Son of Saul is out on DVD today and with that in mind, I've noticed that hardly any Holocaust films are rated 18, despite the graphic nature of the subject matter. Even Uwe Boll's 'Auschwitz', which was slated upon release for being too gruesome and features a scene of tooth extraction, is rated 15.
The only 18-rated Holocaust film I've come across is a 1945 documentary called 'German Concentration Camps Factual Survey', which was given that rating in 2015 for 'graphic footage of atrocities'. It was abandoned for seventy years before being completed in 2014. Despite the adults-only rating it carries in the UK, five of the six reels were shown as an episode of the PBS series 'Frontline' in 1985 (although I think it was shown in a late-night slot).
I get that the BBFC are more lenient with historical films and I can understand why, but in some cases it just ends up being inconsistent and confusing for parents.* The BBFC openly admitted that the subject matter is the only reason why Saving Private Ryan didn't get an 18 rating and Ferman said, "We felt that it told the truth about war and we didn't want war glamorised for teenagers".
Son of Saul is out on DVD today and with that in mind, I've noticed that hardly any Holocaust films are rated 18, despite the graphic nature of the subject matter. Even Uwe Boll's 'Auschwitz', which was slated upon release for being too gruesome and features a scene of tooth extraction, is rated 15.
The only 18-rated Holocaust film I've come across is a 1945 documentary called 'German Concentration Camps Factual Survey', which was given that rating in 2015 for 'graphic footage of atrocities'. It was abandoned for seventy years before being completed in 2014. Despite the adults-only rating it carries in the UK, five of the six reels were shown as an episode of the PBS series 'Frontline' in 1985 (although I think it was shown in a late-night slot).
I get that the BBFC are more lenient with historical films and I can understand why, but in some cases it just ends up being inconsistent and confusing for parents.* The BBFC openly admitted that the subject matter is the only reason why Saving Private Ryan didn't get an 18 rating and Ferman said, "We felt that it told the truth about war and we didn't want war glamorised for teenagers".
I think intellectual snobbery has been a factor in the past. Foreign language films seem to have got away with explicit violence and sex scenes an English language film probably wouldn't have done.
I think intellectual snobbery has been a factor in the past. Foreign language films seem to have got away with explicit violence and sex scenes an English language film probably wouldn't have done.
I think intellectual snobbery has been a factor in the past. Foreign language films seem to have got away with explicit violence and sex scenes an English language film probably wouldn't have done.
Were you talking about foreign films in general or specifically about Son of Saul? IMO Son of Saul is fine at a 15 certificate.
Were you talking about foreign films in general or specifically about Son of Saul? IMO Son of Saul is fine at a 15 certificate.
There's almost no on-screen violence in SON OF SAUL, only a small amount of natural nudity in the context of people entering the gas chambers and their corpses being removed, and no swearing that I can recall. It's more about the tone of the piece, though I think it's really a very soft 15.
Oh, and intellectual snobbery is very much part and parcel of the BBFC's remit, though they will swear blind that it isn't. However, the evidence gives lie to their ridiculous assertions. Ask them why the full-on Art-house porn of Gaspar Noe's LOVE is OK at 18, but not the comparatively small amount of hardcore images in Radley Metzger's SCORE (all of which were cut from Arrow's recent video version), and watch 'em squirm...
There's almost no on-screen violence in SON OF SAUL, only a small amount of natural nudity in the context of people entering the gas chambers and their corpses being removed, and no swearing that I can recall. It's more about the tone of the piece, though I think it's really a very soft 15.
The BBFC thought just as much. Here's what they had to say about the film in their annual report (the extended bbfcinsight for it is more or less identical to this, just very slightly re-worded):
Tone also plays a part in the classification of more realistic films. Son of Saul (classified in 2015; released in 2016) is a Hungarian drama about a man who is forced to work at Auschwitz, disposing of the bodies of victims. The film contains scenes in which naked victims are forced into gas chambers, as well as sight of their naked bodies being cleared away. There are further scenes in which victims are subjected to violence by Nazi guards and scenes depicting riots, including one in which a man is shot. While the scenes contain limited visual detail, the tone is harrowing and the pervasive strong threat puts the film most suitably at 15.
I've seen the film myself and I have to agree because
there was only one scene of what could be considered explicit violence (when a prisoner gets shot in the riot w/ a blood spurt). That scene is out of focus, shot from far away and very brief. As you said, the nudity isn't sexualised, which is probably why it wasn't included in the short bbfcinsight.
I found the mass execution scene to be very, very intense even though there was no graphic violence (the gunshots were either bloodless or off-screen IIRC). Both the sound effects and the score do a lot to create this sense of strong threat.
An interesting point to note is that the Irish content advisory mentions 'strong violence and harrowing holocaust scenes' - the IFCO gave the film a 15A rating. When a film gets a 15A rating in Ireland it usually indicates it's at the softer end of a 15 in the UK. They also noted that the language was at the 'moderate' level, which is odd as I don't remember any. The BBFC's extended insight doesn't mention any issues with language either.
