Kamal Haasan Explains Why Censorship Needs To Scrapped!
Pahlaj Nihalani Welcomes The Move
Earlier this week Shyam Benegal who heads the committee for reforms in censorship rules , submitted his report to the I& B ministry.
While submitting the report Benegal was quoted as saying, “We are recommending thatCBFC should not be using scissors on any film. We are suggesting that in addition to different classifications that we have – we should have two categories of U/A, one plus 12 years of age and one plus 15 years of age and two categories of adult, one is normal adult and another Adult With Caution.”
Explaining the need for censorial reforms Kamal Haasan who is part of Benegal’s committee says, “Freedom comes with responsibility. All members of the certification committee will also take responsibility for the grading.”
Kamal Haasan sees no need for cutting scenes. “ I think censorship is redundant in a free country.With the new proposed gradation of films, the film maker has a choice to hold on to his content and play it to a limited number of audience or loose some footage and reach for a larger mass. Adult With Caution is a new grading in the new recommendations .”
Adult With Caution(AC) certified films may not play in all theatres .
Explains Kamal Haasan, “ Only theatres with special licence in specified areas.
It is up to the film maker to set the limit on his revenue. The logic is with commercial film makers aiming at larger and larger audience They may not go to these limited number of venues just to continue making AC films. With Internet providing abundant pornography even the sleazy film makers might grow up to make slightly better films I guess.”
Welcoming the move to change the censor guidelines censor chief Pahlaj Nihalani says, “It is been long due.And I am happy that Mr Benegal and his learned committee have come up with the idea of replacing censorship with gradation. I specially like the idea of an Adult With Caution certification .For very long this idea of a separate yardstick for certifying sex-oriented films or films with excessive violence has been hovering around. In fact when the great Mr Vijay Anand was the chair person of the CBFC he had even suggested that there should be separate theatres and timings for films with sex-oriented content. Nothing came of it. I just hope Mr Benegal’s ideas are implemented in the near future.”
