Original subtitles

A FORBIDDEN ORANGE

'A Clockwork Orange' was released at the end of 1971

in New York

and in January, 1972, in London.

The film had a big impact on me

but also frustrated me

because I didn't understand some of the dialogues.

Of course,

many years later, I found out that in the film

they were speaking in a made-up language.

'A Clockwork Orange' was preceded by the scent of scandal.

Many said it was immoral and cruel,

that it favoured crime, etc.

At one point it was like an anathema,

a persecution even.

People didn't consider the values of the film,

it was supposedly morally corrupt

and this made Kubrick

decide to withdraw the film.

He removed it from the cinemas

not wanting to feed into something that he said

was extra-cinematographic.

The film had a big impact

all over the world

and, at the same time, it disappeared.

It had the aura of a cursed film.

Spain is spilling its blood

in the defence of civilisation.

Back then, the majors had no control.

Franco said that the money made from American films

had to stay Spain.

He even made it obligatory for all profits and royalties

paid for American films

to be invested in Spanish production.

I've governed this state for 30 years

saving the nation from the storms of our times

and, despite it all, I'm still here, ready for anything.

SPAIN IS WITH FRANCO

WELCOME TO VALLADOLID

In the 70s, Valladolid was an important university city

and a big industrial city.

The Renault factory was here,

FASA-Renault.

Back then, FASA had 15,000 workers

so the province of Valladolid became depopulated

and a many people moved to the capital.

Up until then, Valladolid had been a typically rural city.

The rural landowners were the ones in charge.

Everything developed with FASA and blended together more

but the social differences were still quite obvious.

The neighbourhoods were very ordinary,

the living conditions were terrible

and the centre...

The people that lived in the centre

were bourgeois families and there weren't many of them.

It's a city where the bourgeoisie are very connected

with the rural world so it's rather conservative

and was very devoted to Catholicism at the time.

It wasn't completely Catholic,

that would be excessive,

but it gave the impression of a Catholic city

with deeply-rooted traditions.

The Procession of the Seven Words in Valladolid

covers the city on horseback to the beat of drums and trumpets

as is fitting for a town

with a clear lineage of a noble cavalry.

The city has 20 confraternities...

There was also a buzzing university scene.

There was a lot of activity, not only in faculties

but in the colleges too.

There were lots of activities.

One thing that wasn't so common and easy for people to access

was a normal level of culture.

We were at home most of the time.

We did go to the cinema.

We went a lot.

Sometimes three or four times a week.

UNCLE TOM'S CABIN

I worked in a bank

but in the afternoon I worked at the family cinema.

The seating area at the Roxy Cinema was my playground.

I learnt how to run the box office, I helped them move the seats,

I hid behind the curtains to see a bit of the adult film.

Back then, cinema was the best distraction.

It was my world.

The first session was at 5 p.m.

and we wouldn't just get 20 or 30 customers,

we'd get 400 or 500.

It was constantly sold out.

It's some of my best memories.

Your parents took you

and you grew up with that fondness for the cinema,

it was so important.

There are few places I've been happier

than in one of those cinemas.

The lights went down

and you waited anxiously for that beam of light

to fill the screen with images.

It was an absolutely magical moment.

You were waiting for one of life's wonders.

For me, the cinema was a break from everyday life.

It was a fantasy world but also closely linked with reality,

with wanting a different world.

Through motion pictures,

people discovered, people travelled,

people formed an opinion.

I think that cinema changed the pace of culture in Valladolid.

First, because of the university scene

but Film Week was also a decisive push.

I loved Film Week

because it changed the city.

Suddenly, there were new things to see in Valladolid.

I came to Valladolid in 1964.

I had passed my exams

to work for the Superior Body of State Administration

and I specifically requested Valladolid

because of International Film Week.

The festival was founded

by Antolín de Santiago y Juárez,

Manager of Information and Tourism,

a man with a gift for organisation.

He wanted to set up a religious film festival.

The festival was an extension of the Holy Week.

It started with a mass

which all of the guests attended.

The fact that there were nuns and priests there was a talking point

and they actually seemed the most interested in it.

RELIGIOUS CINEMA WEEK

The first session

was for religious films

and they showed a controversial film that people complained about.

But the festival had to expand

because there weren't that many good religious films

and it started to include human problems.

That was a big deal for the festival

because it could now show all types of films.

And it was called

Religious and Human Values Film Festival.

