China censorship on movies - all you want to know

[Long Pan]

Quite a surprising, almost surrealist article about film censorship in China - a journalist from China Daily interviews one of the member of the film censoring committee, asking questions like "who are the censors?” or “are gambling, ghosts and erotic scenes forbidden”...

So we learn for instance that Chinese censorship is rather concerned by the good business of local movies “We [the government and the film maker] share a larger common objective – the prosperity of Chinese cinema” or that the “half exposed breasts and violent beating” in Zhang Yimou “Curse of the Golden Dragon” was shortened but not cut off because “if we had deleted the scene, the story would be incomplete. And it would have been a big loss for such an expensive movie (which costs $47 million) to become an incomplete film”.

We feel of course completely reassured when this gentleman-censor solemnly states “As a member of the censoring committee, I am responsible for what I will say: China’s censorship never destroys anyone’s imagination and creativity”.

Read more about it here. (sh)

[gato]

An interesting article by Yu Hua, the author of "To Live", on the different standards for censorship in mainland China:

http://www.nytimes.c...y-faces.html?hp

Censorship’s Many Faces

By YU HUA

Published: February 27, 2013

China has more than 500 publishing houses, each with its own editor in chief (and de facto censor); if a book is rejected by one publisher there’s still a chance another will take it. In contrast, films are not released until officials in the state cinema bureau in Beijing are satisfied, and once a film is banned it has no hope of being screened.

When it comes to censorship in China, the primary factors are often economic, not political. Publishing houses that were once government financed have operated as commercial enterprises for years now. Editors are under pressure to make the biggest profit they can. Even if a book carries some political risks, a daring editor will take the gamble if there’s a chance it will be a best seller.

To be sure, there are some limits in book publishing — the Tiananmen Square protests of 1989 are taboo, for example — but fewer than in film. That’s because film censors, unlike book publishers, don’t have to worry about making profits. Each script is scrutinized, and only after it’s approved can filming commence. Review of the finished product is even more exacting. Even if they were to reject every project that comes their way, it wouldn’t affect their salaries, so they are not prepared to take on the least political risk. That’s why the Cultural Revolution and other sensitive topics are regularly discussed in print but remain off-limits on film. If you go to a cinema, all you’ll see, basically, are martial-arts films, palace dramas, love stories and comedies — and a few American movies.

Television censorship is a bit less strict. Programming directors decide what gets broadcast, but the propaganda ministry often demands changes. China Central Television, the state broadcaster, is the most carefully monitored; regional stations have more leeway. News programming undergoes the strictest censorship, while other programs — particularly sports — have more freedom.

Newspaper censorship is also relatively more relaxed than film censorship, but stricter than book censorship. Stricter because the Communist Party puts more stress on control of the press (“journalism is the Party’s mouthpiece,” the saying goes). More relaxed because the press has to make its way in the marketplace. Newspapers need circulation and advertising revenue, so they publish lots of stories about social problems and injustices, because that’s what readers want. When newspapers got government subsidies, they were politically and economically beholden. Now their subservience can’t be counted on. As the economic base crumbles, the superstructure threatens to collapse.

[imron]

I was always curious why books had so much more freedom than movies.

[eslang]

Film to Fiction to Film

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/07/27/movies/MoviesFeatures/27balz.html

"It's one thousand times more difficult to make a film than to write a book," he said. And by that, he also meant making his movie version of "Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress,"...

It was precisely here that Mr. Dai ran up against problems. Chinese authorities banned the book, and then, having allowed him to make the film in China, they also banned the movie. "It wasn't that I touched the Cultural Revolution," Mr. Dai said over lunch in this town west of Paris near studios where he is editing his new movie. "They did not accept that Western literature could change a Chinese girl. I explained that classical literature is a universal heritage, but to no avail."

Other than "gambling, ghosts and erotic scenes forbidden”...

It quickly became the bestselling online novel in China with an estimated readership of six million...

although the book had to be rewritten to remove references to the supernatural before it could be released.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ghost_Blows_Out_the_Light

Isn't online novel more readily accessible than books? I find it hard to understand about the censorship required for the book in this case.

[gato]

China Film Group (中影集团) and Huaxia Film （华夏) have government-granted duopoly on the right to import films in China. These two companies receive 22% of gross ticket sales on all foreign films that are shown in theaters in China. In effect, Hollywood is subsidizing Chinese government film companies.

I remember reading about this before and finally found the reference. The part about rules on release dates is also interesting.

http://chinafilmbiz....up-corporation/

Before the WTO MOU, if a revenue-shared Hollywood movie earned less than 45 million yuan at the box office then it would only get 13% of the reported gross. Those films grossing more than 45 million yuan would receive as much as 17.5%.

After the WTO MOU was agreed, revenue sharing films now receive a straight 25 percent of all box office receipts. Much simpler, and better for the foreign producers.

China Film and Huaxia Film receive about 22 percent of the gross from foreign releases. The rest, after taxes, goes to the exhibitors, and amounts to roughly 45 percent of the gross.

By way of comparison, local movie producers can distribute their products almost limitlessly and usually they, the producers and distributors combined receive about 43% from the gross. Generally, theaters operators receive slightly more share from Hollywood movies than from local movies.

Release Dating

The release date for each and every film is decided by the Distribution and Exhibition Association (DEA), a government office that is a subsidiary of SARFT. Before any film can receive a release date, the finished version of the film must first be approved by the Film Bureau. After that, the distributor submits the film to the DEA seeking a release date. Multi-party negotiations take place among distributors, exhibitors, the Association and sometimes even the Film Bureau, regarding the date of release.

The film is only officially dated after the DEA provides the corresponding release licenses and notification, which can happen as late as just a few days before the film’s opening. The bigger the movie is, the harder it is for it to get a quick approval and date, especially for imported films. Hollywood’s major studios are completely at the mercy of this dating process, with no real say of their own, since they are not the distributors. For foreign buyout movies, the local distributors can play a limited role. For local movies, the local distributors have much greater influence over their films’ dating.