Who, governed by an elemental sense of fairness and opposition to misrepresentation, could oppose this plan?

Should you be favorably disposed to our appeal, please do not be frightened by the traditional knee-jerk reaction of our opponents. TV screens will not go dark over the world, bankruptcies will not be the natural consequence of truth in advertising and honesty will not cause collapse.

People will still want to see movies. People have wanted to hear and see movies acted out since the beginning of time and there is no sign their hunger is abating. Who is to say that if they knew that a better, truthful, a more complete version of a film were available to them that they would not demand it and thereby create a new market for the best available, and make everyone happy, those that made it and those that sell it?

Finally, we hope members of your committee will not vote to prevent information from reaching the consumer which would educate and guide the choice of his or her expenditure of time or might, and in the bargaining proposal enhance a demand for quality. That quality is available, and contrary to the dark prediction of those who told us that videocassettes would ruin the motion picture business, it would likely create a new market, one in which everyone would be proud.

Let us have no more apocalyptic prophecies and let us see what the truth will do for us. Despite what they say, truth in the marketplace, Mr. Chairman, is not dangerous to the health and welfare of the motion picture industry, or, for that matter, to the American public.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and I hope I have the opportunity before this is over to specifically address some of the problems raised by your colleagues.

Mr. HUGHES. Thank you.

[The prepared statement of Mr. Silverstein follows:]

PREPARED STATEMENT OF ELLIOT SILVERSTEIN, FILM DIRECTOR, ON BEHALF OF THE DIRECTORS GUILD OF AMERICA, INC., LOS ANGELES, CA

My name is Elliot Silverstein. I am an independent film director, but at this hearing I represent my colleagues who are members of the Directors Guild of America. I appear here today in support of H.R. 3051, the Film Disclosure Act.

The purposes of the Act are simple and simply stated. If a motion picture is released into the secondary markets in an altered form, it must bear a label of disclosure. In all cases where alteration occurs, there would be a short statement regarding the nature of the alteration. In those cases where the director, screenwriter, and cinematographer object to these changes, there would also be a statement noting the fact of their objections.

The precursor of this bill is one introduced a few years ago by Congressman Kastenmeier, but the language of the two bills in stating their primary objectives is identical. Films that are

altered would bear a label disclosing: "(1) that the film has been materially altered from the form in which it was first released to the public; (2) the nature of the alteration; and

(3) the fact of objection, if any, by the artistic authors of the motion picture to any such alteration."

H.R. 3051 is a more detailed piece of legislation than that

introduced by Congressman Kastenmeier primarily because the process for applying labels and the responsibilities of the

various parties are spelled out at great length.

All H.R. 3051 seeks to do is bring some truth through labels into the marketplace, a common matter, sanctioned by the government, in regard to foods, pharmaceuticals, tobacco products, etc. One of the purposes of the Lanham Act, which H.R. 3051 seeks to amend, is to insure that products in the marketplace ought to be what they purport to be, that what is inauthentic should not be passed off for what is authentic and that misrepresentation ought to be discouraged or penalized.

We suppose that the opponents of this bill would contend that intellectual well-being isn't as important as physical well-being; that is O.K. to disclose the contents of a soup can if adulterated or diminished in amount but not to disclose the same adulteration in films; that it is alright to pass off shoddy copyrighted goods. For that is what altered movies can certainly be in the opinion of many critics and of their true creators who are certainly experts.

A motion picture shown on television can have as much as half of its visual material deleted, scenes dropped that are essential to the storyline, and the original black-and-white photography

eliminated. If around Christmas time, you were to turn on Frank Capra's classic film, It's A Wonderful Life, this is exactly the sort of inauthentic fare you would be seeing. In every case the true authors -- the true creators -- of a defaced film are credited or discredited with those defacements made by others. Hardly, in the American tradition, fair play.

Now when the film is advertised in a local newspaper, or in TV guide, is any of this spelled out. Absolutely not. In fact, the opposite is implied, that what you will see on TV is what was in the theater. The inauthentic is passed off as the real thing. The film and the credits of the misrepresented.

artistic

authors are

We live in a time when the quality of American products is being continually called into question. Yet, without a doubt, American filmmakers and American motion pictures have been and continue to be the best in the world and those American films can easily be made available to the public in the form in which they were originally released. Nonetheless, when these films are shown on

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television, they are often so mangled that the quality is severely compromised, and even their creators do not find them

comprehensible.

"Well, who cares? It's just a movie. People know the television version isn't the same as the film shown in theaters, and

besides, we've been watching movies in a defaced way for years. Why do anything about it now?" -- one of the cavalier dismissals of our opponents. Then, of course, we hear that if we don't continue in the same old way, if we make a change relating to labeling, the revenues to produce motion pictures will dry up. The motion picture world will end! Cataclysm is just ahead! Honesty will cause collapse! The effect of labeling will be that new movies won't be made; financiers will disappear -- because the audiences will not accept -- will not watch the film they thought they tuned in to watch. What kind of Kafka-like reasoning leads to this absurd conclusion? Only an irrational fear of change, of adjustment, and a posture of power that reacts negatively when asked to share its benefits for the public good. You, in Congress, hear this kind of thing all the time.

Who cares? We filmmakers care. We are the movie makers -- not the corporations that employ us. It is our names that are associated with films. It is our skills and vision that our corporate employers require. It is our reputations that gain us or deny us employment and it is our reputations that enhance the value of films. It is also our reputations that are sullied when the vision we have worked so hard to achieve is compromised. Who has associated any vice president, president, chairman of the board or chief executive officer of a motion picture company with

a film that has failed in its defaced state? Which corporate officer has had to suffer the discredit for a mangled film?

Not