Filmmakers In Action

Though awkwardly assembled and occasionally obscure, this 2005 Spanish documentary by Carlos Benpar is an eye-opener, showing how filmmakers in Europe try to protect their work from censorship, colorizing, dubbing, pan and scan, and other defacements. Benpar explains the differences between artists’ legal rights in the U.S. and overseas: for instance, director Jean-Pierre Marchand successfully sued a French TV channel for placing a logo on his film, and though Sydney Pollack lost a suit against a Danish TV channel for panning and scanning his wide-screen Three Days of the Condor, the court issued a stern rebuke to the U.S. laws that permitted the practice. Among the other interviewees are Woody Allen, Bernardo Bertolucci, John Boorman, Arthur Penn, Martin Scorsese, Claude Chabrol, Salvador Dali, Bigas Luna, Pere Portabella, and a 91-year-old Jules Dassin. 106 min. (JR)

This entry was posted in Featured Texts. Bookmark the permalink.