Audience Research: The BBFC (Callum Doona)

The BBFC

The British Board of Film Classification is an independent, non-governmental body which has classified cinema films since it was set up in 1912 and videos/ DVDs since the Video Recordings Act was passed in 1984.


Cinema: The British Board of Film Censors was set up in 1912 by the film industry as an independent company to give order to the ages of people can see films, this is because they may find some film or the content of the film offensive.

Video: In 1984 Parliament passed the Video Recordings Act. This act stated that, subject to certain exemptions, video recordings offered for sale or hire commercially in the UK must be classified by an authority designated by the Secretary of State.

Finances: The BBFC is a not for profit organisation, and its fees are adjusted only to cover its costs. In order to preserve its independence, the BBFC never receives subsidies from either the film industry or the government. Its income is solely from the fees it charges for its services, calculated by measuring the running time of films or DVDs submitted for classification. 

Reservoir Dogs, information

• Reservoir Dogs
• Director: Quentin Tarantino
• Status: 18 uncut
• Year: 1992

The scenes of violence, combined with the bloody injury detail on show (notably that of Tim Roth’s badly wounded Mr Orange), made the classification of the film at 18 almost a formality. But even at that category the notorious sequence in which Michael Madsen’s Mr Blonde tortures a policeman by slicing off his ear, dousing him with petrol and threatening to set him on fire, was considered troubling in terms of its acceptability and was the subject of considerable debate within the BBFC

THE GIFT (2015)

BBFCINSIGHT PUBLICATION DATE 28/07/2015

Note: The following text may contain spoilers

THE GIFT is a thriller about a husband and wife who are threatened by a man who knew the husband in the past.

LANGUAGE

Several uses of strong language ('f**k', 'motherf**ker'), as well as some milder bad language ('shit', 'son of a bitch', 'asshole').

THREAT

There are several scenes in which people are threatened by a stalker. There is also a scene in which a man straddles an unconscious woman and prepares to rape her; however, there is no depiction of rape. Occasional scenes of violence show men striking each other, although there is no strong injury detail.

There are some moderate verbal sex references.