Mostly, filmmakers complain that they must work against muddled or moving boundaries. And parents’ groups grouse about “ratings creep,” a perceived tendency for a category like PG-13 to permit ever more violence, sex and profanity over the years to reach impressionable youth. Yet it was Mr. Valenti’s genius to have devised an apparatus that is not bound by precedent, changes its definitions at will and, ultimately, serves the motion picture industry by becoming, at any given moment, as permissive or restrictive as the prevailing climate seems to demand... for nearly 40 years, Mr. Valenti’s raters have largely kept politicians and busybodies out of the film business, even if that meant playing somewhat unpredictable busybodies themselves. They haven’t always been fair, and not entirely pleasant to deal with. But in the end, theirs was no mean achievement.
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Michael Cieply in "The Ratings System, Built to Endure" in The New York Times (28 April 2007)Jack Valenti
Jack Valenti etched the letters G, PG and R into American cinema.
That cultural legacy came early in his stewardship of Hollywood's top trade group, when he established the movie-ratings system still in place nearly 40 years later.Jack Valenti
I thought Jack Valenti was wrong about most of the tech-policy issues that he spoke about, but I'm going to miss that guy... One of the lingering regrets of my career is showing up a few minutes late to a Post boardroom luncheon with Valenti that had started with him denouncing a column I'd written about the MPAA's "technological totalitarianism." When I sat down, then-managing editor Steve Coll leaned over to summarize Valenti's opening statement as "he took your name in vain"; I felt like I'd missed the whole show.
Jack Valenti
Working to timings and synchronising your musical thoughts with the film can be stimulating rather than restrictive. Scoring is a limitation but like any limitation is can be made to work for you. Verdi, except for a handful of pieces, worked best when he was 'turned on' by a libretto. The most difficult problem in music is form, and in a film you already have this problem solved for you. You are presented with a basic structure, a blueprint, and provided the film has been well put together, well edited, it often suggests its own rhythms and tempo. The quality of the music is strictly up to the composer. Many people seem to assume that because film music serves the visual it must be something of secondary value. Well, the function of any art is to serve a purpose in society. For many years, music and painting served religion. The thing to bear in mind is that film is the youngest of the arts, and that scoring is the youngest of the music arts. We have a great deal of development ahead of us.
Jerry Goldsmith
In a sometimes unreasonable business, Jack Valenti was a giant voice of reason. He was the greatest ambassador Hollywood has ever known and I will value his wisdom and friendship for all time.
Jack Valenti
The graveyard of any industry is filled with the headstones of companies who decided to keep doing things the same old way. Playing only on the margin, making things just a little bit better. That strategy works....for a while, but ultimately it's fatal. Over the years our industry has come to accept progress simply by what’s on the screen.
Reggie Fils-Aime
Valenti, Jack
Valera, Eamon de
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