Problems of Internet
The proportion of works cut for the cinema in Britain dropped from 40 per
cent when I joined the BBFC in 1975 to less than 4 per cent when I left. But I
don’t think that 20 years from now it will be possible to regulate any medium as
closely as I regulated film. The Internet is, of course, the
greatest problem for this century. The world will have to find a means, through
some sort of international treaty of United Nations initiative, to control the
material that’s now going totally unregulated into people’s homes. That said, it
will only take one little country like Paraguay to refuse to sign a treaty for
transmission to be unstoppable. Parental control is never going to be
sufficient. I’m still very worried about the impact of violent
video games, even though researchers say their impact is moderated by the fact
that players don’t so much experience the game as enjoy the technical manoeuvres
(策略)that enable you to win. But in respect of violence in mainstream films, I’m
more optimistic. Quite suddenly, tastes have changed, and it’s no longer
Stallone or Schwarzenegger who are the top stars, but Leonardo DiCaprio—that has
taken everybody by surprise. Go through the most successful
films in Europe and America now and you will find virtually none that we are
violent. Quentin Tarantino didn’t usher in a new, violent generation, and films
are becoming much more prosocial than one would have expected.
Cinemagoing will undoubtedly survive. The new multiplexes are a glorious
experience, offering perfect Sound and picture and very comfortable seats, thins
which had died out in the 1980s. I can’t believe we’ve achieved that only to
throw it away in favor of huddling around a 14-inch computer monitor to watch
digitally delivered movies at home. It will become increasingly
cheap to make films, with cameras becoming smaller and lighter but remaining
very precise. That means greater chances for new talent to emerge, as it will be
much easier for people to learn how to be better film-makers. People’s working
lives will be shorter in the future, and once retired they will spend a lot of
time learning to do things that amuse them—like making videos. Fifty years on we
could well be media-saturated as producers as well as audience; instead of
writing letters, one will send little home movies entitled My
Week.
What does “that” in “I can’t believe we’ve achieved that only to throw it away in favor…”(Para.5) refer to _____
