#joseph breen

[dovesndecay]

Joseph Breen's grave is a free hotel room to fuck nasty, Mary Shelley-style.

[leebird-simmer]

[krikeyhazard]

writing an essay about the production code

[foxingpeculiar]

It bugs me that so many people I have encountered don’t watch old films, feel they can’t relate to them.

Cos like, okay. I’m watching Howard Hawks’s Bringing Up Baby (1938). Which is a screwball comedy. Which is to say, a romantic comedy that does a lot of winking at the audience to, specifically and maliciously, get around the censorship of the time. (The Hays Code was still relatively new at this point, and the Breen Office was giving everyone a lot of shit. The whole subgenre of screwball comedy exists as a fuck-you to that.)

And in this film, Cary Grant plays a… I dunno, dinosaur-guy at a museum. Who bumps into chaotic society girl Kate Hepburn, his life gets upended, they get together, you know how it goes.

But a key point of the plot is that the last piece of a dinosaur skeletal-reconstruction that he’s working on gets stolen by her pet leopard (the Baby of the title), who then escapes at large. It is in solving this problem together that they bond.

And what is that problem, put more directly? Her pussy has run off with his bone. That was very intentional.

Also, I believe this is the first film—certainly, at least, the first mainstream studio film—to use the word “gay” in reference to homosexuality. (Which they probably only got away with because nobody had done it yet. Like, Joseph Breen did not know what that meant.)

Like, c’mon. This shit is great. Expand your mind.

[cumaeansibyl]

I don't know if Neil Breen (edit: his name was Joseph but I'm leaving the error because it's hilarious) actually had a written rule that women aren't allowed to use violence in movies but it would actually explain how very few movies during the Hays Code period allowed female characters to do so

it might not have been written but I honestly think the censors might have been discouraging that kind of thing as improper -- and if you happen to be making a horror movie you're already on thin ice so you have to go along with the lesser cuts if you want to keep the important bits in

I am now thinking fondly of 1961's Bloodlust, a mostly mediocre teen horror adaptation of "The Most Dangerous Game" that's earned my undying love for allowing one of the young girls to defend herself by judo-flipping her attacker into a vat of acid

I've really never seen anything like it from that period, not before or since, even from noted female violence fetishist Russ Meyer. It really adds a punch to a narrative.

[renthony]

#that man censored my son

The son in question:

[Gif of Boris Karloff as Frankenstein's Monster in the 1931 film Frankenstein.]

Concept: Ted Cruz style "this man ate my son" meme, but it's Joseph Breen.

[byneddiedingo]

Montgomery Clift in I Confess (Alfred Hitchcock, 1953)

Cast: Montgomery Clift, Anne Baxter, Karl Malden, Brian Aherne, O.E. Hasse, Roger Dann, Dolly Haas, Charles Andre. Screenplay: George Tabori, William Archibald, based on a play by Paul Anthelme. Cinematography: Robert Burks. Art direction: Ted Haworth, John Beckman. Film editing: Rudi Fehr. Music: Dimitri Tiomkin.

I Confess is generally recognized as lesser Hitchcock, even though it has a powerhouse cast: Montgomery Clift, Anne Baxter, and Karl Malden. It also has the extraordinary black-and-white cinematography of Robert Burks, making the most of its location filming in Québec. Add to that a provocative setup -- a priest learns the identity of a murderer in confession but is unable to reveal it even when he is put on trial for the murder -- and it's surprising that anything went wrong. I think part of the reason for the film's weakness may go back to the director's often-quoted remark that actors are cattle. This is not the place to discuss whether Hitchcock actually said that, which has been done elsewhere, but the phrase has so often been associated with him that it reveals something about his relationship with actors. It's clear from Hitchcock's repeat casting of actors like Cary Grant and James Stewart that he was most comfortable directing those he had learned he could trust. Clift's stiffness and Baxter's mannered overacting in this film suggest that Hitchcock felt no rapport with them. But I Confess also played directly into the hands of the censors: The Production Code was administered by Joseph Breen, a devout Catholic layman, and routinely forbade any material that reflected badly on the clergy. In the play by Paul Anthelme and the first version of the screenplay by George Tabori, the priest (Clift) and Ruth Grandfort (Baxter) have had a child together, and the murdered man (Ovila Légaré) is blackmailing them. Moreover, because he is prohibited from revealing what was told him in the confessional and naming the real murderer (O.E. Hasse), the priest is convicted and executed. Warner Bros., knowing how the Breen office would react, insisted that the screenplay be changed, and when Tabori refused, it was rewritten by William Archibald. The result is something of a muddle. Why, for example, is the murderer so scrupulous about confessing to the priest when he later has no hesitation perjuring himself in court and then attempting to kill the priest? No Hitchcock film is unwatchable, but this one shows no one, except Burks, at their best.

gifs: tennant

[tenjin-no-shinja]

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Shinto Meditations for Revering the Earth, by Stuart D.B. Picken

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参拝したくなる! 日本の神様と神社の教科書 by 渋谷申博 (You'll Want to Visit! A Textbook of Japanese Kami and Shrines, by Shibuya Shuhaku)

