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Artists Rights Foundation joins Tim Zinnemann in effort to protect classic

Tim Zinnemann, the son of legendary film director Fred Zinnemann, has filed a lawsuit in Rome today against the Italian television station Telemontecarlo to stop the broadcasting of a colorized version of his father's film "THE SEVENTH CROSS." The suit, which was drawn up with the legal and financial support of the Artists Rights Foundation, claims that the station's colorization of Fred Zinnemann's film violates the directors "moral rights." The director, who died in 1997, was ardently opposed to colorization. He strongly protested the first colorized broadcast by the station in 1996. Despite his wishes, the colorized version was aired again in 1997, four months after his death. The suit calls for the television station to desist from all broadcasts of the colorization.

This lawsuit is similar to a suit filed by the family of director John Huston in in 1988, protesting the colorization of Huston's classic film "THE ASPHALT JUNGLE." In that case, Turner Entertainment, which was responsible for the colorization, was fined $74,000 and the French broadcast television station that aired it was ordered to pay $37,000.

Fred Zinnemann appeared before Congress in 1988 to urge the adoption of "moral rights" legislation. He said "there exist laws which protect all sorts of work by all sorts of artists: writers, painters, composers, sculptors, photographers. Why are filmmakers not protected in the same way? Films are not just the property of the copyright holder; they are part of our heritage. Future generations must have the right to see them in the original form."

In the lawsuit, Tim Zinnemann has taken up his father’s fight for "moral rights," stating that "on many occasions, my father discussed his strong views about the role of a director as the author of motion pictures. For my father, moviemaking is an art form, and the director is the artist. No one should be able to change a work of art and still say it is 'made by' the artist."

The Artists Rights Foundation, founded by the Directors Guild of America in 1991, is dedicated to safeguarding the rights of film artists and protecting their work from alteration. The Artists Rights Foundation provided the legal and financial backing for this suit in the tradition of support provided by the Directors Guild in the Huston case. Artists Rights Foundation President Elliot Silverstein said that the lawsuit "is another step in the campaign to protect the work of artists and to ultimately achieve the recognition of moral rights for film artists in the ."

A director's "moral rights," protect a film from unauthorized alterations that are considered damaging to the filmmaker's honor and reputation. These rights are guaranteed in the Berne Treaty, which is the international standard for copyright protection. "Moral rights" are fully honored in many European countries, but not in the which, while signing the Berne Treaty in 1988, has not formally adopted moral rights in this country.

Fans of Michael Mann, the catalyst behind such stylish NBC series as "Miami Vice" and "Crime Story," might have been surprised Sunday night to see the director's credit when NBC aired the 1995 heist film "HEAT": Alan Smithee.

That's the DGA-assigned moniker used by helmers who don't want to be associated with a film. Use of the moniker for the TV versions of feature films is unusual. But Mann said he was so appalled by network editing to fit a three-hour timeslot that he had little choice but to pull his name.

The film originally ran two hours and 52 minutes, and NBC wanted to cut it for a three-hour slot. Mann offered to lend new heat by adding footage cut from the original to fit a four-hour slot.

The helmer tried to get very involved, taking time from the Disney feature he's shooting to try and convince the network to air the film over two evenings to preserve most of its original content, saying "I think it would have been a better selling point for them."

Mann said there was a lot of back and forth between him and the network, and he was irate when NBC chose to edit the original.

"They cut so much out of the movie that they destroyed the narrative of the film along with its integrity," said Mann. "Artistically, I deplore what they did and I also criticized it as being piss-poor management of an asset they paid a lot of money for."

When Mann pulled his name, the network attempted to compromise: "They came back and offered to put back 17 minutes, and I said, ' Fine, then you can call it a Michael Smithee or Alan Mann film.'” The film, which marked the first screen pairing of Al Pacino and Robert De Niro, was in its broadcast premiere, but came in fourth in its slot among adults 18-49.

NBC did not comment.

Fitting a lengthy film into a three-hour timeslot makes hacking inevitable, since at least 48 minutes of that time goes into commercials and promos. Among the material cut from the original that Mann wanted to reinsert were scenes fleshing out the thief played by Tom Sizemore, and more sleuthing work by the detective (Pacino).

"The continuous narrative of cinema made those scenes unnecessary, but when you break into 11-minute periods, you need dynamic acts leading up to commercial breaks,” said Mann. "I'm not opposed to films showing on TV, but the question is how do you make the network work for you, how do you provide an act break that hooks the audience over the commercial breaks?"

