James Ferman
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James Ferman (April 11, 1930 – December 24, 2002) was an American television and theatre director. He was also director of the British Board of Film Classification from 1975 to 1999.
Before working at the BBFC Ferman worked on TV series such as Emergency Ward 10 and many documentaries. He also wrote the libretto for the musical Zuleika.
Ferman gained, amongst some, reputation as an overzealous censor as result of his refusal to allow several films from the 1970s to be released following tightening of restrictions on film in Britain in the 1980s. It was felt by many cultural commentators that these films, including works such as The Texas Chainsaw Massacre were of some cultural value and furthermore could not be considered extreme relative to more modern releases.
Ferman was also well known for his keenness to remove references to certain weapons, with the result that sequences involving nunchuks, no matter how innocuous, were removed. A prime casualty of the ruling were the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles films which were aggressively pruned.
However the other side of Ferman's tenure was that under his management cuts to films, once routine, became exceedingly scarce. While liberal commentators complained about his dogged refusal to release certain films, others (such as self-appointed guardian of the media Mary Whitehouse) saw him as excessively lenient. This dichotomy was clear right up to the end of his tenure when he was criticised both for refusing to allow the release of The Exorcist and for permitting the uncut release of David Cronenberg's Crash. He was also unfairly accused of the withdrawal of the Stanley Kubrick film A Clockwork Orange, a decision which was in fact taken by Kubrick himself.
On his retirement from the BBFC, Ferman called for a relaxation of the restrictions applied to hardcore pornography in the UK, suggesting that this would discourage illegal material.