古事記のものがたり by 小林晴明 (Stories from the Kojiki, by Haruhaki Kobayashi)

神社語辞典 by 本村のり子 (Dictionary of Shrine Words, by Noriko Motomura)

日本の神様解剖図鑑 by 平藤喜久子 (An Illustrated Analysis of Japanese Kami by Kikuo Hirafuji)

全部わかる神社ガイド by 岸川雅範監修 (A Comprehensive Guide to Shinto Shrines by Masanori Kishikawa)

コレクション日本歌人選０４３：菅原道真 by 佐藤信一 (Collected Works of Japanese Poets 043: Sugawara no Michizane by Satō Shin'ichi)

天神信仰の成立：日本における古代から中世への移行 by 河音能平 (The Establishment of the Tenjin Belief: Transition from Ancient Times to the Middle Ages in Japan by Kawane Yoshiyasu)

[dovesndecay]

concept: something something version of Mortal Kombat but i get to pit John Waters against Joseph Breen

[hyenaswine]

"it makes everything awkward, you don't know where to look" how do you not see that this is not a problem with sex scenes but A PERSONAL PROBLEM. not wanting to have sex is fine but being unable to tolerate its existence is something you should probably unpack.

Yeah we should do this for action scenes too. Have Aragorn draw his sword and fade to black and the fellowship have killed all the Uruk Hai.

This is the weird wave of purity culture that I mentioned a day or two ago. If you really are *an adult* then you can decide whether or not to watch films and tv shows with sex scenes.

[fernandaelucascosta]

Código de Produção (Parte 2)

Por: Fernanda Rossetto

Desenvolvimento e Imposição do Código Hays

Como foi tratado anteriormente, Hays estava tentando estabelecer uma regulação para o conteúdo exibido no cinema desde o início da década de 1920, porém obtendo pouco sucesso.

Contudo, alguns fatores mudaram essa situação e autoregulação da indústria cinematográfica tomou força, um deles sendo a crise econômica de 1929, que levou a instabilidade na indústria e segundo o autor Gregory D. Black (neste artigo) ajudou Hays a convencer líderes da indústria em uma série de reuniões entre dezembro de 1929 e janeiro de 1930 que essa regulamentação dos filmes seria algo bom para os negócios. O autor Stephen Vaughn (neste artigo) também fala da importância da crise de 29 para essa mudança no cinema, afirmando que o código de produção de 1930 oferecia maior garantia para investimentos pois diminuía a possibilidade de gastos por causa da censura governamental.

Porém o que causou maior impacto para implementação de um código de produção em Hollywood foi o envolvimento de grupos cristãos tanto protestantes quanto católicos, os católicos tendo mais envolvimento com a escrita do código em si, também fizeram papel importante nesta cruzada para a censura do cinema organizações de mulheres que em 1926 mandaram mais de 200 representantes para Washington para pedir a regulamentação do cinema. Segundo Black, as organizações de mulheres e ministros protestantes se diziam “experts” em detectar obscenidades nos filmes mesmo não sabendo definir o que estas obscenidades eram.

No entanto os católicos foram os que mais tiveram influência nas regras que restringiram o cinema hollywoodiano entre as décadas de 30 e 60 já que dois dos nomes mais importantes para a criação do código foram o católico Martin Quigley, que era contra uma censura estatal, e segundo Black, “estava convencido que a indústria poderia se auto regular através do gabinete de Hays” e o padre Daniel A. Lord, responsável por escrever o código de produção. No artigo de Black o autor também afirma que para esses homens a forma de garantir filmes “moralmente corretos” não seria através da censura, mas sim controlando a produção, sendo que para eles se os filmes fossem feitos de “maneira correta” não seria necessário ser feita uma censura governamental.

Mesmo o Código Hays tendo sido redigido no ano de 1930 a implementação do mesmo só teve maior sucesso no ano de 1934, pois, segundo Vaughn, por alguns anos a ameaça de uma censura governamental ainda era “a forma mais efetiva de se controlar os estúdios”  e em 1932 tentaram criar maiores sanções econômicas contra os estúdios, mas o que realmente tornou a regulação tão efetiva em Hollywood foram a criação da National Legion of Decency (Legião Nacional da Decência) e a Production Code Administration (Administração do Código de Produção).

A National Legion of Decency, sendo uma organização católica, convenceu católicos a boicotarem filmes que consideravam ofensivos, enquanto a PCA era comandada pelo, também católico, Joseph I. Breen, e tornou obrigatório que os filmes possuíssem um selo de aprovação (o qual pode ser visto na imagem no inicio da postagem) para serem exibidos, os cinemas que transmitissem filmes não aprovados pela PCA podendo receber multas. Tanto a Legião quanto a PCA chegaram até a receber endosso do Papa Pius XI em 1936.

Segundo Vaughn, foi, portanto, a combinação de fatores da Grande Depressão, dos boicotes e da presença da PCA que tornou o código uma medida efetiva de regulação para a indústria cinematográfica na época.

