James Ferman

Permit me to correct Tom Vallance's otherwise excellent obituary of James Ferman [3 January], writes Mike Bor. First, it was 1984 (not 1994) that the British Board of Film Classification's powers were extended to the classification of videos; second, the 200 MPs "appalled" at the BBFC's passing Natural Born Killers by Oliver Stone had not seen the film; third, you cannot equate the grotesque rape scene in Death Wish (cut by the BBFC) with Cronenberg's film Crash; and fourth, the BBFC cut the Cliffhanger scene in which a man's head is used as football (before the film was passed "15").

James Ferman had a burning social conscience and was a passionate advocate of media education. He wrote:

It is treatment, not subject matter, which determines the stance of the artist – not the "what" but the "how" and the "why" – and studies of wickedness, even those which depict the crime in all its brutality, may illuminate, appal or even deter. Great art is, like religion, concerned with moral imperfections, but it can be perfectly moral in confronting them.

He was a liberal, with a conscience.

Click here for original obituary