Lapas attēli
PDF
ePub

cynical as it is wrong. While the legalities are best addressed in detail by lawyers, the Writers Guild is second to none in its fierce and unyielding belief in our First Amendment rights guaranteeing freedom of expression to all Americans.

Without the act, it is the expression of the true artistic authors that will be curbed and censored. With the act, the artistic authors' expression is protected. By passing the act, Congress will not abridge speech, it will promote speech.

What is the speech that could possibly be abridged by a labeling requirement that merely tells the truth? The material alteration of the work of a writer, director or cinematographer in this context is not a parody. It is not satire. The essence of the defacement of film by corporate owners is not individual expression. It's a commercial convenience that distorts forever the expression of the individuals who created the film.

To carry the argument a point further, let us assume for a moment that the material alteration of a work of art by a corporate owner/employer was an act of "speech." There surely would be no constitutional barrier to a labeling requirement that does not restrict the alteration in any way. The act seeks merely to provide a right for the individuals whose work is being altered to state their objections and for the public to be so informed.

The Writers Guild is not cavalier about speech. We recognize and welcome the idea that in judging the weight of the governmental interest in protecting the rights of artists, the impact of the labeling requirement on freedom of expression, should be examined. But the examination provides a clear answer. No censorship or abridgment is imposed. There is no restriction or limitation on the copyright owners right to distribute its film. Neither the content nor the message is restricted.

Instead, the copyright owner is simply required to include a brief notice accurately advising the public that the alterations were accomplished without the consent of the screenwriter, director or cinematographer. Such a notice is no more intrusive than a copyright or trademark notice. The innocuous nature of the notice is so slight as to represent no impairment whatsoever of the copyright owner's First Amendment rights.

No marketplace of ideas is inhibited. In fact, the marketplace is expanded. If there is any burden at all imposed by the act, it is a negligible burden on commerce, not a restriction on speech. When weighed against the basic, internationally recognized human right here at issue, the commercial interest must give way to the assertion of that human right. The people, through their government, have the right to require that this compelling human interest be vindicated, especially when the cost is only a minor commercial inconvenience.

The United States Supreme court has held that even politically assertive labelling requirements do not fall afoul of the First Amendment. (Meese v. Keene, 481 U.S. 485 [1987]). Surely the labels to be required by the proposed act will not do so either.

I am told that the Supreme Court's decision in Meese v. Keene, written by Justice Stevens, contains a strongly worded approval of disclosure requirements that add to the public store of information. Stressing that the law did not in any way restrain the exhibition of the films designated as "propaganda," Justice Stevens explained how a disclosure requirement, far from being unconstitutionally paternalistic, actually reflects confidence in the judgment of the audience:

"Congress did not prohibit, edit, or restrain the distribution of advocacy
materials in an ostensible effort to protect from conversion, confusion or
deceit.

"To the contrary, Congress simply required the disseminators of such material

to make additional disclosures that would better enable the public to evaluate
the importance of the propaganda." (481 US at 480-81).

Citing the legendary Brandeis opinion in Whitney v. California, 270 US 357, 377 (1927), the Court found the disclosure requirement not just reconcilable with First Amendment values, but actually an embodiment of them:

"By compelling some disclosure and permitting more, the act's approach
recognizes that the best remedy for misleading or inaccurate speech
contained within material subject to the act is fair, truthful, and accurate
speech." (481 US at 481).

Under H.R. 3051, The government would not be interfering with or inhibiting expression by imposing an arguably pejorative political label on a film which the court found constitutional in Meese v. Keene. The H.R. 3051 labels would simply state an individual's expression of objection. The requirement that directors, screenwriters and cinematographers be permitted to disassociate themselves from material alterations of a film they created is the kind of "fair, truthful, and accurate speech" of which the court approved in Keene. The statement of non-authorization and disassociation is a factual disclosure susceptible to empirical verification. It reports information to audiences concerning the "origin" of the film they are about to witness, information that may be important to their understanding of the artistry of the film.

There is no constitutional barrier to the act. There is no First Amendment principle lost. No individual or corporate entity loses any freedom of expression. No market is curtailed.

