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FCC CRACKS DOWN ON PBS
Today, we received the following e-mail from director Jonathan Robinson of When in Doubt Productions, whose film Every Child is Born a Poet: The Life and Work of Piri Thomas is scheduled to air on the PBS series Independent Lens on April 6 at 10 p.m. and April 9 at 12:30 a.m.:
"The FCC has made some sweeping changes in the past few weeks regarding language on television. There has been a rapid transformation in policy in the wake of Bono saying "fuck" on the Golden Globes and Janet Jackson exposing her nipple during the Super Bowl. In short, language that used to be at the discretion of the broadcaster (i.e. station or network) is now at the discretion of the FCC. The FCC is now leveling fines of up to $250,000 against stations that do not comply with the new regulations approved by Congress. "The independently-produced film Every Child is Born a Poet: The Life and Work of Piri Thomas, scheduled to be broadcast on the national PBS series Independent Lens tomorrow night, April 6th at 10:00 p.m., is right smack in the middle of these new controversial policies. Every Child... tells the story of renowned poet, writer, educator Piri Thomas. The film includes the author reading excerpts from, as well as dramatizations of selections from his classic autobiographical novel Down These Mean Streets (1967).
"The book chronicles Thomas's coming-of-age in the 1930s, 1940s and '50s, his experiences as a teen gang member in East Harlem, as a junkie and an armed robber, and the six years he spent in prison, before becoming an educator and activist, pioneering gang violence prevention, drug rehabilitation and educational reform efforts in New York City in the 1960s and '70s.
"Following the issuance of the new FCC rules, PBS has been forced to edit out of Every Child is Born a Poet 'obscene' words like 'fuck' and 'shit.' In fact, some PBS affiliate stations are requesting that additional words... not mandated by the FCC rules, be removed as well. At the time of its publication, Down These Mean Streets was hailed for its unflinching description of ghetto life and racism in America, while decried by some for obscenity. [The book] was banned in a number of schools and libraries in the early 1970s, due to concerns about language. The 'offensive' language currently being censored by the government brings into question how the FCC rules effect not only freedom of speech, but artistic integrity, as well.
"In 1972, before the decision was overturned, the Supreme Court upheld a lower court's ruling to allow School District 25 in Flushing, Queens to ban Down These Mean Streets from student libraries. In a dissenting opinion, Justice Potter Stewart and Justice William O. Douglas asked, 'Are we sending children to school to be educated by the norms of the school board or are we educating our youth to shed the prejudices of the past, to explore all forms of thought, and to find solutions to our world's problems?'
"The new FCC rules effect content involving 'offensive' language and sexuality, but do not touch upon violence. Before the new regulations went into effect, the FCC went as far as to try to mandate that broadcasters pixilate the mouths of individuals speaking offensive words, but backed off before Congress gave its approval. Major networks and cable programmers may be willing to test or openly flaunt the new rules, but PBS stations, already struggling with limited resources and annual budget re-authorization hearings in Congress, are unwilling to take on the challenges to freedom of speech and expression.
"The series Independent Lens is a co-presentation of The Independent Television Service (ITVS) and PBS. The Mission Statement for ITVS is as follows:
" 'The Independent Television Service (ITVS) brings to local, national and international audiences high-quality, content-rich programs created by a diverse body of independent producers. ITVS programs take creative risks, explore complex issues, and express points of view seldom seen on commercial or public television. ITVS programming reflects voices and visions of underrepresented communities and addresses the needs of underserved audiences, particularly minorities and children.
" 'In an era that encompasses both the explosion of commercial information enterprises and a consolidation of media empires, the role of public sector media becomes critical to a free, open, and informed society. ITVS holds the following values as essential to carrying out the organization's work:
Freedom of expression is a human right.
A free press and public access to information are foundations of democracy.
An open society allows unpopular and minority views to be publicly aired.
A civilized society seeks economic and social justice.
A just society seeks participation from those without power, prominence, or wealth.
A free nation allows all citizens forums in which they can tell their own stories and express their own opinions.' "
# posted by Steve Gallagher @ 4/5/2004 06:43:05 PM
GREAT EXPECTATIONS
Years ago, before I worked in film, I was a curator and programmer at The Kitchen, New York's center for contemporary performance and video. In my first year there, the organization produced a one-off TV special entitled "Two Moon July," and in it David Byrne performed a work of solo performance art that involved the Talking Head running in giant circles through The Kitchen's Soho loft space, chanting out the names of future movies culled from the AFM issue of Variety. It might sound a bit slim, but it was a nice piece -- there is something oddly poignant and culturally optimistic about all the cinematic potential that lies within the margins of those sales listings.
