India’s Censor Board irks the director.
By Deepak Chitnis
WASHINGTON, DC: Woody Allen may be renowned all over the world as a gifted filmmaker and a cultural icon, but he isn’t really feeling the love in India.
The 77-year-old’s latest film, Blue Jasmine, will not be released in India due to the two sides — the Blue Jasmine distribution team and the Indian censors — being unable to come to an agreement over the anti-tobacco warnings that have become customary in films released throughout the country.
In 2005, the Indian government passed a law that required all films to show a short feature beforehand that outlined the dangers of smoking, as well as to display text on-screen during the film whenever a character is shown smoking. In many instances, the cigarettes are even blurred out.
The Indian censor board demanded that Sony Pictures Classics and Woody Allen comply with the anti-smoking policy in order for Blue Jasmine to be shown in India, but such changes would require that Allen, who has the final authority over how his film is shown, refused to make the changes, saying that it would require changing the content of the film and that he was unwilling to do that.
Allen said adding text to the film that says “cigarette smoking is injurious to health” would be distracting, and would hurt audiences’ appreciation of the film.
This is not the first time a Hollywood film has decided not to be shown in India rather than give in to the demands of the country’s censors. In 2011, The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo, the Academy Award-winning adaptation of the popular novel, was deemed too graphic for Indian audiences and required cuts in order to be shown, which its director and studio refused. In 1998, Steven Spielberg’s Saving Private Ryan was deemed unacceptable for Indian audiences because of its graphically realistic depictions of war violence; Spielberg refused to cut anything from the film, opting to just not show it at all, but the country’s then-Home Minister intervened and allowed it to be shown without cuts.
Hollywood passed similar requirements against the portrayal of smoking on film in 2007, when the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) — the board of nameless individuals that assigns the G, PG, PG-13, R, and NC-17 ratings for all commercially released film — announced that they would count “smoking” as a factor when determining a film’s rating. If you look on a movie poster or a movie trailer these days, you can normally see “smoking” listed as a reason for a movie’s given rating, typically if it’s PG-13.
The effectiveness of India’s anti-smoking campaign, at least in relation to Bollywood, is questionable at best. India has the highest film attendance numbers of anywhere in the world, and Bollywood is the world’s most prolific film industry, so it makes sense for the government to use it as a way to send a message. But according to a report by the International Tobacco Control Project earlier this year, India has about 275 million smokers. It could see 1.5 million deaths per year caused by smoking-related complications by 2020, and that number could also rise by 2030 to 6-8 million.
Blue Jasmine stars Cate Blanchett as a woman who finds herself forced into poverty when her wealthy husband is sent to jail on charges of financial fraud. It has been warmly received by critics around the world, with Blanchett already being touted as the front-runner to win this year’s Academy Award for Best Actress by many film pundits.
To contact the author, email to deepakchitnis@americanbazaaronline.com