It's an umbrella term that covers so many things:

social cinema, political cinema,

cinema from a humanist point of view...

I said there was room for everything,

even eroticism, because eroticism is something profoundly human.

It triggered broad discussion.

It was a big change.

They suggested risqué films,

difficult films,

controversial films.

You weren't sure which planet they came from.

You probably couldn't see what came to Seminci anywhere else.

We started getting films from beyond the Iron Curtain

that were hardly shown anywhere else.

We had Felini's films, Rossellini's films...

Ingmar Bergman.

We had La Nouvelle Vague too.

François Truffaut.

Finally, we managed to get Buñuel.

And we showed 'The Milky Way'

and 'Simon of the Desert'.

It was incredible but it got us into two tight spots.

First with the archbishop

who almost got into a fight with Antolín.

And then with the cinematography course

which was run by Father Staehlin and Father Landáburu

who were also annoyed about the festival.

There was a kind of tension:

"We're going ahead with it but it'll cause a scene."

They showed 'The Virgin Spring'

which has a rape scene and all sorts

and there was a bit of a panic because there were nuns there.

It seemed strange to show Bergman's films

in Religious Film Week

and to see disturbing films...

you didn't know how to feel about what you just saw.

It was a cultural effervescence

made possible by Film Week.

They showed films

that really shocked people

but everyone still wanted to see them.

The cinemas were sold out every single day in Film Week.

For me, Film Week opened my mind up to the world.

Intellectual and cultural curiosity

was rife among young people.

With censorship ever present,

they looked for subterfuges

and ways to keep the flame of culture alive however they could.

On the churches' religious notice boards

next to the scheduled masses

you'd find the events' moral ratings.

You could look up the films

and were only supposed to watch the ones rated one,

suitable for all audiences.

Franco's regime was most strict about cinematic censorship.

It was easy to do across many levels,

not just in the traditional way of cutting the footage,

but also by introducing a verbal censorship

which meant changing the dialogues.

There's the famous case of the film 'Mogambo'

where censorship was used

to make the romantic relationships clearer

but they actually made it so that there was incest

instead of adultery,

which is a much bigger sin.

Besides those manipulations,

omissions and changes,

the worst thing was not getting films that were being shown elsewhere.

We didn't get the risqué films,

neither the erotic ones

nor the political ones.

For example, Kubrick's 'Paths of Glory',

the anti-war film which was one of his best works,

didn't make it here.

Francoism was terrible.

It was so dark and so brutal,

something beyond comparison.

Everything that was most in touch with the times,

that modernity that you longed to be a part of,

was completely blocked.

The Police claim she has committed cruel acts.

Yes, an interesting case.

We'll try to make you useful

in accordance with the law.

It's time for our third film programme

where you can see the film 'A Clockwork Orange',

produced in 1971 by Warner Bros.

and directed by Stanley Kubrick.

MR. HERCULES AGAINST KARATE

You either went to secret or clandestine screenings

or you had to go abroad.

Visiting Paris was more than just the Eiffel Tower

or the Champs-Élysées,

it also meant discovering the cinemas

and Buñuel's films that hadn't made it to Spain,

along with other directors.

On the weekend in Catalonia, especially in Barcelona,

they organised trips to Perpignan

to see films like 'Emanuelle' or 'Last Tango In Paris'.

It was like La Rambla over there,

everyone knew and greeted each other.

Then they did a marathon viewing.

The screenings started at 3 p.m.

and then they would run to another cinema

because they had tickets to watch two more films,

erotic ones, and others that were banned in Spain.

I saw it in Montreal, in Canada,

in 1973, something like that.

I thought it would be difficult for this to make it to Spain,

the censorship was very strict

and the chances of us getting it were very slim.

I put it to the back of my mind

and then in 1975

I directed the festival

and the possibility of showing 'A Clockwork Orange' came up.

Warner Bros. called me

and said: "Hey, we're interested in showing 'A Clockwork Orange'

in Valladolid

and the General Bureau of Cinema has agreed."

The simple fact that the General Bureau of Cinema

and the distributor, Warner Bros.,

were considering giving Valladolid a chance

gave us a certain status.

The stars aligned because, in February,

there was a post in the State Official Bulletin

saying that the censorship control system had been suspended.

The regime's leaders also realised

that this couldn't go on for much longer

and maybe saw the film as a way to show people

that they could be modern too

by showing things that were controversial and risqué.

A propagandistic way

of showing that the regimen was starting to change.

