Welcome back to another Art History Uncensored. Last week we briefly mentioned Andrzej Żuławski’s 1981 film Possession among the other movies deemed video nasties. The thing is, the controversy surrounding Possession, like many other films mentioned in that article, needs much more explanation than we could give it there. So this week we’ll be diving into Żuławski’s heavily censored masterpiece to try to see why it may have been banned.
Marianne Productions, and Soma Film Produktion)
Possession
The film stars Isabelle Adjani and Sam Neill playing Anna and Mark, a married couple living in West Berlin during the Cold War. When Anna (Adjani) asks for a divorce, her behavior starts to become more and more erratic. Mark (Neill) suspects she is being unfaithful, but what he eventually finds is much more disturbing.
Possession is the dark, twisted tale of a marriage quickly dissolving, while it insists on taking everyone with it, including their young child, Bob (Michael Hogben). When the kid isn’t hearing his parents loudly fighting, he is being left completely alone for long stretches of time.
While still somewhat taboo in the early 1980s, divorce was far from unheard of. So the subject isn’t what made censors grab the hot splicer. No, it was Żuławski’s over-the-top direction and downright abuse of his actors that caused the stir around Possession.
Going to Extremes
This intensity behind this work is often described as starting at Kabuki and building from there. However, what happened behind the scenes may explain why Neill and Adjani’s performances felt so real and raw. In a 2023 interview with Neill, he revealed that he was encouraged to hit his co-star on camera.
“I said: ‘Look, Andrzej, I have to say no. I can’t do that. You can’t ask me to do that. I have never raised a hand to another human being and I have to say no. Please don’t ask me to. I’m not going to do it,’” Neill told The Independent. “Then Adjani came up to me. She said, ‘Sam, you have to do this. You must.’ I said, ‘Please, Isabelle, do not ask me.’ She said, ‘You must do it.’ So I had to do it. I have to say it was the most distressing thing I’ve ever had to do on film.” With the actor going on to describe his approach as “genius, but crazed.”
Adjani’s performance garnered her Best Actress at Cannes. Rumors have persisted for decades that she had a breakdown shortly after filming, with some going so far as to say she attempted to take her own life. Unfortunately, she would be far from the first or last actress to suffer a breakdown at the hands of a demanding director. We are not here to comment one way or the other on the validity of those rumors. All we will say is that Adjani certainly gives a convincing portrayal of a woman having a breakdown.
Why So Censored?
Neill and Adjani’s terrifyingly violent portrayal of divorce and neglect was just far too much for some people, but others loved it. This polarization over the film’s artistic merit alone could get you banned, as we discussed last week. So during the UK’s Video Nasties panic of the 1980s, the film was briefly banned along with 71 other movies.
These bans came with real legal ramifications, like possibly being prosecuted under the Obscene Publications Act of 1959. Unfortunately, to this day, there is a complete lack of transparency as to why some films were banned. (Probably because it was so inconsistent that the bans were seemingly arbitrary, but we’ve already had that rant). So no one knows for sure, but it’s always been assumed Possession’s over-the-top violence blended with some…abnormal…sexual partners led to this being banned.
However, these bans in the UK affected the way films were treated in America. To receive a US release, more than a third of the film’s runtime had to be cut. The roughly 40 minutes that were trimmed from the 124-minute feature drastically changed the tone and intent of the movie. With that cut being turned into more of a creature feature that wasn’t well received. Żuławski’s intact film is described by many as disjointed and feeling like a fever dream. (Unfortunately, so is being stuck in an abusive marriage with a cheating partner). So you can only imagine how bizarre the censored version was, given that taking things out rarely helps a movie make more sense.
Marianne Productions, and Soma Film Produktion)
Critical Acclaim
Despite all of the bans and some vocal detractors, Possession has remained a critical and arthouse darling. Neill says it’s “one of the best films I was lucky to be in,” in his memoir Did I Ever Tell You This?
“This is by no means a universal view. Not many people have ever seen it and, of those who have, it is true that many loathe it. I myself regard it as a masterpiece, albeit a very flawed masterpiece. I am not alone in that view,” the late actor adds.
For most cultural and film historians, Possession sticks out like a sore thumb among the other, mostly grotesque films. While most people didn’t stand behind the bans, they also understood why movies like Snuff* were considered offensive (or at least the last scene anyway). However, Possession was really aimed at a small crowd that likes it when arthouse gets into their horror. Yes, it is still very bloody. Yes, it is still hyper sexual in a very…unique… way, but it was clearly made with artistic merit and intent. This was not a film crafted only to shock; it was a film using shock value to make a deeper point.
*Context for readers who haven’t seen Snuff: it’s originally a low-end exploitation movie called Slaughter that isn’t particularly graphic. That is until a distributor got ahold of it and added an unrelated fake snuff scene at the end. This, at the time, gory scene shows the murder of a woman on a fictitious film crew. It was retitled Snuff and marketed as someone really being killed on film.
A Remake
Possession is back in the news with an upcoming remake written and directed by Parker Finn (Smile). It currently stars Paul Dano (Bunker) opposite Callum Turner (Neuromancer), Margaret Qualley (How to Make a Killing), Madeline Brewer (The Handmaid’s Tale), Emory Cohen (Marty Supreme), and Nicholas Alexander Chavez (Monster). At this time, there is no set release window for Finn’s version of the movie.
You can check out the trailer for the original film below. For those who haven’t seen it, it will give a glimpse into how intense their performances really were. We can assure you that the tunnel meltdown makes way more sense in context.
