Film cuts in India

Oppenheimer is a 2023 UK/US historical biography by Christopher Nolan
Starring Cillian Murphy, Emily Blunt and Matt Damon

The story of American scientist J. Robert Oppenheimer and his role in the development of the atomic bomb.

India's film censors have made cuts to a nude scene in Christopher Nolan's Oppenheimer.

Florence Pugh's naked body and breasts have been blacked out with a CGI mess supposed to indicate a black slip.

Pugh plays Oppenheimer's girlfriend Jean Tatlock, to whom Oppenheimer briefly returns for an assignation during his later marriage. She functions in part as a device to introduce the audience to Oppenheimer's interest in Hindu mythology -- and in ancient Sanskrit texts such as the Bhagavad Gita , which form the foundations of Hindu religious narrative.

At one point during their love--making -- mid-huff, mid-puff -- Pugh-as-Tatlock rises from Oppenheimer's body to trawl his bookshelf, picks up a copy of the Bhagavad Gita and clambers back onto her lover's midsection as she opens it and begins to read aloud. Thus the film introduces a line which is now core to Oppenheimer's personal legend: Now I am become death, the destroyer of worlds.

There were calls from religious groups to remove the references to hindu mythology. Uday Mahurkar is one of India's two information commissioners. He condemned the sex scene as waging a war on the Hindu community. If Nolan did not remove the scene, he insisted, it would constitute a deliberate assault on Indian civilisation.

Ford v Ferrari is a 2019 USA / France action sport biography by James Mangold.
Starring Christian Bale, Matt Damon and Caitriona Balfe.

American car designer Carroll Shelby and driver Ken Miles battle corporate interference, the laws of physics and their own personal demons to build a revolutionary race car for Ford and challenge Ferrari at the 24 Hours of Le Mans in 1966.

The film was cut by India's Central Board of Film Certification to blur out alcoholic drinks and to mute the phrase son of a bitch.

A source close to the film told timesnownews:

We know we've to blur out the bottles because they carry brand name and CBFC guidelines do not allow that. But a mere glass being blurred out is something I'm hearing for the first time.

Adding that studios are often prepared in advance for such cuts, the person added, You know the committee is going to send the print back with such cuts. Can't do much about it. It's frustrating. .

For comparison the BBFC passed the film 12A uncut for infrequent strong language, moderate threat

Update: CBFC pedantry

17th November 2019. See article from hindustantimes.com

Tushar Karmarkar, Regional Officer, of The Central Board of Film Certication (CBFC) Mumbai has denied blurring the alcohol bottles in Hollywood film Ford v Ferrari.

It seems that in fact the alcohol blurring was pre-cut by the distributor as the CBFC has a rule which bans alcohol from U/A movies, So although the censors are correct in their pedantic denial, the film was cut solely to comply with CBFC rules.

According to a CBFC official document, a copy of which is with Hindustan Times. The specified cuts are:

• The muting or replacing words such as sons of whore , son of a 'bitch'; an
• insertion of anti-smoking disclaimers and a static message wherever a smoking scene appears.

But Karmarkar says, It (the blurring) was voluntarily done by teh distributors, as per our records.

Once Upon a Time ... in Hollywood is a 2019 USA / UK comedy drama by Quentin Tarantino.
Starring Leonardo DiCaprio, Brad Pitt and Margot Robbie.

Quentin Tarantino's Once Upon a Time... in Hollywood visits 1969 Los Angeles, where everything is changing, as TV star Rick Dalton (Leonardo DiCaprio) and his longtime stunt double Cliff Booth (Brad Pitt) make their way around an industry they hardly recognize anymore. The ninth film from the writer-director features a large ensemble cast and multiple storylines in a tribute to the final moments of Hollywood's golden age.

Director Quentin Tarantino's new film, Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, has been passed by the Indian film censors at the Central Board of Film Certification (CBFC) with an adults sonly A certificate with a couple of curious cuts.

The censor board left multiple instances of the word 'fuck' but has beeped out every usage of the word 'ass', ccording to Pinkvilla, which has access to the censor certificate.

John Wick: Chapter 3 - Parabellum is a 2019 USA action thriller by Chad Stahelski.
Starring Keanu Reeves, Ian McShane and Asia Kate Dillon.

In this third instalment of the adrenaline-fuelled action franchise, skilled assassin John Wick (Keanu Reeves) returns with a $14 million price tag on his head and an army of bounty-hunting killers on his trail. After killing a member of the shadowy international assassin's guild, the High Table, John Wick is excommunicado, but the world's most ruthless hit men and women await his every turn.

India's Central Board of Film Certification has made significant cuts to John Wick Chapter 3: Parabellum, even for an adults only 'A' rating. The cuts are described as:

• the standard blurs, mutes and additions for profanity, visual gestures, all mention and presence of alcohol and the ever-present anti-smoking label
• one cut reducing revenge and escape violence by 50%, and
• cuts to another scene of graphic violence involving knives and shooting.

The cuts add up to about 3 minutes.

Black Panther is a 2018 USA action Sci-Fi adventure by Ryan Coogler.
Starring Chadwick Boseman, Michael B Jordan and Lupita Nyong'o.

After the events of Captain America: Civil War, King T'Challa returns home to the reclusive, technologically advanced African nation of Wakanda to serve as his country's new leader. However, T'Challa soon finds that he is challenged for the throne from factions within his own country. When two foes conspire to destroy Wakanda, the hero known as Black Panther must team up with C.I.A. agent Everett K. Ross and members of the Dora Milaje, Wakandan special forces, to prevent Wakanda from being dragged into a world war.

In India the film was pre-cut for a CBFC U/A rating (children allowed if accompanied) for 2018 cinema release

At the domestic screening of the film, fans were quite enraged that the word 'Hanuman' was muted from the film. The Jabari tribe in the film, that enters the first death challenge, worships an ape god called Hanuman sharing a name with an Indian monkey god as per the comic books. But this reference was omitted from the screening.

While many felt that this was CBFC's doing, our sources have told us that it is not CBFC who muted the word Hanuman but it's the distributors of the movie in India who decided to do this.

The Grand Budapest Hotel is a 2014 USA / Germany / UK comedy by Wes Anderson.
Starring Ralph Fiennes, F Murray Abraham and Mathieu Amalric.

GRAND BUDAPEST HOTEL recounts the adventures of Gustave H, a legendary concierge at a famous European hotel between the wars, and Zero Moustafa, the lobby boy who becomes his most trusted friend. The story involves the theft and recovery of a priceless Renaissance painting and the battle for an enormous family fortune -- all against the back-drop of a suddenly and dramatically changing Continent.

The guardian of Indian innocence and sensibility, the Censor Board, has edited a little more than four minutes off Wes Anderson's The Grand Budapest Hotel even though the film was awarded an adults only 'A' rating.

One of the montages that has been cut establishes that the film's flamboyant hero and the hotel's head concierge Gustave H as a womaniser. The deleted shot shows Gustave delicately eating grapes while getting a blow job.

The lengthiest cut in the Indian version of Anderson's film has absolutely no reference to anything even vaguely sexual. It involves four convicts, one concierge, some dessert, hatching a cunning plan for a jail break.

The plotting is cut along with a scene in which the convicts stay up past the official bedtime to dig through the cement floor of their cell with smuggled in tools .

Presumably the escape plan is a good one as the Indian authorities presumably fear that is could be using in Indian prisons.