinion, i would like to express my point of view about the theme of showing what we believe in in order to defend freedom of speeches or expressions.The examples that someone gave on friday were, for example,the symbol of a swastika on a t-shirt or of Mussolini's face.In my opinion, believing in something doesn't mean that is indispensable to show your ideas,it is the opposite,for me:if you really believe in some principles, you don't need to flaunt them to the others, you don't need to convince anyone about them.In a particular way, knowing that these symbols could disrespect someone, could be abiding to avoid showing them, continuing taking them in account.
RispondiEliminaAnother point that i would like to stress is about The Main Kampf. Not reading it, in my opinion, is an attempt to try to forget the shame that happend in our history: it is a way to escape, not facing reality that unfortunatelly has been our past.
Claudia Nardinocchi
Hi to all!
RispondiEliminasorry if i'm really late to post this comment regarding the last lesson of prof. Conde but the week before i wasn't in Italy and even if i had already written down my comment,i couln'd post it because i didn't have access to internet untill now!I'm really sorry!but is better late that never!
so the last lesson of Prof. Conde was very interesting, the way the lesson ended with a deep discussion about the limits of freedom of speech and the cersorchip, made me think on several poitns.
But first of all lets talk about the important film that we have seen in class, the 'Miracle' of Rossellini shoot in the 1948 with Anna Magnani as main character.
This movie, because of the theme in it, had important consequences regarding the view of the 'censure' in USA. In Fact the film as been object of an attempt of censorship when it arrived in 1950 in the Usa, expecially by the catholic autorithies. They wanted to boycott the film because for them the movie was against the principles of morality, and was
contrary to religious rules, for instance, Cardinal Spellman declared it as a sacrilegious film. About the censure, in that period,
there have been two important sentences in USA. The first one, in 1915, considered the cinema just intertainment and business, and excluded it from the liberties of the First Amendment of the U.S. Federal Constitution.
Consequence of this sentence was that the censure could't not be sindacable and was arbitrariness.
In 1952,"The Miracle", after the several contrast that i've pointed before, arrived to the Supreme Court, in the case Berstyn v. Wilson. Here the judges
made a revolutionary decision, saying that "the State has non interest to protect any religious doctrine".
This is a very important sentence, because it is the first step towards the abolition of the censorship, and the real freedom of speech.
Talking about the discussion, i think that is very difficult at the end to try to draw the lines, the limits of freedom of speech, as we could see in class there will be always different points of you, but if think like prof Conde had teach us, that "we need always more speech , just emergency can justify the repression". so we have the right to say our ideas, but always respecting people.
"Disapprovo cio' che dici, ma difendero' alla morte il tuo diritto di dirlo" (Voltaire)
best
Valentina Di Pietrantonio