Referências:

Hollywood Censored: The Production Code Administration and the Hollywood Film Industry, 1930-1940 (https://www.jstor.org/stable/3814976)

Morality and Entertainment: The Origins of the Motion Picture Production Code (https://www.jstor.org/stable/2078638)

[tomwambsmilk]

the other day my prof mentioned that he hates calling it "the Hays Code" because Will Hays didn't actually write it and wasn't responsible for enforcing it (it was written by Daniel Lord and enforced by Joseph Breen, Hays was just president of the MPPDA at the time which is why he's associated with it). and I didn't know that and thought it was really interesting so went to do a little more research about it on my own and anyways did you know that the Nazi party collaborated heavily with Hollywood through the 30s and early 40s even after WWII had started because the German populace made up a significant portion of box office revenue so Goebbels sent an "emissary" to LA who leveraged that economic power with the MPPDA self-censorship bureau so that they'd use the Code to remove negative depictions of Nazis and positive depictions of Judaism from films and have American cinemas show Nazi propaganda reels before film screenings and the only reason that eventually stopped is that when the war really got going the German people stopped going to movies and so the box office revenue dried up and that's why there are barely any American films before 1945 where the Nazis are the bad guys. did you know that

[renthony]

Me: Wow, it's been hard to feel like my work has been meaningful. Am I really making a difference? Does anyone really need me to keep talking about the Hays Code and the way the modern MPA guidelines are descended from the very same code? Am I actually contributing anything to the world by talking about how horrible Joseph Breen was? Does anyone really give a damn about me discussing all the nasty bullshit the MPA has been allowed to get away with?

Variety: Motion Picture Association Congratulates Trump, Looks Forward to Working on Hollywood Issues

Me: ...ah. Okay. I am doing vital work, actually. Fuck.

[hyenaswine]

- joseph breen introducing the hays code

sometimes a story is about gay sex because there is no gay sex. sometimes a story revolves around the gay sex that is not happening

[gaykarstaagforever]

That time Joseph Smith was writing the 2nd Book of Nephi and just went, "I'm going to copypaste a bunch of the Book of Isaiah in here to pad this out."

It is such a stark difference. Like the Bible, even in translation, is so very much better wrtten than fakey bullshit pretend Bible-talk.

Nothing makes you appreciate the Old Testament more as a literary work than having it sandwiched between this "and it came to pass" garbage.

This is like if Neil Breen stopped pretending to pet a stock footage tiger, looked at the screen, said "You know what I like? The movie Casablanca." Then just spliced in like 15 minutes of that movie, before going back to pretending to fly over a picture of a warehouse.

...This is a bad example though because that would be AMAZING.

[byneddiedingo]

Marilyn Monroe in Niagara (Henry Hathaway, 1953)

Cast: Marilyn Monroe, Joseph Cotten, Jean Peters, Max Showalter, Denis O'Dea, Richard Allan, Don Wilson, Lurene Tuttle, Russell Collins, Will Wright. Screenplay: Charles Brackett, Walter Reisch, Richard L. Breen. Cinematography: Joseph MacDonald. Art direction: Maurice Ransford, Lyle R. Wheeler. Film editing: Barbara McLean. Music: Sol Kaplan.

Niagara was one of three movies starring Marilyn Monroe that were released in 1953. The other two, Gentlemen Prefer Blondes (Howard Hawks) and How to Marry a Millionaire (Jean Negulesco), were hits, confirming that Monroe was a peerless comic actress. But Niagara wanted her to be a film noir siren. She had done earlier turns in legitimate film noir, a small role in The Asphalt Jungle (John Huston, 1950), larger ones in Clash by Night (Fritz Lang, 1952) and Don't Bother to Knock (Roy Ward Baker, 1952), so this time 20th Century-Fox decided to go all out in exploiting her as a femme fatale. There are many things wrong with Niagara, one thing being that it can't quite decide whether it's a noir thriller or a Technicolor travelogue about the eponymous falls and their various tourist attractions. But what's most wrong about it is its misuse of Monroe, who is not even the real lead character in the film: Her role is decidedly secondary to that of Jean Peters. And she is grotesquely exploited in her part as Rose Loomis, unhappily married to a mentally unstable man (Joseph Cotten) and plotting to have her lover (Richard Allan) bump him off. The studio can't resist dressing her in skin-tight clothes, with high heels that make it impossible for her to walk without bumps and grinds, and flaming red lipstick that's obviously freshly put on even when she's supposed to be waking up in the morning. A producer less under the control of the studio than Charles Brackett (who also wrote the clunky screenplay with Walter Reisch and Richard L. Breen) might have made Rose into a credible character, but here she's only an adolescent boy's fantasy. Still, even a misused Marilyn is better than no Marilyn at all, as we find out two-thirds of the way through the movie when the focus shifts to the character played by Peters and her grinning ass of a husband (Max Showalter), and we have nothing to marvel at but the Falls. In the hands of a Hitchcock, Niagara might have been a success, but Henry Hathaway directs as if he's bored by the whole thing.