NYFF: Brian De Palma's Scuffle Over 'Redacted'

By Katey Rich

A strange thing has happened since last Monday, when I attended the New York Film Festival press conference for Brian De Palma's Redacted: the press conference itself got press. For months now De Palma has been loudly decrying Mark Cuban and his HDNet productions, which financed the film, for forcing him to "redact" a portion of his movie. During Monday's conference Cuban struck back�or, well, Eamonn Bowles did; Bowles is a representative of Cuban's Magnolia Pictures, which is distributing the film. De Palma was discussing the montage of the photos at the end of Redacted--real war photographs which include dead American soldiers; HDNet demanded that black bars be placed over the eyes of the subjects, and De Palma was just getting into explaining the reasons why when a voice chimed in from the back of the Walter Reade Theater. Here's the transcript:

J. Hoberman (panel moderator, NYFF selection committee member): Could you explain to us how Redacted is itself now in danger of being redacted?
De Palma:Redacted is in fact redacted. The montage of photographs at the end�I had nothing to do with that. The film was submitted to all the film festivals unredacted, but because Mark Cuban, the man who financed this movie, was disturbed by the photographs--

Bowles: That's not true
De Palma: Excuse me?
Bowles: That's not true.
De Palma: Who is that?
Bowles:Eamonn Bowles from Magnolia Pictures
De Palma: Well I'm sorry Eamonn, I have direct testimony to that. In any event, I am protesting it. I am protesting it, and I'm trying to get the pictures unredacted.
Bowles :It's a legal issue, but that's okay.
De Palma: It's a legal issue that we're going to resolve. In any event, I felt that my cut was violated and I'm seeking to have those pictures unredacted.
Hoberman [to Bowles]: Are you saying that there's not a problem with the photographs?
Bowles: The problem is that none of the people in the pictures had legally signed off to have the pictures--.
De Palma: How do you get releases for war photographs, Eamonn?
Bowles: We're in an untenable legal situation. If anybody, someone's parents-- I really like the film, I appreciate it greatly. It's a legal issue. You cannot have people--
De Palma: A specious legal issue.
Bowles:It's not specious. There would be no legal recourse if someone put a case in. No legal recourse whatsoever. Brian, the photos are extremely disturbing as�In fact, I think, thematically, if even works better. On a thematic basis I really like that.
De Palma: That's not your judgment to make.
Bowles: Who else would have made this film? What company?
De Palma: I made the film.
Bowles: Okay, but what company would have made this film?
De Palma: A lot of companies would have made this film.
Bowles: That's not possible. We're actually letting the film go as is, with the only incident being the legal ramification of this.
Hoberman: I think we get the position of the distributor. Let's see if there are any questions.

Whoah. The argument wasn't even over after that exchange; at the end of the press conference one of the film's producers, Ryan Kliot, took the stage to explain further. "Errors and omission insurance has been incredibly difficult to get," he said. "The fair use laws in America are completely unfair. They set it up so we cannot use images of our own culture to tell the truth about our own culture. This is a much larger issue."

For many in the audience�well, for me at least�the dispute was a crash course in Hollywood legalese. "Errors and omission" insurance, according to the Allen Insurance Group's website, is the insurance that covers any lawsuits that may be brought against the studio for copyright infringement, libel, or, likely in this case, invasion of privacy. Because none of the subjects in the photos, or their families, gave permission for the photos to be used, both Bowles and Kliot have argued that Magnolia would be open to a bevy of lawsuits. As for the fair-use laws that Kliot mentions, these usually apply to use of copyrighted works for educational or other public purposes; they don't cover use of photographs obtained without a release. J. Hoberman agreed with Kliot's criticism of fair-use laws, saying "It's apparent, yes, that there are tremendous problems with fair use in this country, but the only way that will change is if this goes to the court." It's hard to tell if this is him trying to make a point or just move things long, though I can't really blame him for striving for the latter. The fracas aside, De Palma had some interesting thoughts about what went into making the movie, his stance on the Iraq War and his decision to shoot in Hi Def video. Not surprisingly he was on the offensive, and didn't respond to questions asking about his penchant for voyeurism, whether or not his movies glorify violence, and a particularly pointed barb asking if he had made "a horror film for hipsters." (One-word answer: "No.") Below are some selected questions and answers.

De Palma: I was in Toronto last year going to see some movies and someone from HDNet came over to me and said 'Would you be interested in making one of our movies?' They give you $5 million and you can make it on anything you want, you just have to make it on Hi Def. Certain images come to mind. I don't know if you ever saw Baghdad E.R. on HBO�that left quite an impression on me. It was because it was shot in Hi Def that it had such a direct hold on the audience. It wouldn't have been as effective on film.

You've got a lot of political controversy coming down on you with this film. From your position, which kind of controversy is harder to deal with? [De Palma has been accused of misogyny in some of his previous films.]
You mean being a misogynist or a traitor? Articles have been written about me, the man they love to argue about. I just sort of see it as it is. I've hardly ever been in step with much. To me, especially this war has been so misrepresented in the major media, and it was consciously done by the Bush administration. I keep saying all the time, where are the pictures, where are the pictures? If we're dropping bombs and occupying countries and killing innocent people and I'm paying for it, can you please let me see the pictures? The pictures that I saw in Vietnam got me out into the streets. You know when this administration's over all the things they did are going to come out. [�] We basically just want to sort of end this war, and by trying to show what the reality of this war is, to stop sugarcoating it.

How do you deal with making films for a public that's desensitized to violence?
I don't necessarily agree with that. I think the films we were making the sixties and the seventies, just in terms of the ratings board, we could never get these films past the ratings board now. I think the whole clamping down of the censorship has been going on for quite a few decades. What you see on television in relation to what's going in Iraq has been completely sanitized.

Who are you supporting for President?
I don't think I'm going to let the right-wing bloggers have that. I'm still viewing the field. We have many months to make up a decision.

New York magazine is now reporting that DePalma has given up the fight, and will let the film be released as is, with the black bars over the pictures. "I couldn't get around the legalities. I tried to, I fought a hard case. But it was the difference between letting the film go out or just keeping at this."

Honestly, it seems like the right idea at this point. De Palma is turning the black bars incident into a free speech campaign, but putting the financial risk on the shoulders of a distribution company is not the way to wage it. It seems the best we can hope for is that someone with less to lose and a better argument toward fair-use rights-- 60 Minutes, Seymour Hersh, hell, even Jon Stewart�will bring these photos to the forefront, maybe with a little less shouting than De Palma employs. Maybe history will vindicate De Palma as a Cassandra who tried to show the truth to a blind country; for everyone's sake, let's just hope the scuffle between him and Eamonn Bowles�and Mark Cuban�isn't the last word.