It wasn't until I moved into film production that I realized that with that poignancy and optimism came the pain and heartache produced by all those film projects that never see a first-day's call sheet. Witness, for example, the recent high-profile flame-out of Terence Malick's Che, which would have starred Benicio del Toro. The production -- for which production personnel had been hired, some of whom had given up their U.S. apartments for the summer and moved down to Ecuador for the shoot -- was halted when Malick, who had been pitting two groups of producers against each other for his services, pulled out to direct another film, The New World, for New Line. (A U.S. distribution deal was apparently the prize both producers were seeking; Che hadn't come up with one yet.)
But occasionally I do experience Byrne-like moments of optimism, and I slid into one recently as I put together a list of films in production, pre-production, or just out of post for Filmmaker to track in the months ahead. I am optimistic about each of the below films for various reasons. While I haven't seen any of the films listed here, I have either read the scripts, know the filmmakers, or know something about the production and the footage, and I think that they might be pretty special.
1. The Heart is Deceitful Above All Things. I'm a big fan of Asia Argento's first film, the brash and brutal coming-of-age tale, Scarlet Diva. For her follow-up, she's adapted J.T. Leroy's collection of short stories which features a young protagonist not dissimilar to the one found in his acclaimed debut novel Sarah. So, while Sarah tosses around from Gus Van Sant to Steven Shainberg to direct, Argento finishes her film, which was shot in the fall and features Asia as the mother Courtney Love would kill to play along with Peter Fonda, Ornella Muti, and Elephant's John Robinson.2. Down in the Valley. Ed Norton recently signed on to David Jacobson's Sundance-Lab project, Down in the Valley, the follow-up to his surprisingly subtle indie serial killer movie Dahmer. The new film is about two teenage siblings and a stranger who comes to town. This time, though, the town is contemporary L.A. and its suburbs, and the stranger is an odd Jewish cowboy.
3. The Weather Man. When Steve Conrad's script went out as an open directing assignment, every indie director wanted it. But the job went to Gore Verbinski, who is hard to argue with after his Ring-Pirates of the Caribbean winging streak. And suddenly a small-scale, post-American Beauty tale of a Chicago weather man trying to reconnect to his family while pursuing a job at "Good Morning, America" attracted Nick Cage and a decent-sized Miramax budget. Both Cage and Verbinski can certainly do good work with the offbeat comedy and real pathos found in Conrad's screenplay.
4. Palindromes. Solondz is another director who, after making his previous film, Storytelling, for a studio (New Line), has seized all controls for his next. Again, I know little about it except that the great Tom Richmond shot it and that playwright Steven Adly-Guirgis stars in it alongside Ellen Barkin.
5. Innocence. Lucille Hadzihalilovic's Innocence is a parable of female adolescence set within a mysterious, other-worldly boarding school for young girls. The Paris-based Hadzihalilovic's previous film, La Bouche de Jean-Pierre, was produced and shot by her partner, Gaspar Noe and dealt with pedophilia. The new film, pictured at right, is a kind of magical fairy tale for adults and looks to be quite different in tone while retaining the cool formal control of her previous work. Look for it to be somewhere in Cannes this year.6. Neo Ned. I'm very curious what's up with this film, which stars Jeremy Renner and Gabrielle Union. Directed by Van Fischer and written by Wentworth Vaughn, the story, about a neo-Nazi imprisoned in a mental hospital who falls in love with a black woman who thinks she's Adolf Hitler, has a log-line that sounds a bit over-the-top in a particularly indie kind of way. But the screenplay for this strange, edgy and ultimately quite beautiful romance is really good...
7. The Girl from Monday. After the Zoetrope-produced No Such Thing, Hal Hartley and longtime colleague, editor and now producer Steve Hamilton of the post-house Mad Mad Judy went back to their indie roots and put together this beautifully-titled film which Hartley calls "a fake sci-fi about the way we live now." It's currently in post.8. Haven. This debut feature from Frank E. Flowers, a young, hustling writer/director from the Cayman Islands who bounced from a decent short to a well-financed Lions Gate feature starring Bill Paxton, Orlando Bloom, Agnes Bruckner, and Raising Victor Vargas's Victor Rasuk, also has a sharp script. It's the story of a white-collar criminal who must flee abruptly to the Cayman Islands with his teenage daughter. There's the proverbial suitcase-full-of-cash, but much of the story is a gentle teen romance set in a unique setting. When I met him, Flowers had the mixture of charm and drive that made me feel he could pull off something interesting.
And then there's one more film to look forward to: Che, this time directed by Steven Soderbergh, who has committed to replace Malick and begin the project in summer, 2005.
# posted by Scott Macaulay @ 4/4/2004 03:48:09 PM
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