Laura Wittern-Keller
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Did you ever wonder how we got from a moment in which almost everything on film could be censored (the Progressive Era) to the moment in which nothing on film could be censored (today)? From the Nickelodeon to Deep Throat? The answer is provided by Laura Wittern-Keller and Raymond J. Haberski in their wonderful new book The Miracle Case: Film Censorship and the Supreme Court (University of Kansas Press, 2008). You’ve probably never heard of “The Miracle” or the case it launched in 1949. It’s a short film by Roberto Rossellini about a deranged women who, having slept with a man she believes is St. Joseph, gives birth to a child in a deserted mountain church. Fellini has a bit part (as “Joseph”). Critics generally liked it; Catholics in New York generally didn’t. The Church mounted a campaign against the film and the authorities relented: “The Miracle” was banned on the grounds that it was “sacrilegious.” In 1949, those were fine grounds. Not for long. The film’s distributor–the feisty Joseph Burstyn–fought for the right to exhibit it all the way to the Supreme Court in 1952. And he won. Between 1952 and 1965, the states got out of the film-censorship business and we entered a new era of free-speech absolutism when it comes to film. One wonders if that’s a good thing.
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{ 2 comments… read them below or add one }
To whom it may concern,
What strange people we have trying to do our thinking
and moralizing for us these days – viz. chromo religio-
politicos with notions that are just to the right of
Anthony Comstock.
Banned Books Week has come and gone but censor-
ship has no circumscribed boundaries. Libraries are
constantly under duress to remove books from their
shelves; some by litrerary giants e.g. John Steinbeck,
Mark Twain, D.H. Lawence, Vladimir Nabokov and
many more.
Anyway, the world didn’t come to an end with the
Kama Sutra, The Catcher in the Rye, Fanny Hill,Lady
Chatterly’s Lover, Tropic of Cancer, Lolita, The Story of
O and similarly themed movies. Fiction yes, but they
honestly reflect life’s human emotions and honest
sexual appetites. But for whatever reason(s) , censor-
ship is anathema and disgraces a nation so justly
proud of free speech.
In this postmodern era, I find it incredulous that people
are able to be brainwashed by archiac dogma and
taboos that are as stupid now as they were in the
Dark Ages.
There are many excuses for censorship – all bad!
Worse yet are Pavilonian religio-politicians who re-
gurgitate dogmas by chromo, anti-humanist funda-
mentalist ministers ,insincerely advancing their own
ridiculous, censorous agendas. The main analogy
that is this ; these pandering politicians believe that
censorship “cures” thinking.
What is so moral about banning books and trying to
supplant free thought by shredding the First A-
mendment ? In the words British statesman, John
Viscount Morley:
Because you have silenced a man
does not mean you have converted
him.
I have now covered the basis of my socio-political
thinkinq with great animosity for censorship of any
literary mediae inclusive of film genre and artistic
expression.
In my profound interest of fee speech, personal lib-
erty and art for art’s sake, I am
Yours sincerely,
David T. Henry
Bradford County, Pa.
hm. hope to see same more info. Can we speake about it?