MCLC: Hollywood gives censors a preview

[Denton, Kirk]

MCLC LIST
From: Han Meng <hanmeng at gmail.com>
Subject: Hollywood gives censors a preview
***********************************************************

Source: NYT (1/14/13):
https://www.nytimes.com/2013/01/15/business/media/in-hollywood-movies-for-c
hina-bureaucrats-want-a-say.html

To Get Movies Into China, Hollywood Gives Censors a Preview
By MICHAEL CIEPLY and BROOKS BARNES

LOS ANGELES — When “Kung Fu Panda 3” kicks its way into China’s
theaters in 2016, the country’s vigilant film censors will find no
nasty surprises.

After all, they have already dropped in to monitor the movie at the
DreamWorks Animation campus here. And the story line, production art
and other creative elements have met their approval.

The lure of access to China’s fast-growing film market — now the
world’s second largest, behind that of the United States — is
entangling studios and moviemakers with the state censors of a country
in which American notions of free expression simply do not apply.

Whether studios are seeking to distribute a completed film in China or
join with a Chinese company for a co-production shot partly in that
country, they have discovered that navigating the murky, often
shifting terrain of censorship is part of the process.

Billions of dollars ride on whether they get it right. International
box-office revenue is the driving force behind many of Hollywood’s
biggest films, and often plays a deciding role in whether a movie is
made. Studios rely on consultants and past experience — and
increasingly on informal advance nods from foreign officials — to help
gauge whether a film will pass censorship; if there are problems they
can sometimes be addressed through appeal and subsequent negotiations.

But Paramount Pictures just learned the hard way that some things
won’t pass muster — like American fighter pilots in dogfights with
MIGs. The studio months ago submitted a new 3-D version of “Top Gun”
to Chinese censors. The ensuing silence was finally recognized as
rejection.

Problems more often affect films that touch the Chinese directly. “Any
movie about China made by outsiders is going to be very sensitive,”
said Rob Cohen, who directed “The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor,”
among the first in a wave of co-productions between American studios —
in this case, Universal Pictures — and Chinese companies.

One production currently facing scrutiny is Disney and Marvel’s “Iron
Man 3,” parts of which were filmed in Beijing in the last month. It
proceeded under the watchful eye of Chinese bureaucrats, who were
invited to the set and asked to advise on creative decisions,
according to people briefed on the production who asked for anonymity
to avoid conflict with government or company officials. Marvel and
Disney had no comment.

Another prominent film, Ang Lee’s “Life of Pi,” which was nominated
last week for 11 Academy Awards, made it through the process mostly
unscathed, but got some pushback over a line in which a character
declared that “religion is darkness.”

“They modified the translation a little, for fear of provoking
religious people,” Mr. Lee said.

Hollywood as a whole is shifting toward China-friendly fantasies that
will fit comfortably within a revised quota system, which allows more
international films to be distributed in China, where 3-D and
large-format Imax pictures are particularly favored.

At the same time, it is avoiding subject matter and situations that
are likely to cause conflict with the roughly three dozen members of a
censorship board run by China’s powerful State Administration of
Radio, Film and Television, or S.A.R.F.T.

In addition, some studios are quietly asking Chinese officials for
assurance that planned films, even when they do not have a Chinese
theme, will have no major censorship problems.

The censorship bureau did not respond to a list of questions submitted
by The New York Times seeking information about its process and
guidelines.

Studios are quickly discovering that a key to access in China is the
inclusion of Chinese actors, story lines and locations. But the more
closely a film examines China, the more likely it is to collide with
shifting standards, unwritten rules and unfamiliar political powers
who hold sway over what can be seen on the country’s roughly 12,000
movie screens.

Mr. Cohen’s “Mummy” film, which was shot throughout China in 2007, was
a historical fantasy about an evil emperor who is magically
resurrected by foreign adventurers in 1946. The script was preapproved
by China’s censorship board with only token changes — the emperor’s
name had to be fictionalized, for instance. The censors also cautioned
that the ancient ruler should not resemble Mao Zedong.

On reviewing the finished film, however, they found a deeper problem
that “we didn’t have any way of seeing, or any way of fixing,” Mr.
Cohen said: “White Westerners were saving China.” The picture was
approved, he said, but its release was delayed until it had played
elsewhere in the world, and pirated versions took a bite out of the
Chinese box-office receipts.

For Americans, dealings with the Chinese censors are mostly a distant
and secondhand business. Films are normally submitted by their Chinese
partners, while various consultants in China handle the bureaucratic
communications that lead to approval or rejection.

But those who shoot in China often assume that censorship officials
have eyes and ears on the set. “There were points where we were
shooting with a crew of 500 people,” said Mr. Cohen of his movie. “I’m
not sure who was who or what, but knowing the way the system works,
it’s completely clear that had we deviated from the script, it would
not have gone unnoticed.”

