The DVD box for this at my local rental store (in the Netherlands) says it is banned in America. Is that true? I find it hard to believe.
shareyeah it certainly isn't...seeing as how i just rented it 20 minutes ago at blockbuster (in the US of course)
shareThanks for clearing that up for me! I guess they were just trying to hype an otherwise lackluster film to increase its sales.
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"If I have any genius it is a genius for living" - Errol Flynn
I believe that refers to the fact that it was virtually banned in America upon its release (no distributors would dare touch it and it didn't see many screenings - if any - outside of some festivals). It was not made illegal (banned is a gross exaggeration; blacklisted/boycotted might be more accurate) in any sense, but it was definitely blocked.
Look at the two American distributors handling it:
BIM is a production company (a small one at that - only six films) and 11'09''01 is the only film they are listed as having distributed.
EMPRIRE is still relatively small with only 22 films. Compare to the French distributor, BAC, with 242 (+48 as production company).
Look at the production companies listed - seven of the fourteen are French. The sole American prod. co. is only listed for this film (CIH Shorts is something connected to Sean Penn). Most of the countries are represented by only one production company (GB, Mexico, Japan, Iran, Egypt), but there was clearly little support in America for this film.
I find it curious that there were no Israeli, Indian or Bosnian production companies listed (I assume Burkina Faso would be covered by a French group).
Every decent man is ashamed of the government he lives under. - H.L. Mencken
It definately wasn't banned, but it didn't get wide theatrical release. I suppose that's not surprising, because of the thousands of non-Hollywood films made each year, maybe 1% get any theatrical release in the US. Some small art house theaters played it and a few stores have the DVD (that's how I saw it)
I don't think it's so much that the film is anti-American (I don't feel that it is, btw) as that few people would sit through 2 1/2 hours to watch films by directors they've probably never heard of. Although most of the films are good in their own right, the message that emerges when they are placed together is disjointed and inconsistent. The film wasn't particularly acclaimed; it was nominated for a Cesar and won a few minor awards, but I don't see any reason why a company would feel it was some brave statement Americans had to see or some brilliant work of art that had to be propagated everywhere.
you can say a lot of bad things about America, but one amazing thing is that they really do seem to believe in freedom of speech. I love that. Even if this movie wasn't distributed widely, you can still find a copy of it if you really really wanted to. There's so many countries where that would not be possible at all.
* Aside from that, Mrs. Lincoln, did you enjoy the play?*
that's very true!
shareThe film was not banned. The film was released in theaters. The film was reviewed by the major press including Roger Ebert. The film was released on DVD. You can rent the DVD at any video store or Blockbuster. Freedom of speech is not some kind of slogan in America. We truely have freedom of speech. The US government does not ban films unlike other countries that are thought of as democracies that do, like Netherland, UK, Australia, Germany.
shareYou truly have freedom of speech, do you? Then why is so much bad language and sexual content removed from programmes shown on your television, things that over in the UK would have been on at about 9 or 10 at night? Violence seems to be more OK, but bleeping out words like "bitch", well, that's not even a swear word over here. It's a female dog, that's all.
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