This is part one of three of the last day of the Newport Beach Film Festival so let’s get right to it.

“CleanFlix” is the story about the attempt by some in Utah’s Mormon community to “sanitize” Hollywood films which turned litigious and really ugly. This narrative has more twists and turns than a road to Bear Bear and more dirt than a convention of failed preachers.

It’s too complicated to go into all the permutations but here are the high points:

The Mormon prophet, Ezra Taft Benson,, in 1986 put out an edict that said “Don’t see R-rated movies or vulgar videos or participate in any entertainment that is immoral, suggestive, or pornographic. Don’t listen to music that is degrading.”

Once stated, it cannot be ignored. But a lot of Mormons like R-rated films so what’s a good Mormon to do? Some enterprising dudes begin to cut and snip the “objectionable parts” out of tapes. Problem solved - without the naughty bits, the film is now a tame PG-13 or less.

A company called CleanFlicks, led by Ray Lines, begins to gain notice of the locals. Contrary to the “old” method of actually snipping pieces of a tape out, Lines knew how to use editing software to edit and the reassemble the movie so the edit was seamless - except of course for those nagging non-sequiturs that cropped up.  Lines, the main snipper, states publicly that he's a better editor (and director) than most in Hollywood.  This type of hubris infuses and informs the story of all these men and it is not confined to just one circumstance.

Soon, brick and mortar stores carrying edited versions of popular R-rated and PG-13 rated films began popping up everywhere. In short order, CleanFlicks went Internet-only  to keep up with demand, selling off the stores to locals who continued to run them as sanitized film depots getting their content from the CleanFlicks parent company.  Locals like Daniel Thompson who becomes a major player in this tale as it progresses.

Business booms in the Mormon community since now those film 'classics' like “Kill Bill” (kidding about the "classic" appellation) can be watched. All those bad bits are gone leaving only the good stuff - like unrelenting violence that apparently does not pollute anything so it is not embargoed - just boobies and bad words are anathema.

Other stores and editing schemes appear. Pretty soon, they are as ubiquitous as Blockbuster - one on every corner and all that.

Hollywood, being on top of all things copyrightable, tells these firms to cease and desist. They don’t. Rhetoric is exchanged until finally a lawsuit is filed - no, not by Hollywood but rather a man in Chicago named Dan Potter (who is inspired by Lord to do this.) He asks the superior courts to rule that the people sanitizing these films are within their fair-use rights to do this. Then Potter bails leaving parent company CleanFlicks to fight a very expensive lawsuit that they basically never wanted.

They (CleanFlicks) lose.

The stores and Internet sites shut down since now they’ve been declared specifically illegal by a court of law. But Daniel Thompson, one of the early brick and mortar store owners, keeps going. But he goes too far. Initially, Ray Lines, trying to remain semi-legal, used the one to one ratio to keep things kosher. In other words, they’d buy the DVD they were sanitizing and then re-selling so it at least winked at fair use. According to the documentary, Thompson would buy one original and make dozens of copies thereby increasing his bottom line. And he didn’t want to shut down since he was making good money.

The story to this point is really just beginning. There’s more lawsuits than a squat and swoop insurance scam ring, something called the education premise, plenty of lyin’ and cheatin’, porn, pedophelia, the Family Movie Act, and an ongoing campaign to keep the sanitizing going.

Whew.

By the way, the mugshot below of Mormon Daniel Thompson is not for violating copyright law but rather for engaging  in sex with a minor .

The producer, Amber Bollinger, was present at the Q&A and she laughed when someone asked her did she ever have a time when she was ready to end the story but all this other stuff kept popping up. “Several times,” she said, “we were ready to say ‘fade out’ and just couldn’t.”  

The documentary is fair and balanced. It never demeans either the Mormon community or the Hollywood community and presents the arguments well for both sides. For example, the Mormons point out that the studios already provide so-called sanitized versions of their films to airlines, television and foreign countries that don’t allow sex or excessive violence. And once you own a DVD, you should be able to do anything you want with that DVD. The studios argue that it is against the law to modify and then sell copyrighted material. And so on. As one person who had seen the documentary more than once pointed out each time you see it you shift perspective slightly.

Amber mentioned that they'd love to show this documentary in Utah, to Mormons, but can't since much of it contains both the original (R-rated) material and the "cleaned" version for comparison.

“Clearpix” is well done, comprehensive and terribly interesting. I am not sure where you can see it yet but look for it. The website HERE will have information. Well worth the 88 minute running time.

NBFF Day 8, Part II in the next segment.