China Film Rift Will Not Last, Valenti Believes

The movie industry’s chief spokesman said Friday that Chinese officials “are drawing a line in the sand” in their anger over three Hollywood movies that harshly depict human rights in China, but he said the American film industry will never agree to censorship to placate a foreign government.

Jack Valenti, president of the Motion Picture Assn. of America, said China is obviously upset with three films--”Seven Years in Tibet,” “Red Corner” and the yet-to-be-released “Kundun”--but he believes in the long run China will realize its economic ties to Hollywood outweigh any immediate anger over the films.

“The Chinese aren’t going to close the window on the future because of two or three films,” Valenti said in a phone interview from Washington. “They are drawing a line in the sand and saying, ‘You have gone too far,’ and that’s about it.”

Valenti stressed that Hollywood makes many films that irritate various governments--including the United States government--but it would be dangerous for the studios to avoid making films on grounds that government officials somewhere won’t like them.

“There are a lot of movies that rankle America,” he said, noting that American-made films often have put the FBI, CIA and even presidents of the United States in a bad light.

Valenti cautioned the studios not to overreact to the current controversy with China and, instead, attempt to proceed with business as usual with Beijing.

“We should not try to stir up controversy, get on a soapbox and scream implications,” Valenti said, “but take this calmly, steadily and with understanding. . . . This will all work out, and that is why people [at the studios] are not getting antsy and jumping out of windows.”

In a Sept. 29 memo to China’s film industry, the Ministry of Radio, Film and Television invoked a business ban on each studio, claiming the American-made films “viciously attack China.”

The Chinese are upset with “Seven Years in Tibet” from Sony Pictures Entertainment’s TriStar Pictures and “Kundun,” made by the Walt Disney Co. unit Touchstone Pictures, because they depict China’s brutal occupation of Tibet and its treatment of Tibet’s exiled spiritual leader, the Dalai Lama. Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer came in for criticism from China because its Richard Gere political thriller, “Red Corner,” casts a harsh light on China’s judicial system.

Valenti’s remarks came during a week that saw several Hollywood corporate chieftains dining with President Clinton at a White House state dinner for visiting Chinese President Jiang Zemin.

Among the guests were Disney Chairman Michael Eisner, Time Warner Chairman Gerald Levin and Universal Studios Chairman Frank Biondi.

For several years, U.S. film and television companies have gradually made inroads into China’s vast markets, offering their films and TV programs while entering into fledgling co-production deals.

But while the business side of Hollywood is pressing China to open its borders to their goods, prominent members of the film industry’s creative community have voiced criticism of China’s human rights abuses and its treatment of the Dalai Lama. Among the celebrities backing the Dalai Lama have been Gere, Harrison Ford and Steven Seagal.

With capitalism now booming inside China, the studios are eager to sell their films and TV programs there, but China is extremely restrictive in the number of films it allows through its borders--limiting the number of American-made movies to 10 a year.

Valenti said he plans to visit Hong Kong in December as part of a five-nation trip and will discuss the implications of the ministry’s actions with the Chinese and try to persuade China to open its markets to more U.S. films.

Meanwhile, two of the studios cited in the ministry’s edict are continuing their efforts to beef up business with China.

TriStar and its sister studio, Columbia Pictures, have offered their films for sale in the Chinese marketplace and are developing a fledgling home video business in China. At the same time, a co-production agreement exists with the Beijing Television Arts Center to develop Mandarin-language TV programming.

At Disney, the studio not only offers its films for distribution in China, but at Disney-owned ABC, the network has entered deals to distribute sports and children’s programming in China.