Next, I am informed that you are being told that the French cinema, and other film industries around the world are dead and dying because moral rights exist in those countries. Put politely, that's an inexact description of the situation. Put bluntly, that's an absolute fiction. There is no credible evidence to keep this canard afloat. The dominance of the U.S. film business stems from many factors: the weather in Southern California, the size of capital investment, our marketing, management, and distribution skills, the size of our domestic market, the historic evolution of the world's taste for Hollywood movies, and, of course, the quality of the film artists themselves. (Many of whom came from elsewhere.) It cannot be seriously suggested that the American film business dominates because of a lack of moral rights. It can be seriously suggested that it would be an even more powerful force if its artists had moral rights.

Congressional action created the imbalance, and congressional action can restore it.

My third point is to suggest that the Congress might have an obligation to begin to inject a balance into the law. You are being told, I gather, that you should not interfere with collective bargaining between the Writers Guild and the producing companies, that it is not the role of government to affirm one point of view over the other. But the Congress has already acted in this area in the labor laws and in the Copyright Act. I respectfully submit that the work of prior Congresses was imperfect. This Congress needs to add some balance.

The argument has been made that the issue of protecting the rights of artists as opposed to the rights of the copyright holder is best left to the negotiating table. While the jurisdiction of collective bargaining covers many aspects of production and the creative process, the federal statutes governing collective bargaining in our industry make adequate redress impossible through that process.

The screenwriter expresses his or her point of view in a screenplay that is realized in a

film under the supervision of a director. The writer provides the story and the artistic blueprint for the film. His or her story is then told through the medium of film by the director and the director of photography whose skillfully employed camera captures the work of the writer, director, actors and others.

The Constitution of the United States, Article I, Section 8, grants to Congress the power to promote artistic creation by granting to "authors" a limited monopoly over their works. The word "author," I am told, was most likely at the time of the framing of the Constitution understood to refer to human, not fictional or legal, persons- to the individual writer or composer, for example.

I am told that the Copyright Acts of 1790, 1831 and 1870 did not contain any work-for-hire provisions. However, after more than a hundred years, the 1909 Copyright Act (for the first time in a federal statute) provided that, for purposes of copyright, the "author" would be the employer, not the creator. In the 1976 Copyright Act, this work-forhire doctrine provides that the copyright vests initially in the employer, who is deemed the "author," ́even when the employer is not an individual but is, for example, a multi-billion dollar trans-national corporation. The power of the employer to treat the work of a screenwriter as mere property to be changed at will was thus greatly enhanced by congressional action.

As a practical matter, screenwriters can only express themselves in their chosen medium in a work-for-hire situation. Thus, they are denied by congressional action initial ownership of their form of expression. Their right to claim "credit"- to be named as the artists who created the art-- would be all but non-existent but for decades of struggle by the WGA. Their right to prevent or object to the defacement of their final work remains essentially non-existent as a result of their employee status and a vastly unequal power relationship. It is similar for directors and cinematographers.

The writers, directors, and cinematographers whose work is materially altered after the fact by corporate entities upon whom the Congress has conferred "author" status, are flesh and blood men and women. They have often spent years of their lives to see their expression realized in a film. The film bears their names; indeed, it is often marketed on the strength of their names. It is their creation. They hurt when their artistic expression is dismembered. The fictional and contrived "authorship" of the corporate owner, conferred by a law passed by the Congress presumably for reasons of commerce, leads to the wishes of the true individual authors being ignored and their artistic expression being changed against their will.

The pursuit by the WGA and the DGA of the mere right to object to distorting alterations (as proposed in the act) is an attempt to ask the Congress, which conferred the power to the employer in the first place, to balance the scales just a little. The proposed act seeks only to preserve, in a minimal way, the human right not to have one's finished work distorted without at least the right to voice an effective objection. The notices required by the act will both inform the audience that the work has been altered and preserve to some minimal extent the true authors' integrity and dignity by allowing a disassociation from the alteration.

No rights of ownership are limited by H.R. 3051. The act would not prohibit the "owner" from mutilating, it merely allows an accompanying expression by an individual who states an objection. It grants a human right to the artist and respects the rights of consumers to be fully informed.