No, I haven't seen Son of Saul yet. Irreversible is the kind of example I had in mind.
Ferman did cut Seul Contre Tous, which is a prequel of sorts to Irreversible (hilariously so, he pixelated the naughty bits in a hardcore scene, allowing him to claim he hadn't cut the film, just altered it).
You're right in that the Gaspar Noe/Michael Haneke/Lars Von Trier type euro arthouse directors aren't likely to get censored these days
If I recall from Bedknobs, the child says it in an aggressive manner - although it's been so many years since I've seen it I may be misremembering it. It did stand out from the general tone of the film.
Perhaps, because it's a clear bit of deliberate naughty swearing from a small child - and not some offhand, casual muttering by a grown up, they reckon its a bit inappropriate for a U. Behaviour that can be copied, and so on. Which is fair enough.
What's worth mentioning is that the Blu-ray of Bedknobs and Broomsticks is also rated PG, but only because of the special features. The recent submission was for a cinema re-release.
They've publicly said Watership Down should be a PG, but they have no way of changing it unless the distributor wants to.
I'd say even a PG is far too lenient. It's a solid 12 at the very least, even when taking into consideration that the BBFC are more lenient with animation.
I would suspect there's lots of video that's U/PG from the 90's that be higher now. For example there's an episode of Star Trek DS9- Image in the Sand- that's PG which has a shot of a character being stabbed with blood, then a shot of the bloody knife, there's no way it'd be PG under the current guidelines.
I watched Mel Gibson's Hamlet last night on Amazon Prime. I have just read up about it on IMDB and the BBFC site; when it was first released, it got a U! There's no way that it should have got that! For one thing
Hamlet mimes raping his mother in that film and talks of "country matters" to Ophelia
! It's good to see that it got uprated to a PG on its video release.
In T2 it was thought the knee capping shots weren't suitable for 15 as they might offend those in Northern Ireland.
It should be pointed out that from 1975-1999 the bbfc and what got what rating was basically decided by one man, the bbfc director James Ferman, and he had some, well, odd, opinions about some things. He once said that- I'm paraphrasing here- The Texas Chain Saw Massacre was fine for film students to watch, but what would happen if car workers from Birmingham saw it? And as such it was banned under his reign. As I said, odd.
Whilst you are correct that James Ferman was the BBFC director and did have fairly stringent opinions it was a committee and still is that decides classification.
I watched Mel Gibson's Hamlet last night on Amazon Prime. I have just read up about it on IMDB and the BBFC site; when it was first released, it got a U! There's no way that it should have got that! For one thing
Hamlet mimes raping his mother in that film and talks of "country matters" to Ophelia
! It's good to see that it got uprated to a PG on its video release.
They've said all Shakespeare was automatically U until Zeffirelli's Romeo and Juliet in 1968. Even after that they are always lenient on it- they've said Polanski's Macbeth would have been 18 not 15 for tape in the 80's had it not been Shakespeare, the Ethan Hawke Hamlet is bbfc 12 and mpaa R for violence, the David Tennant Hamlet is 12 despite unsubtle use of the "cuntry matters" line, etc etc etc.
Dances With Wolves got a 12 for its cinema release. It was back in the early days of the 12 certificate. It was a 15 on video. Also, the extended version got a 12 for cinema release as well. I know we've mentioned it before about how some 12s wouldn't be a 12 nowadays(e.g. Chaplin and Last of the Mohicans) - I suppose this does apply to Dances With Wolves as well, as the stampede with the buffaloes is quite intense. Plus, some of the battle scenes are very violent. A 15 is more suited to it(which is what it has got nowadays for home release).
Dances With Wolves got a 12 for its cinema release. It was back in the early days of the 12 certificate. It was a 15 on video. Also, the extended version got a 12 for cinema release as well. I know we've mentioned it before about how some 12s wouldn't be a 12 nowadays(e.g. Chaplin and Last of the Mohicans) - I suppose this does apply to Dances With Wolves as well, as the stampede with the buffaloes is quite intense. Plus, some of the battle scenes are very violent. A 15 is more suited to it(which is what it has got nowadays for home release).
It would have been then, Dances with wolves was released in 1990.....12 was on cinema releases from 1989, it didn't make it as a certificate on home media until 1994.
...although it has since been re-assessed and rated 15, as recently as 2010. The additional directors cut doesn't really add any more violence, so it's the original violence that's been upgraded from 12>15 in the BBFC's eyes.
Which I think shows the original 12-rating was a bit of a misjudgement at the time. I certainly felt that when I was sat there watching it in the cinema back in 1990. Timmon's extended, grisly execution was pretty shocking - along with a lot of very meaty hatchet deaths in combat.
Yeah, it does show that some of the 12s were a misjudgment(e.g. Batman, The Last of the Mohicans, Chaplin, etc.). But, I suppose it was early days and the BBFC were still trying out the new fangled 12 as well - so mistakes were bound to happen.
More recently, I know that The Dark Knight got a lot of complaints about being a 12 - especially for infamous pencil scene.
