Arthur Everard

Who is Arthur Everard?

Arthur Everard graduated with a BA in psychology from Victoria University of Wellington and worked for 19 years as a writer, editor and director at the National Film Unit. He directed films such as Margan’s Musical Move in which he captured the drama of classical music by filming tanks firing shells, and with John King, Sam Pillsbury and Paul Maunder, Games ‘74, a documentary about the 1974 Commonwealth Games held in Christchurch. His film Score, which set slow-motion footage of French rugby players to the music of Tchaikovsky, won a jury prize at the Montreal Film Festival.

Everard was appointed New Zealand’s seventh Chief Censor in February 1984. In an interview with Gordon Campbell published in the New Zealand Listener later that year, Everard explained that he did not think that the Chief Censor should be a defender of public morals or a defender of civil liberties. Instead he should be a referee “between a part of the public that wants to inflict its tastes and norms onto another section of the public. Other sections of the public want to inflict their desires and wishes onto the movie industry.