CONCLUSION:

In conclusion, I simply want to speak to you as a man who loves films, and loves writing them. We are entering the second century of cinema. Movies are an American art form. Perhaps many don't think of movies as "art," but as something seen on Saturday night dates, with popcorn, something to be watched by kids in sleeping bags on the living room floor. I was at a dinner party in Los Angeles last Friday and someone reported that the Smithsonian Institution had "sold out" by including a "Star Trek" exhibit. The appropriate retort was a "Star Trek" exhibit was exactly what the museum should include, because that cultural artifact is now an inextricable part of twentieth century America. Never before has art been such an integral part of people's lives. This unique form of storytelling is so much a part of our culture and our experience that it's almost a sixth sense.

No question, movies are art, as the Congress has recognized. We come to understand ourselves, our lives, and our times as much through film as through books or paintings. Film is a predominant form of cultural expression in our epoch, yet far too late, we begin to recognize the importance of maintaining and preserving our film libraries. We have not yet afforded films the protections we grant other forms of expression, and which this wonderful art form so clearly deserves.

In all honesty I wish I were here today arguing in favor of amendments to the Copyright Act that would prohibit any alteration without the permission of the real authors-- the creators of the film. I am here instead to argue for a bill- H.R. 3051-- that provides only minimal protection to the moral rights of the creators and to the consumer rights of the American public. H.R. 3051 doesn't protect the film, but it recognizes that the original expression has a value, that the artists' vision is important, and that the public should be aware of that value and be allowed to base their decisions on informed knowledge.

Centuries from now, when historians look back on our era, they will judge us on what they learn about our culture, just as we judge the societies that preceded us. The truths of those images, now and throughout history, are in the voices of our artists.

In this century, especially in America, film is a primary art form. It is unprotected. Film imparts truth about the human condition, moves us to tears and laughter, and creates a common cultural heritage of mutual understanding. Films are being mutilated and defaced. If we haven't yet recognized the need to protect our films from commercial defacement, we at least owe the public and history the respect of telling them that the film was changed over the objections of our film artists, lest President Kennedy's words return to mock us.

I love my work and I love movies. I hope you'll support this bill.

Thank you.

Mr. HUGHES. Mr. Wexler, welcome.

STATEMENT OF HASKELL WEXLER, FILM DIRECTOR, HASKELL WEXLER FILMOGRAPHY, ON BEHALF OF THE INTERNATIONAL PHOTOGRAPHERS GUILD AND THE AMERICAN SOCIETY OF CINEMATOGRAPHERS, HOLLYWOOD, CA

Mr. WEXLER. I will take Robert Wise's microphone.

I was able to submit a written statement, and because my friends around the table have said substantially what I believe in, I will be very brief.

As a director of photography, my job is to change words in pictures. Until I do what I do, there are only words in the air, discussions, things on paper and hopes and dreams. Then, if some unknown and unnamed person, some technician takes and decides on his own to alter what I did, he still does this under my name. He does this as if I did it.

I am not unmindful of the need to make some changes to accommodate the different formats and different sizes in our films in which they are presented, and I also am sympathetic to the point that there are certain economic factors which are important, and we, as filmmakers, at least I as a filmmaker because I have not discussed this, but I am sure it is true, we want our films seen by the widest audience possible. But we want our films to be seen and presented as we made them.

There is labeling on films now. Our credits are labeling. It is directed by Robert Wise, it is photographed by Haskell Wexler, and yet when the public sees these films, even if the panning and expanding is artful, even if the colorization is what some may think is good, it is not the issue. The issue is not what we did. So in a sense the public is being deceived.

I look at the films I make, and this may be very egotistical, but I look at the films I make as a legacy. I would like my grandchildren, my great-grandchildren to see a film I photographed and say, that is what he did, that is his vision, that is his view, and not the view of somebody who may be a talented person, I will concede that, but to the view of some technician who is offering what I still consider as my art or my view, who is altering that for whatever reasons, whether it is commercial, or monetary. So essentially, that is my view.

I hope that our group can answer any questions that you may have. Thank you.

Mr. HUGHES. Thank you, Mr. Wexler.

[The prepared statement of Mr. Wexler follows:]

« iepriekšējāTurpināt »