Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Path: utzoo!linus!decvax!ittvax!dcdwest!sdcsvax!sdcrdcf!hplabs!sri-unix!Hoffman.es@XEROX.ARPA From: Hoffman.es@XEROX.ARPA Newsgroups: net.movies Subject: That 'Xerox-censored' film Message-ID: <1633@sri-arpa.UUCP> Date: Thu, 5-Jul-84 14:31:49 EDT Article-I.D.: sri-arpa.1633 Posted: Thu Jul 5 14:31:49 1984 Date-Received: Sun, 8-Jul-84 00:10:54 EDT Lines: 109 >From today's L.A. Times, Part VI, page 1: ------------------------------------------------------ MUNCIE MAKES FILMEX DEBUT AT 'SEVENTEEN' By Lee Margulies, Times Staff Writer More than two years after it was first withdrawn from public television , and one year after it was withdrawn from the Los Angeles International Filem Exposition, a controversial documentary about high school students in Muncie, Ind., is scheduled to be shown Saturday at Filmex. No last-minute hitches are anticipated this time. "I'm very glad that 'Seventeen' is in Filmex," executive producer Peter Davis declared Tuesday in a telephone interview from New York. It was Davis who insisted that "Seventeen" be yanked from the Filmex lineup last year, just two days before what was to have been its first public screening. One year earlier, he had withdrawn the two-hour film from the six-part "Middletown" series, about life in Muncie, rather than make a series of cuts that the Public Broadcasting Service had demanded. What has changed since last year? "We now have insurance on the film," Davis said. "I wanted it to be shown there (at Filmex) last year but we couldn't do it because there was no insurance on it." The insurance protects the film makers against any lawsuits filed against them in conjunction with the documentary, Davis said. Obtaining such policies is standard procedure when making a film, he said, and "Seventeen" originally had been covered along with the other "Middletown" programs. But he said the insurance carrier -- whom he declined to identify -- had pulled out of "Seventeen" after the controversy about its contents erupted, and it wasn't until late last year that other coverage could be arranged. "Seventeen," made by Joel DeMott and Jeff Kreines, follows the lives of a group of Muncie teen-agers during their senior year in high school. They are seen in school, at home and at parties and other social gatherings. Various young people are seen getting drunk, smoking marijuana, talking about sex, speaking rudely to their teachers and using the sort of "street language" that normally gets edited out of television programs. There also is an interracial romance. Ken Wlaschin, artistic director of Filmex, said he is delighted to be showing "Seventeen." Before joining the Los Angeles event, he said, he had screened it at the London Film Festival last November, where it got "a very good reception." "I think it's wonderful," Wlaschin said of the documentary. "It showed me insights into what the life of these students is like in a way that I hadn't seen before." He also said he had no quarrel with the language or other aspects of the film. "This is the way they (the young people) behave; this is the way they talk. The film makers aren't inventing this, and I don't think it's overly emphasized. . . .," he said in an interview. "Whether prime-time television can handle that is something the television companies have to decide. But for a documentary film maker, if you're going to show the way people are, you can't edit it out." The furor around the film started before it was even completed. According to DeMott and Kreines, Xerox, which was puttin up some of the money for the project, was scared by early descriptions of the program and launched a behind-the-scenes campaign to have PBS remove it from the schedule. Xerox's leverage, they maintained, was a threat to withhold money it planned to spend to advertise and promote the "Middletown" series nationally. Further objections came later after some of the parents and school officials in Muncie got a preview of the documentary. Representatives met with PBS executives; questions were raised about the film's journalistic ethics, and there were suggestions of legal action. PBS officials were publicly circumspect about the nature of the complaints, but they subsequently asked the film makers for a series of cuts that "had to do with protecting the privacy of some of the minors," one programming exw[ve said later. DeMott and Kreines contend that the request for changes was a ruse by PBS to cover up its effort to placate Xerox. They maintain that public television officials knew the editing demands would not be acceptable, and that Davis was inhibited from exposing the maneuver because he, too, was dependent on Xerox to promote the rest of the series. In any case, the film was withdrawn, and "Middletown" aired in the spring of 1982 as a five-part series. DeMott and Kreines then entered the documentary in Filmex last year, but without Davis' blessing, and he subsequently ordered it withdrawn. At the time he said nothing publicly about insurance, only that there were legal reasons that prevented him from permitting its exhibition. An attorney for Davis said at the time, "There is threatened litigation and so the film is not cleared for public showing in this country at this time." But this week Davis expressed enthusiasm for the Filmex screening and said the reception it receives may influence future distribution efforts for "Seventeen." "I hope that it gets some recognition and that Jeff and Joel are applauded for what they and I believe is a signigicant film," he said. "Seventeen" is to be shown Saturday at 7:15 p.m. at the Nuart. DeMott and Kreines are scheduled to attend and will be available afterwards to talk about the film, Filmex officials said.