In Spain, it was a milestone

to think that 'A Clockwork Orange' might be shown in cinemas

relatively soon.

They did an experiment in Valladolid in 1974

and there was quite a commotion

at the doors of a cinema

that was showing 'Jesus Christ Superstar'.

There was a real outcry,

and it's funny because the film isn't...

So much so that 'Jesus Christ Superstar'

was authorised on a Friday to be shown on a Sunday

by the Council of Ministers

headed by Franco himself.

With that in mind,

when they suggested that we screen

'A Clockwork Orange' we decided to go ahead

thinking we'd be dropping a bomb, and we sure were.

CONFLICTIVE CITY

PEACEFUL RALLY

THE STRIKE

POLITICAL STRIKE

PROTEST MARCH

FASA Renault went on strike, so did construction...

The neighbourhoods were destroyed, there was a lot of social activity.

Other industries were also on strike, fighting over agreements

and the improvement of working conditions.

Lock-ins and assemblies in churches were common

and some working priests

said they were sent by the church to catechize the workers

and then the workers ended up unionising them.

MADRID, BARCELONA AND SALAMANCA UNIVERSITIES ON FULL STRIKE

WARNING NOTES IN UNIVERSITIES

Valladolid had a population of 200,000 people

and 30,000 of them were students

so the political atmosphere was quite combative.

In 1975,

I was studying English philology at the University of Valladolid.

A singer songwriter, Elisa Serna, came to perform a concert

which was later banned.

However, the concert went ahead

because the ministerial order stated

that the Police couldn't access the campus

so it wasn't a problem.

But that's not what happened, the Police came in

using their batons to break up the concert.

We all scrambled to get out

but some were luckier than others

and several of us got a good beating.

My father was Republican and a reprisal victim and he said:

"My girl, this is all very well but ideas are one thing

and political activism is another."

That concert changed the University of Valladolid completely.

To set an example

for other universities,

the government decided to end the academic year.

THE CLOSURE OF THE UNIVERSITY

The university closed,

a decision made by the then-rector, José Ramón del Sol.

He came out of the Faculty of Medicine

and there was an assembly in the street

with people throwing eggs

and calling for him to resign.

That made the academic authorities get together

and put up a note saying that,

because of the trouble at the university,

all academic activity was suspended indefinitely.

The regimen was very much alive in Valladolid

and other parts of the state

and the punishment for belonging to certain political organisations

even involved prison.

The Political-Social Brigade that had been at its peak

and seemed to have died down towards the end of the 60s

recovered its bad reputation

with mass arrests at the university

and among FASA-Renault workers.

A group of students from the university

were sentenced to years in prison

and one of them

had what was supposedly an accident at the Felipe II Police Station.

They said he tried to flee

via the interior patios of the station

but Cancho has always said that they threw him

from inside the station onto the interior patio.

Imagine all of those continuous combustions

in a city with a relatively small population,

and then overnight

the Seminci announced that, in April,

to celebrate its 20th edition,

there would be a special screening of 'A Clockwork Orange'.

It shook up the cultural scene.

It was a war-like challenge

to show something that wasn't approved of

and had caused such conflict.

Expectations were really high.

Fifteen or twenty days before the festival,

Warner Bros. called me and said:

"Look, we want to check your copy

of 'A Clockwork Orange'

because we're not sure it's in perfect condition."

So, the copy of the film left Valladolid

and headed for Madrid.

But two days after sending the film back

Warner Bros. called me again: "Look, we're really sorry,

but Kubrick won't authorise the screening of this film."

You're kidding?

We couldn't believe it...

It was just over a week before the festival.

Kubrick didn't think that Valladolid was the right place

to release and present the film in Spain.

He had probably heard that Valladolid still had

an international reputation

for being strongly linked to religious cinema.

I also think he heard

that at the Valladolid Festival

the 35mm projection equipment

wasn't good enough to guarantee the screening

that he wanted for the film.

He was an obsessive perfectionist.

I spent a whole week with him,

every day, for many hours,

when I started working on the translation

and subsequent dubbing of The Shining.

I'd done A Clockwork Orange before

and I was thrilled to be staying in a big hotel next to his house.

One day, I asked him for something

that I knew he didn't want to give me,

an interview.

I never felt like I was talking to a star

but that's what he was.

He had something that I really value in people,

especially those of such an artistic level,

which was an interest in others.

