9 STIRLING MANSIONS. CANFIELD GARDENS. LONDON NW.6. 3JT

As a film director of more than 30 years' work in the industry
in Britain and recently in the United States I would like to
support, most seriously and urgently, the proposal that the
United States should join the Berne Convention.

It is now generally agreed that the true authors of any motion
picture are its director and writer. Theirs is the statement
and theirs is the creative responsibility and achievement.
Yet today, without the protection of the law, we find the
integrity of our work at the mercy - as it has never been
before of manipulation by interests whose only motivation
is commercial exploitation.

The cinema is the great original art of the Twentieth Century.
The great film makers of our time rank with Mozart and
Michelangelo, with Whitman and Melville, as great creators
and communicators. Yet the works of film artists are
vulnerable, as are those of no other art, to spoliation and
deformation in the name of commerce. Creators of film in the
United States like their colleagues in Great Britain -
desperately need the protection of the Law. Such protection
is surely the obligation of any society which claims the name
of civilised. May the United States provide it: and provide
also an example which we in Britain may urge our government
to follow.

September 24, 1987

Chairman of the President's Committee of the

Directors' Guild of America

1.

In American law film directors are not regarded as
authors or even as co-authors, King Vidor, John
Ford, Orson Welles and William Wyler

notwithstanding. They are therefore defenseless
against the continuing amputation, mutilation and
colorisation which are disfiguring our films and
preventing audiences from seeing the original
versions.

2.

In the seventy-six member countries of the Berne
Copyright Convention certain controls exist which
stipulate the inalienable moral rights of authors,
regardless of whether or not they had been working
for hire. Government legislation would therefore
seem to be the only possible protection of the work
of film directors. As a concerned non-American
writer and director I take the liberty of pleading
most respectfully for the need for protection of
our work, first by considering the possibility of
joining the Berne Convention and secondly to
introduce film directors and film writers as
authors or co-authors into American law. Perhaps
this would be a means to check the horrendous
abuses which, unless checked, will eventually
destroy the most valuable medium of the 20th
century.

Harold Pinter

Harold Pinter

It is with a genuine satisfaction that the Society of Film Directors, of which I am Président, is told that, following the very recent decisions of the Supreme Court of your country related to the right of consent, the American Congress is on the brink to amend your present legislation as far as the protection of the Author's moral right is concerned, thus enabling the United States to sign the Berne copyright treaty.

As you very well know, the French legislation played a "pioneer" role in this very domain, and under the impulse given by the Authors, and film Directors particulary, the Law was even more improved last 1985, allowing our Films to keep clear off being mamed (material alteration and cuts).

However, the strength of multimedia holdings and "mass production" being that important, we have to constantly fight new menaces.

Therefore, I will never highlight enough the virtues of the Amendment H.R. 2400 introduced by Congressman GEPHARDT and also underline enough the necessity that all regulations he offers should be adopted.

To accept and pass the bill of Congressman KASTENMEIER would actually, because of that "work for hire" exclusion clause, ruin most of the decisive and historical progress you are to achieve.

association rigue par la loi du 108 Juillet 1901

Definitely backing you up with all our support, I remain.

Yours sincerely,

Bertrand TAVERNIER
President of the Society

of Film Directors.