In a 2011 Web post, Robert Cain, a producer and consultant who guides
filmmakers through China’s system, described having worked in Shanghai
on a romantic comedy that went off script; the director included a
take in which an extra, holding a camcorder, pretended to be a theater
patron taping a movie on a screen.

The next day, Mr. Cain and others involved with the film were summoned
to the office of a Communist Party member who told them the film was
being shut down for its “naïve” and “untruthful” portrayal of film
piracy. Assuming they had been reported by a spy on their crew, the
producers apologized and managed to keep the film on track.

Studios are seeking out official co-productions, in which a Chinese
company works with an American studio in financing and creating a
film, because they can bypass the Chinese quota system and bring their
distributors a 43 percent share of ticket sales, rather than the 25
percent allotted to foreign-made films.

Co-productions like “Kung Fu Panda 3” draw close monitoring by the
censors at every step. Scripts are submitted in advance.
Representatives of S.A.R.F.T., according to Mr. Cohen and others, may
be present on the set to guard against any deviation. And there is an
unofficial expectation that the government’s approved version of the
film will be seen both in China and elsewhere, though in practice it
is not unusual for co-productions to slip through the system with
differing versions, one for China, one for elsewhere in the world.

Questions about how Chinese forces are shaping American movies are now
playing out in the making of “Iron Man 3,” which is set for release on
May 3.

Disney and its Marvel unit want “Iron Man 3” to gain co-production
status, partly because the previous two “Iron Man” movies performed
well in China. To work toward that distinction, Disney and Marvel made
a deal last year for Beijing-based DMG Entertainment to join in
producing and financing the film.

But they have taken a middle-of-the-road approach that appears
intended to limit Chinese meddling in the creative process. A finished
script was not submitted for approval and the companies have not yet
made an application for official designation as a co-production.
Rather, they are trying to show a heightened sense of cooperation in
hopes the government will approve the status once that application is
formally made in the spring.

The producers made a presentation to censors early in the process,
describing broad strokes of the story, the history of other Marvel and
Disney movies, and plans to integrate Chinese characters into the
movie.

That won a conceptual sign-off for the film, which is being directed
by Shane Black. Next, bureaucrats were invited to the set and were
able to meet the star, Robert Downey Jr.

Hollywood executives are only now becoming familiar with the
censorship board and its workings. A recent count by one of their
advisers found that the board has 37 members, including
representatives from government agencies and interest groups, like the
Communist Youth League and the Women’s Federation, along with
filmmakers, academics and professional bureaucrats.

At the top of S.A.R.F.T. is Cai Fuchao, a recent member of the
Communist Party Central Committee. In a previous municipal post in
Beijing, he was widely reported to have policed Web sites for banned
material with the help of 10,000 volunteers, and to have joined in a
roundup of a million illegally published books in 2004.

In 2008, after an uproar over the release of Ang Lee’s “Lust,
Caution,” whose story of wartime love and collaboration caused unease
even after sex scenes were deleted, written censorship guidelines were
circulated in China, in what filmmakers there took to be a crackdown.

Some of the prohibitions were broad, barring violations of the
fundamental principles of the Constitution and the harming of social
morality. Others were more pointed. Disparagement of the People’s
Liberation Army and the police were banned, as were “murder, violence,
horrors, ghosts, demons and supernaturalism.”

In all, the standards would appear to clash with almost any American
film, other than, perhaps, the PG-rated animated fare of a DreamWorks
Animation. (Even “Kung Fu Panda” provoked objections by some Chinese,
who saw the lead character as profaning a nationally revered animal.)

But some who have dealt with S.A.R.F.T. say the censors are often
pragmatic, and appear to walk a line between the demands of viewers,
who want more global fare, and those of politicians, who are out to
protect the status quo.

For example, 20th Century Fox managed to get “Life of Pi” through with
only the modification of the “religion is darkness” line, despite the
movie’s spiritual themes — which tread close to a prohibition against
the preaching of cult beliefs and superstitions — and the earlier
trouble over “Lust, Caution.”

For Americans, the hard part is knowing what might suddenly cause
trouble — initial approvals notwithstanding. In 2009, Sony Pictures
and its partner, the China Film Group, submitted their script for “The
Karate Kid” to China’s censors, and dutifully changed parts of the
story to suit them. But the finished film was rejected, according to
people who were briefed on the process, essentially because film
bureaucrats were unhappy that its villain was Chinese.

After negotiation, 12 minutes of the film were cut, and it was
released in China, though later than intended.

Some filmmakers here suggest that impositions by the China censors are
similar to the restrictions imposed by a ratings system administered
by the Motion Picture Association of America. But Joan Graves, the
chairwoman of Hollywood’s ratings board, insists otherwise. “We’re the
only major country with a ratings system that does it on a voluntary
basis,” she said.

Steven Soderbergh, whose film “Contagion” was shot partly in Hong
Kong, said the participation of China’s censors simply added to the
chorus of input that surrounds every big-budget filmmaker.

“I’m not morally offended or outraged,” Mr. Soderbergh said. “It’s
fascinating to listen to people’s interpretations of your story.”