Instead of talking about his films or Hollywood,

which didn't interest him,

he asked you questions about things like Spanish politics

and the Spanish Civil War.

He wasn't a proud and arrogant man

or even that sure of himself.

He was a friendly person

and one thing really stood out for me,

something more important than somebody's character,

whether they're good or bad, nasty or nice,

which was his exigency.

The level of exigency

that he imposed on himself

wasn't just a quirk or a hangup, as many people have said...

"He was a maniac, he was crazy, he was a pain",

that's all been said about Kubrick.

He was a maniac, he was crazy, he was a pain

when it came to quality.

That's one of the things I admire most in artists.

Legend and Kubrick go hand in hand together.

They used to say...

and when I asked him he just smiled

as if to say: "Believe whatever you want",

that he even sent spies to the big cities

in the countries where his films were going to be shown

to find out whether the cinema had the right conditions

so that the creation that he had filmed,

shot and translated,

with him guiding the translators,

for so long

was up to the same standards

that he demanded of himself.

In fact, I remember reading

that even for the premier in New York

he demanded a certain size screen.

If Stanley Kubrick thought

that instead of showing it at Madrid's Gran Vía

or Lope de Vega cinemas,

it should be shown at the Carlos III Cinema,

a much less important one,

it would premier at the Carlos III because he said so

and he thought his film was right for that cinema.

He was capable of refusing to screen one of his films

because the colour of the room didn't go well enough

with the colours in the film

so he wouldn't let it go ahead.

He had full control over the exploitation of his film.

He wanted to control everything

from production and management to exhibition,

which the big majors do nowadays.

Warner Bros. were very interested

in showing the film in Valladolid

which would open the doors

for the possible normal commercial distribution of the film.

They called me and said: "We're going to work on Kubrick

and try to get his permission".

Warner Bros. sent one of their managers,

Angel Corbi, to London

to convince Kubrick to authorise

the screening of the film in Valladolid.

He came to see me when he got back

and told me to write him a letter

saying that the film would be screened

at the University of Valladolid.

He thought that telling him

that the film would be shown exclusively

at the University

might convince him to give his permission.

It was our only chance and we had to give it a go.

I wrote a letter explaining

about the festival's personality,

what our approach was,

that it was progressive

and the film would be screened

for the university.

That's how we got Kubrick to give us his permission.

That the festival management,

Romero with his letter

and the representative from Warner Bros. Spain,

did something all too common among epic Spanish characters,

who use every trick in the book

to make things happen that,

seen from any other angle, are absolutely impossible.

Although I'd said that the film

was going to be shown at the university,

I didn't really trick him

because the audience that watched it in the Carrión

was exclusively from the university.

The university world was fired up,

coming off the back of an exceptional situation.

The fact that a film was being shown

that had been banned and censored for four years

since its release

made the university students

lose control,

it was a reward, a cultural uprising.

You had to go!

'A Clockwork Orange' was such an attraction,

an unhealthy one, you might say,

and people queued as far as the eye could see.

I remember the cinema surrounded by people waiting.

I was in that queue

and people even brought sleeping bags.

Some people slept out there all night.

They were taking it in turns.

Two hours each and then switch.

I remember at one point the Police went by,

maybe somebody said something,

and then charged

scattering the queue

only for it to reform later on.

And the next day they rushed in

as if they'd been tied down, everyone running to get there first.

When the tickets were supposed to go on sale,

they called me and said there was a problem,

there were no tickets left at the Carrión.

"No tickets? But they're not even on sale yet."

"Yes, but there are no tickets for 'A Clockwork Orange'."

We went straight over.

When we saw the queue, Carmelo and I got a shock.

We thought: "This is going to get messy."

We asked the ticket operator what was wrong.

"Sir, the owner of the cinema,

has given all of the tickets for 'A Clockwork Orange'

to their friends, contacts, etc.

and there are none left."

None of the people waiting outside

could get in because there were no tickets.

"What do you mean?

What am I going to do with all of these people

who have been queueing for over 24 hours

waiting to see the film?"

"I don't know, there are no tickets."

They cancelled the tickets that had been assigned beforehand.

They brought out some new tickets,

gave them to the ticket operator and said:

"Use these ones".

The poor woman looked like she'd just seen a ghost.

He had given one thousand tickets

to all the people who wanted to see the film

and hadn't queued.

It had a big impact but it was well organised

and sorted out properly.

The tickets sold out immediately.

