Joseph Burstyn, Inc. v. Wilson

Joseph Burstyn, Inc. v. Wilson, 343 U.S. 495 (1952), also referred to as the Miracle Decision, is a landmark decision by the United States Supreme Court that largely marked the decline of motion picture censorship in the United States. It determined that provisions of the New York Education Law that had allowed a censor to forbid the commercial showing of a motion picture film that the censor deemed "sacrilegious" were a "restraint on freedom of speech" and thereby a violation of the First Amendment.

In recognizing that film was an artistic medium entitled to protection under the First Amendment, the Court overturned its previous decision in Mutual Film Corporation v. Industrial Commission of Ohio, which found that movies were not a form of speech worthy of First Amendment protection, but merely a business.

Background

The case was an appeal to the Supreme Court by film distributor Joseph Burstyn after the state of New York rescinded the license to exhibit the short film "The Miracle," originally made as a segment of the Italian film L'Amore. Burstyn was the distributor of the subtitled English versions of the film in the U.S.

The film was directed by Italian neorealist Roberto Rossellini. Its plot centered on a man, "Saint Joseph" (played by director Federico Fellini), who villainously impregnates "Nanni" (Anna Magnani), a disturbed peasant who believes herself to be the Virgin Mary. Fellini and Rossellini also co-wrote the script for "The Miracle."

"The Miracle" originally premiered in Europe in 1948 as the anthology film L'Amore with two segments, "Il Miracolo" and "La voce umana," the latter based on Jean Cocteau's play The Human Voice and also starring Magnani.