Rethink over Christ ‘porn’ film ban
An arthouse movie refused a licence 20 years ago could be released after repeal of blasphemy law
Jamie Doward, home affairs editor
Sunday April 6, 2008
The Observer
A landmark decision to ban a film showing Christ being caressed on the cross on the grounds that it was blasphemous could be reversed after almost 20 years.
The 1989 ruling by the British Board of Film Classification to refuse a release licence for Visions of Ecstasy, a low- budget film depicting the 16th-century Spanish mystic St Teresa of Avila caressing the body of Jesus on the cross provoked a national furore.While the film’s director, Nigel Wingrove, believed he was making art, the board, under its heavily censorious director James Ferman, took a different view and said its mix of pornography and religion risked upsetting the Anglican Church. Now, however, in a sign that Britain’s social mores have moved on, Craig Lapper, of the board’s examining body, has invited Wingrove to resubmit the film for classification.
While the film’s director, Nigel Wingrove, believed he was making art, the board, under its heavily censorious director James Ferman, took a different view and said its mix of pornography and religion risked upsetting the Anglican Church. Now, however, in a sign that Britain’s social mores have moved on, Craig Lapper, of the board’s examining body, has invited Wingrove to resubmit the film for classification.
The invitation comes ahead of the repeal in June of the blasphemy law, which has long been a source of anger for those working in the creative industries who complain it is an archaic piece of legislation that stifles art.
A decision to allow the film’s release would bring to an end one of the most controversial chapters in British cinematic history. Coming amid the arguments surrounding Salman Rushdie’s provocative novel The Satanic Verses, the board’s decision was seen as an attack on freedom of speech by organised religion. The debate raged all the way up to the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg, which upheld the decision to ban the love scene, thereby killing the film’s release.
[ click to read rest of article at Guardian UK ]