JOHN CARPENTER - CARPENTER DISMISSES NEED FOR MOVIE CENSORSHIP

Veteran director JOHN CARPENTER has defended violence in movies, arguing there is no need for the US government to regulate what can be watched at the cinema. The Halloween filmmaker was speaking on Thursday (26Apr07) at the Tribeca Film Festival in New York City. He said, "Real life causes this, fake life does not cause it. The reason for a lot of these movies is the culture that we live in, the events that have gone on in our world. "Censorship never works, you cannot destroy an idea. You can hide, you can try to cover it up, but you can't destroy it, it will be there and it will bubble up again." Carpenter's comments came a day after America's Federal Communications Commission (FCC) released a report linking exposure to violence in the media with aggressive behaviour in children.