Hoffman.es@XEROX.ARPA (07/05/84)
>From today's L.A. Times, Part VI, page 1:
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MUNCIE MAKES FILMEX DEBUT AT 'SEVENTEEN'
By Lee Margulies, Times Staff Writer
More than two years after it was first withdrawn from public television
, and one year after it was withdrawn from the Los Angeles International
Filem Exposition, a controversial documentary about high school students
in Muncie, Ind., is scheduled to be shown Saturday at Filmex.
No last-minute hitches are anticipated this time.
"I'm very glad that 'Seventeen' is in Filmex," executive producer Peter
Davis declared Tuesday in a telephone interview from New York.
It was Davis who insisted that "Seventeen" be yanked from the Filmex
lineup last year, just two days before what was to have been its first
public screening. One year earlier, he had withdrawn the two-hour film
from the six-part "Middletown" series, about life in Muncie, rather than
make a series of cuts that the Public Broadcasting Service had demanded.
What has changed since last year?
"We now have insurance on the film," Davis said. "I wanted it to be
shown there (at Filmex) last year but we couldn't do it because there
was no insurance on it."
The insurance protects the film makers against any lawsuits filed
against them in conjunction with the documentary, Davis said. Obtaining
such policies is standard procedure when making a film, he said, and
"Seventeen" originally had been covered along with the other
"Middletown" programs. But he said the insurance carrier -- whom he
declined to identify -- had pulled out of "Seventeen" after the
controversy about its contents erupted, and it wasn't until late last
year that other coverage could be arranged.
"Seventeen," made by Joel DeMott and Jeff Kreines, follows the lives of
a group of Muncie teen-agers during their senior year in high school.
They are seen in school, at home and at parties and other social
gatherings. Various young people are seen getting drunk, smoking
marijuana, talking about sex, speaking rudely to their teachers and
using the sort of "street language" that normally gets edited out of
television programs. There also is an interracial romance.
Ken Wlaschin, artistic director of Filmex, said he is delighted to be
showing "Seventeen." Before joining the Los Angeles event, he said, he
had screened it at the London Film Festival last November, where it got
"a very good reception."
"I think it's wonderful," Wlaschin said of the documentary. "It showed
me insights into what the life of these students is like in a way that I
hadn't seen before."
He also said he had no quarrel with the language or other aspects of the
film. "This is the way they (the young people) behave; this is the way
they talk. The film makers aren't inventing this, and I don't think
it's overly emphasized. . . .," he said in an interview. "Whether
prime-time television can handle that is something the television
companies have to decide. But for a documentary film maker, if you're
going to show the way people are, you can't edit it out."
The furor around the film started before it was even completed.
According to DeMott and Kreines, Xerox, which was puttin up some of the
money for the project, was scared by early descriptions of the program
and launched a behind-the-scenes campaign to have PBS remove it from the
schedule.
Xerox's leverage, they maintained, was a threat to withhold money it
planned to spend to advertise and promote the "Middletown" series
nationally.
Further objections came later after some of the parents and school
officials in Muncie got a preview of the documentary. Representatives
met with PBS executives; questions were raised about the film's
journalistic ethics, and there were suggestions of legal action.
PBS officials were publicly circumspect about the nature of the
complaints, but they subsequently asked the film makers for a series of
cuts that "had to do with protecting the privacy of some of the minors,"
one programming exw[ve said later.
DeMott and Kreines contend that the request for changes was a ruse by
PBS to cover up its effort to placate Xerox. They maintain that public
television officials knew the editing demands would not be acceptable,
and that Davis was inhibited from exposing the maneuver because he, too,
was dependent on Xerox to promote the rest of the series.
In any case, the film was withdrawn, and "Middletown" aired in the
spring of 1982 as a five-part series.
DeMott and Kreines then entered the documentary in Filmex last year, but
without Davis' blessing, and he subsequently ordered it withdrawn. At
the time he said nothing publicly about insurance, only that there were
legal reasons that prevented him from permitting its exhibition. An
attorney for Davis said at the time, "There is threatened litigation and
so the film is not cleared for public showing in this country at this
time."
But this week Davis expressed enthusiasm for the Filmex screening and
said the reception it receives may influence future distribution efforts
for "Seventeen."
"I hope that it gets some recognition and that Jeff and Joel are
applauded for what they and I believe is a signigicant film," he said.
"Seventeen" is to be shown Saturday at 7:15 p.m. at the Nuart. DeMott
and Kreines are scheduled to attend and will be available afterwards to
talk about the film, Filmex officials said.