Mann used his clout to retain character arcs to provide a complete look at the characters on both sides of the law and how they ended up in a final conflict over a bank robbery. "Too much time was taken out of the film that wasn't due to language or other content," said Mann.

" 'Heat' worked as a movie because you were personally involved in the world of all these people. You were engaged in their fortunes and what happened to them. To have that taken away by some amateur hacking away at the footage to make it fit a timeslot was unacceptable."

Mann is nearly finished shooting his Touchstone pic, which stars Russell Crowe as tobacco whistle blower Jeffrey Wigand and Al Pacino as former "60 Minutes" producer Lowell Bergman. He has not yet figured out what to call it. "There has been some movement," he said. "It has gone from ‘Untitled Michael Mann’ to 'Untitled Tobacco project.' "

"Honorable members of Congress, I speak to you as a person who has spent 60 years in the motion picture industry. You must know by now that many American moviemakers have an enormous grievance about the way their work is mutilated and their reputations damaged, without any chance, whatever, to put up a legal defense. It is difficult to imagine that this can happen in a civilized country which is supposedly proud of having actually invented the motion pictures that we know today.

"According to present law, the copyright holder has the right to have any number of scenes cut out of the film to make room for advertising, to have the projections speeded up to fit a TV time slot, to change large figures into close-ups or to take a black and white movie and colorize it by computer. "CITIZEN KANE" was about to be destroyed in this way when a clause was found in the contract which put a stop to it.

"Speaking for myself, two pictures which I directed, "THE SEARCH" and "THE SEVENTH CROSS," have already been colorized. I understand the result was horrendous. There have been public protests about it. I wonder if this will happen to other films I have directed such as "FROM HERE TO ETERNITY" or "HIGH NOON," where I deliberately adopted an old fashioned primitive style of photography to make the film look like a newsreel.

"There exist laws that protect all sorts of work by all sorts of artists: writers, painters, composers, photographers, sculptors. Why are filmmakers not protected in the same way? Films are not just the property of the copyright holder, they are part of our heritage. Future generations must have the right to see them in their original form. If they have been tampered with, their titles should be changed as they are no longer the same films.

"As members of Congress, you gentlemen are supposed to be the guardians of our civilization. As taxpayers and voters, the filmmakers are asking you to respect our moral rights by giving us a strong federal law so that we can challenge injustice in the courts of this country. We ask you to do it soon before film, as an art form, has been destroyed. You are responsible to us." 

In our last issue, we presented you with a transcript of a videotaped testimony to Congress made by John Huston outlining his reasons for asking lawmakers to pass laws that provide protection for filmmakers to defend alterations to their works that equal the protection that other artists have. This month, we present you with a transcript of one of Huston’s contemporaries — director Fred Zinnemann — who was equally concerned with the need to pass laws to protect our films from alterations.

"Honorable members of Congress, I speak to you as a person who has spent 60 years in the motion picture industry. You must know by now that many American moviemakers have an enormous grievance about the way their work is mutilated and their reputations damaged, without any chance, whatever, to put up a legal defense. It is difficult to imagine that this can happen in a civilized country which is supposedly proud of having actually invented the motion pictures that we know today.

"According to present law, the copyright holder has the right to have any number of scenes cut out of the film to make room for advertising, to have the projections speeded up to fit a TV time slot, to change large figures into close-ups or to take a black and white movie and colorize it by computer. "CITIZEN KANE" was about to be destroyed in this way when a clause was found in the contract which put a stop to it.

"Speaking for myself, two pictures which I directed, "THE SEARCH" and "THE SEVENTH CROSS," have already been colorized. I understand the result was horrendous. There have been public protests about it. I wonder if this will happen to other films I have directed such as "FROM HERE TO ETERNITY" or "HIGH NOON," where I deliberately adopted an old fashioned primitive style of photography to make the film look like a newsreel.

"There exist laws that protect all sorts of work by all sorts of artists: writers, painters, composers, photographers, sculptors. Why are filmmakers not protected in the same way? Films are not just the property of the copyright holder, they are part of our heritage. Future generations must have the right to see them in their original form. If they have been tampered with, their titles should be changed as they are no longer the same films.

"As members of Congress, you gentlemen are supposed to be the guardians of our civilization. As taxpayers and voters, the filmmakers are asking you to respect our moral rights by giving us a strong federal law so that we can challenge injustice in the courts of this country. We ask you to do it soon before film, as an art form, has been destroyed. You are responsible to us." (1991)