BAN YOU BELIEVE IT

New film looks at 'outrageous' decisions to block scenes & plots

- BY MARK KAVANAGH

IN the Opinion of the Censor is an Irish documentary that charts how successive censors banned around 2,500 films and cut a further 11,000 following the Censorship of Films Act 1923.

Filmmaker Andrew Gallimore (One Night in Millstreet) begins his story with the legislation which decreed that all films must be approved by the censor, a role heavily shaped by Church and State.

His documentary opened at this month's Irish Film Festival in London and demonstrates how the heavy censorship mirrored Ireland's shifting cultural and political values, with clips from Casablanca, Life of Brian, The Last Temptation of Christ and Ulysses.

Former film censor John Kelleher, who narrates the documentary, said: "It's a fascinating way to look at the history of a changing Ireland over the hundred years since independence in 1923.

"I was shocked and angry at many of the censorship decisions made when I was younger. 200 films were banned in the 70s in Ireland when I was a young adult in my cinemagoing prime.

"I was amused at many of the decisions of the early censors, which were reflective of the time they lived in.

"For example, James Montgomery, the first censor, who banned 1,700 films, defined 'nudity' as any part of a woman that was unclothed below the neck! "I became a censor in 2003 because I wanted to modernise the office and replace the censorship of the past with classification, based on consumer guidance for parents and young people.

"I was the last Film Censor and the first director of Film Classification." Here, Mr Kelleher and the documentary's director highlight six films that were either censored or banned and tell us why...

I'M NO ANGEL (1933)

John Kelleher: This was censored because the censor couldn't handle Mae West's feisty female sexuality, her come-hither eye-rolling and witty innuendo.