CENSORSHIP IN PARIS

Sun (Auckland), Volume III, Issue 804, 26 October 1929, Page 13

CENSORSHIP IN PARIS

ARTISTS DISCUSS ITS NECESSITY

Censorship of books, plays and pictorial art again is up for debate in Paris, says a United States correspondent.

Those who “express” themselves are deemed by many to have gone too far. Some of the plays, innumerable books and quite a lot of pictures cause critics to reach far afield for vague phrases to indicate the subject. France constantly boasts that art is free here, but “Tile Intermediary,” the organ of the book trade, inquires where freedom ends and license begins. The idea of censorship is repellent to artists and writers, but there is agreement that the situation needs correction. Marcel Frevost, of the Academie Francaise, who won fame by his analysis of women’s souls and very free treatment of delicate subjects, favours a sort of literary group empowered to discipline .offending writers. “People get the kind of literature they deserve,” says Baron Ernest Seilliere, member of the Academy of Moral and Political Sciences. Pierre Mille and Jose Germain, the first a critic and the second a novelist, propose a sort of citizens’ committee of censorship. Extreme modernists like Carbuscia and Jean Cocteau naturally oppose any censorship. Carbuccia says;—“We have freedon in France; let’s keep it.” However, it is precisely to keep freedom that the hook trade and much of the art world is concerned over what they consider abuse of freedom. They fear the Government or the people may put their house in order for them if they fail to do it themselves.