Nitish Banka

    • Degree of Expression (Cinematography)

    Cinematography:

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    Cinema when you hear this word everyone is excited about latest flicks, stars, action, songs and what not. The world is surrounded by huge some of entertainment channels one of it is cinema or call it movies. The art of making films, shooting, picturising is called as cinematography including both making and development of the film, the person who makes films are called cinematographers or film directors.

    Now a day’s people say that the olden day’s pictures are far better than the present ones as they had a lot of meaning in them and most importantly they were clean without much lascivious acts or too much action. When compared to the yester year movies there is a lot of change in the attitude of the makers of the movie and to that extent even viewers call it due to globalization or technical advancement of film making. Movies now are not in a position to be watchable with the family, they have been divided into A, U/A, S,U categories respectively.

    Coming to the governing and stabilizing part of movies there is a body called Central Board of film Certification. This statutory body is created under Ministry of information and broadcasting which administers and governs the publishing of films under the provisions of “Cinematography act 1952”.

    The board consists of Non-official members who are selected by the central government from all walks of people with knowledge and proficiency. It has its headquarters in Mumbai with nine regional councils in Chennai, Kolkata, Hyderabad, Delhi etc, the certification process of the films is done according to the Cinematography (certification rules) 1983 under the cinematography act 1952 and the guidelines issued by the government under Sec 5(b).

    The purpose of protecting culture and society was given to the board under the said act the act was passed with provisions for certification of films for exhibitions by means of cinematograph but this body had often been challenged for imposing unnecessary and unreasonable restrictions, taboos under the veil of protecting culture.

    Most of the time we hear the word obscenity in movies but the degree of obscenity is changes with the changing mindsets of the people, at one point of time which was wrong a greater obscene it isn’t now so the courts after going through several cases laid on this issue and has given the test of obscenity in Hicklins case  in this case the issues were concerned are that the tendency of the matter charged as obscene is to deprave and corrupt those whose minds are open to such immoral influences because it is quite clear that it would suggest to the minds of young or to person of more advanced years, thoughts of a most impure and libido character.

    In Samaresh bose and others v amal mitra the matter concerned was that when the judge in deciding the degree of obscenity he should place himself in the position of the author.

    Sec 5(a) of the Cinematography act 1952 the applicant or any distributor to whom rights in the film has been passed shall not be punished under any law relating to obscenity for which certification has been granted, it is this positive right vested into the moviemakers for which he cannot be punished. So according to the said provision the board has to be careful in giving the requisite certificate before giving the rights of publishing because once the rights are given the burden shifts on the board and not on the film maker to prove innocence.

    To conclude the degree of obscenity is in the minds of film maker and the viewers, each one has his own right to express his views in our country but people should keep in mind this proverb “ The right to swing my fist ends where the other mans my nose begins”.

    By-Taruni Banda