The only inconvenience, besides spending the night outside,

was that lots of people in the queue

were planning to buy ten or twelve tickets for their friends

but were met with the unpleasant surprise

that the organisers were only selling two tickets per person.

So the friend that got to the front was only given two tickets

to share with everyone...

it was a big disappointment.

We were such good friends that we drew straws for the tickets

and my husband and I ended up with them

so we went to see it

and our expectations were very high.

There was an organised way to pick up the tickets

and enter the cinema in an orderly fashion.

My role at the cinema

was to make sure nothing went wrong during the screening.

The city was divided: those who were excited

and those who sat at the front saying the rosary,

they couldn't believe it.

Peace wasn't guaranteed.

The previous year a film by Carlos Saura had been shown,

'Cousin Angelica'.

I went to see it in Gijón and they stopped the film

because Falange, very right-wing people

didn't like how they were portrayed.

The Police had their eye on it.

There was a small group of anti-riot police in the cinema.

They were keeping an eye on what was going on.

I decided to go up to the projection booth

to make sure that nothing went wrong

and that everything was running smoothly.

I watched it from up here, from where we're filming.

It was full to the rafters.

Everyone was absolutely silent, there wasn't a sound.

Silent and excited

to see what we'd waited all night for,

what it was like, we didn't want to miss a thing.

Half way through the film,

the Police rang me

to say there was a bomb in the cinema.

Oh my God...

Back then, bomb alerts

were relatively common

at cultural and problematic events.

Calling up and saying:

"Hey, there's a bomb in such a such place"

meant the activity would be stopped

and implied no risk for the person who called it in.

I decided to take a chance and I told him:

"Look, sir, I'm sorry

but I'll be held responsible for not stopping the screening.

We're half way through,

and after everything that's happened,

we'll see it through to the end."

I was impressed by the film.

It was visually striking.

The whole set design is incredible. It's brutalist.

The setting is so modern.

The colours,

the clothes...

Pop iconography was so interesting to us back then.

I thought it was absolutely fantastic,

very clever, very well done, very well performed.

Malcolm McDowell with that evil face and that eye...

It's also striking the way they try to cure him.

With his eyes held open

to make him watch the scenes of violence and everything...

I remember that the music...

perfectly matched the scenes of violence.

It made me feel quite ill,

I'd never seen violence like it.

There were some scenes that I couldn't even watch

because they were too disturbing.

I started to feel like throwing up,

I didn't know what to do...

To be honest,

I was surprised at how well-thought-out it was,

even with that constant injection of violence.

It explains the whole phenomenon of domination

between people, castes and classes,

and the State's domination of people.

It was about a type of violence

that we saw in the streets quite often.

In Valladolid, we had friends in prison...

and a friend who had been thrown

from the window of the Police station.

That was what we saw from 1971 or 1972

up until the vote for the constitution.

It was a very disturbing film,

one that doesn't leave you indifferent.

It caused a commotion,

it's one of the films that made the most noise.

The film? What can I say? I didn't like it.

It was very unpleasant...

but it's a great film.

It's astonishing

because of how it's made

and the genius behind it.

I absolutely loved it.

I don't know if I should say this... but I found it really funny.

I really enjoyed myself and the end is great.

When the screening was over everyone started clapping

but nothing untoward happened.

People were amazed by the film,

in awe of Kubrick's directing,

how powerful the film was, but that was all.

Back then, it was trendy to have a film forum.

When we saw a Woody Allen or Buñuel film

we always commented and reflected on it,

something that could go on for days

when you met up with your friends.

This film didn't give rise to that kind of film forum.

This may seem absurd...

Afterwards, they seemed almost frustrated.

I don't know what they were expecting to see...

One thing we mustn't forget

is the mark that censorship leaves

on a cultural product.

It created certain expectations and a special interest

regardless of whether they ended up watching a masterpiece or not.

It's like when you're getting ready for a trip

and you enjoy the planning more than the trip itself.

I think I've seen films that I like more

in terms of the plot and content

but I'll never forget that film.

It's a really important film that marked a before and after

in the behaviour of viewers and critics

and the people from Valladolid in general.

And that's the story of the film at the Valladolid festival.

The festival was elevated

by the screening of 'A Clockwork Orange'

but some films didn't cause such a hype...

For example, the first film by Steven Spielberg

that was shown at the festival.

A few months later, the film was authorised for screening

in art-house cinemas.

It was shown in the Cid Campeador in Madrid.

