Love Among the Artists

When it comes to the art film proper, i.e., what we would call Hiroshima Mon Amour, Shadows or Wild Strawberries, it is the censor's job to decide if the explicit scenes of violence or sex fit into the general standard (or context) of the film. The nude scenes in One Summer of Happiness, Extase, Adam and Eve and Hiroshima Mon Amour all have different meanings and are invested with emotional climates as different from one another as they all are from some scenes of nudity in burlesque and strip tease films.

This question of intent and context is usually the one that starts the argument about censorship' being bigoted and stultifying. We cannot develop the question of the ethnos of censorship in general, we can only note that the censor Is made necessary by the shortcomings of an industry which either can not or will not develop Its own standards of suitability, J and that he has a difficult job which isn't going to keep everybody happy all the time. Censorship In New Zealand is far more liberal and sympathetic than that in most overseas countries.

As he himself has pointed out, his job consists primarily of classification and then mainly of defending one section of the public from another—justifying himself in face of such questions as "Why didn't you cut the swear words out of Saturday night And Sunday Morning, or the sex from Hiroshima Mon Amour? Why do you let those silly advertising films be shown?"

Injury-to-the-Face Motif

The girl about to receive the face-ful of spikes is Barbara Steel, in the Italian Black Sunday, adapted from a Vampire story by Gogol.