Darkness, censorship and cinema (4. Video Nasties)
of Christophe Triollet
Publisher : Editions Lett Motif (October 2018)
Language : French
Number of pages : 324 pages
In the mid-1970s, the appearance of video recorders radically changed the way cinema was consumed, spectators now being able to rent without any prior control films that the theaters were not showing. The publishers of video cassettes then fill the catalogs with works that are often unpublished, sometimes pornographic, violent or prohibited, which escape all control, to the greatest pleasure of lovers of Encores. In the United Kingdom, the public authorities are alerted by certain family associations which do not understand that children can freely see shameful and degrading films. To counter the dissemination of works deemed particularly dangerous for young people, the English police organized and multiplied publicized seizures in video clubs under the 1959 law repressing obscenity. At the request of the main association of sellers and renters of videos in Great Britain which wished to avoid that its members be the subject of legal proceedings, the authorities ended up publishing in 1983 an infamous list of 72 titles stigmatized under the name of Video Nasties. […] (Christophe Triollet)