But we had to wait two more years for the commercial dubbed version.

Of all the film translation projects that I've done,

it was definitely the most difficult.

The film was shot in a made-up language.

Burgess, the novelist, said: "I'm going to do it

in a language that's all mixed up."

He blended the Queen's English with some contemporary English slang

and also some Russian

inspired by what he heard being spoken

by a group of dandies from Saint Petersburg.

The head, in the original novel and film,

is called the "Gulliver"...

It's taken from that famous novel,

Gulliver's Travels.

I translated it as the "quijotera".

I did the translation,

Saura, with Kubrick's guidelines that he sent from London,

did the dubbing

and the film was released,

as I like to joke, "openly",

not just for select audiences like before.

'A Clockwork Orange' was one of the biggest phenomena in Spain,

on a par with Star Wars.

It was shown for a year.

FRANCO IS DEAD

Valladolid is a city with a certain amount of conservatism

and a cultural effervescence

that was already around in the 70s

with Seminci and the screening of 'A Clockwork Orange'

which people still remember and talk about.

I think it still has a big impact on the city.

I grew up with that legend.

It's always difficult to know what's true and what's not.

I think it's best to just believe the legend.

It's mainly the young people who don't know

about the screening

because they're disconnected from classical cinema.

From my experience as a teacher,

I'm pretty sure that the majority of new generations

haven't even seen it.

No, I haven't seen it.

I've never heard of 'A Clockwork Orange' or Kubrick.

It rings a bell. I've heard of the title, but that's it.

I know nothing about it.

I know it was revolutionary in its time, but that's all.

I've heard it's uncomfortable to watch

but I don't know what it's about.

You recognise the iconography.

You know it's from the film even if you haven't seen it.

It's still an aesthetically powerful film.

It's become an icon.

At Halloween, people dress up as droogs...

The hats...

It's part of pop culture.

It means that they recognise some images

like with other films but it doesn't mean they've seen it.

No, I haven't seen it.

The aesthetics, an episode of 'The Simpsons'...

An episode of 'The Simpsons' or other series.

And they don't know the plot or what it's about...

The only thing I know about 'A Clockwork Orange' are memes

or jokes I've seen on the Internet.

I'm sure the film still has the ability

to awaken people's consciences and churn their stomachs.

It depends on how sensitive they are.

I think the way it started

got you hooked and you wanted to watch the rest.

At the beginning, the drunk guy they beat up

says he doesn't want to live in a lawless world.

I was shocked when they were in the tunnel beating him up.

When they rape the woman in the house and the man's watching.

When they hit each other.

As well as the scenes of explicit violence,

it's quite shocking when they force his eyes open.

Institutional violence

and how the system takes that violence and uses it.

The influence of the media on society stood out for me.

Some of the scenes are shocking

and I'm not sure what people must've thought

when it first came out.

Right from the very first scene,

with four men forcing themselves on a woman...

and not just that one, a couple more...

I found them pretty shocking because they're really explicit

for a film that was screened at a festival

and is recognised as a cult film.

I found it difficult to watch and quite savage,

but I liked it overall.

I liked the film.

I really liked the film.

I loved it.

I liked it but I feel a little unsettled.

It would be impossible for this to be released nowadays.

People would be up in arms.

It would be risky to make it now

because I think it's controversial

and very explicit.

It was too much for me.

The sexual stuff...

I don't think it would be received the same way now as it was then.

No, you couldn't make this film now because...

no director could...

get enough support to make it, and even if they did

no producer would approve it.

Maybe the film couldn't be made today

mainly because the producers

wouldn't deem it appropriate.

We sometimes automatically apply

certain scales of behaviour

and, in real life,

we have to be very strict

and recognise there are some things we can't do

and shouldn't do,

but it's another thing for me to envisage a book

with a violent scene that might upset somebody...

Just because it upsets somebody

doesn't mean that work must disappear.

Wrongness isn't erased

by removing the reflection of something that's wrong

from a beautiful film or book.

Having been through it myself

but also having had time to reflect on it,

I despise the existence of censorship.

That censorship was much more severe,

tougher and more aggressive

but much less subtle

than it would be to today accept a censorship on traditions,

on habits,

on what's politically correct or incorrect,

on what's commercial and what's not.

With any cultural or artistic activity,

the creator's need for freedom is fundamental.

Translation: Amy Sue Bennett Subtitles: Bbo Subtitulado