Wow. Just looking at IMDB and the BBFC sites on David Lynch's infamous turkey that was "Dune". The UK cinematic release was cut to get a PG. That must have been quite a butchering. The "heart plug" sequence was left out. I remember watching it some time in the 1990s on VHS(when it was uncut and a 15) - that's not the most shocking scene in that, in my opinion - although Sting in underpants is pretty bad! ;-) Nowadays, it's uncut and a 12.
Comments
The only 18-rated Holocaust film I've come across is a 1945 documentary called 'German Concentration Camps Factual Survey', which was given that rating in 2015 for 'graphic footage of atrocities'. It was abandoned for seventy years before being completed in 2014. Despite the adults-only rating it carries in the UK, five of the six reels were shown as an episode of the PBS series 'Frontline' in 1985 (although I think it was shown in a late-night slot).
I get that the BBFC are more lenient with historical films and I can understand why, but in some cases it just ends up being inconsistent and confusing for parents.* The BBFC openly admitted that the subject matter is the only reason why Saving Private Ryan didn't get an 18 rating and Ferman said, "We felt that it told the truth about war and we didn't want war glamorised for teenagers".
I think intellectual snobbery has been a factor in the past. Foreign language films seem to have got away with explicit violence and sex scenes an English language film probably wouldn't have done.
They actually say that in their case study for Salo, that the audience for it was small & presumably knew what they were about to watch. http://bbfc.co.uk/case-studies/salo120-days-sodom
(Always amused me they passed that one when the- in my 'umble opinion- far tamer Last House On The Left remained censored for years)
Were you talking about foreign films in general or specifically about Son of Saul? IMO Son of Saul is fine at a 15 certificate.
There's almost no on-screen violence in SON OF SAUL, only a small amount of natural nudity in the context of people entering the gas chambers and their corpses being removed, and no swearing that I can recall. It's more about the tone of the piece, though I think it's really a very soft 15.
Oh, and intellectual snobbery is very much part and parcel of the BBFC's remit, though they will swear blind that it isn't. However, the evidence gives lie to their ridiculous assertions. Ask them why the full-on Art-house porn of Gaspar Noe's LOVE is OK at 18, but not the comparatively small amount of hardcore images in Radley Metzger's SCORE (all of which were cut from Arrow's recent video version), and watch 'em squirm...
The BBFC thought just as much. Here's what they had to say about the film in their annual report (the extended bbfcinsight for it is more or less identical to this, just very slightly re-worded):
I've seen the film myself and I have to agree because
I found the mass execution scene to be very, very intense even though there was no graphic violence (the gunshots were either bloodless or off-screen IIRC). Both the sound effects and the score do a lot to create this sense of strong threat.
An interesting point to note is that the Irish content advisory mentions 'strong violence and harrowing holocaust scenes' - the IFCO gave the film a 15A rating. When a film gets a 15A rating in Ireland it usually indicates it's at the softer end of a 15 in the UK. They also noted that the language was at the 'moderate' level, which is odd as I don't remember any. The BBFC's extended insight doesn't mention any issues with language either.
No, I haven't seen Son of Saul yet. Irreversible is the kind of example I had in mind.
Ferman did cut Seul Contre Tous, which is a prequel of sorts to Irreversible (hilariously so, he pixelated the naughty bits in a hardcore scene, allowing him to claim he hadn't cut the film, just altered it).
You're right in that the Gaspar Noe/Michael Haneke/Lars Von Trier type euro arthouse directors aren't likely to get censored these days
The language they had a problem with was the use of 'bloody' and 'ruddy', said once each. Is that really all it takes nowadays?
Yet the F word can get used in 12s, and the C word in 15s. The mind boggles!
I'd have said "piss off" is stronger than "bloody" or "ruddy". Strange decision.
Perhaps, because it's a clear bit of deliberate naughty swearing from a small child - and not some offhand, casual muttering by a grown up, they reckon its a bit inappropriate for a U. Behaviour that can be copied, and so on. Which is fair enough.
They've publicly said Watership Down should be a PG, but they have no way of changing it unless the distributor wants to.
Whilst you are correct that James Ferman was the BBFC director and did have fairly stringent opinions it was a committee and still is that decides classification.
They've said all Shakespeare was automatically U until Zeffirelli's Romeo and Juliet in 1968. Even after that they are always lenient on it- they've said Polanski's Macbeth would have been 18 not 15 for tape in the 80's had it not been Shakespeare, the Ethan Hawke Hamlet is bbfc 12 and mpaa R for violence, the David Tennant Hamlet is 12 despite unsubtle use of the "cuntry matters" line, etc etc etc.
It would have been then, Dances with wolves was released in 1990.....12 was on cinema releases from 1989, it didn't make it as a certificate on home media until 1994.
Which I think shows the original 12-rating was a bit of a misjudgement at the time. I certainly felt that when I was sat there watching it in the cinema back in 1990. Timmon's extended, grisly execution was pretty shocking - along with a lot of very meaty hatchet deaths in combat.
More recently, I know that The Dark Knight got a lot of complaints about being a 12 - especially for infamous pencil scene.