Tuesday, 20 July 1999

EARLY RANTING & RAVING

I started to write a regular column today, figuring on doing a small button on the ratings war. It grew into a whole column. And so, here it is. And tomorrow, look for a wider ranging column.

The ratings system is under attack and well it should be. My argument, repeated over and over in the column as of late, is that an adult rating, defined by the specific act of a penis being seen penetrating a vagina is the only way to break the logjam on NC-17. The distinction that this would make between films that really are just movies "for adults" and pornography would allow newspapers to accept advertising for the adult pictures without threat of lawsuits, and would give an "it's no porno" logic to putting pressure on malls and other landlords that keep NC-17 films out of the theaters on their property. Who knows? Maybe Blockbuster would even put quality titles that are currently disqualified for their rating status back on their shelves.

Toward that end, I want to join Roger Ebert in the specific call for an A rating. He is right in saying that the NC-17 is now tainted like the X was (and is) tainted. If we are to have any hope of making a change, those of us in the shouting-real-loud business had better get onto the same page in some way. So, I say, let's start by agreeing that there should be an A rating that fits between the R and the NC-17. Next, we have to come to some form of consensus about what that means. My vote is pretty clear and direct. If a filmmaker can't steer clear of showing graphic intercourse, I'm not willing to wallow in the bath water to save that baby.

Once there is a consensus among some of us who really believe that this has to happen, we have to bore the world to death with it. Jack Valenti has made it perfectly clear that he's not budging on his system. The only way to change it is for the studios to decide they want to change it. After all, it is so often forgotten that the MPAA and CARA (Classifications And Ratings Administration) are creations of the studios. Jack works for them. I'm not saying that he gets secret memos telling him what to do. Valenti is no puppet. But the PG-13 came about because Spielberg's Indiana Jones & The Temple of Doom crossed the line. The NC-17 came about for studio films because of the indie movement. The first studio film that got the rating, Henry & June, would probably be rated R today. But if we want to make a real change, we have to get away from arguing the expansion of the R and start arguing for the A as a financially viable rating for films. For example, would South Park: Bigger, Longer & Uncut really suffer at the box office from an A rating? I can easily cite a half dozen jokes that mean that I absolutely will not take my 10-year-old nephew (who's been begging for weeks) to see this film. No. Won't do it. But without those elements, even with all the language and weird rage, I might well take him to see the movie.

The A would create another choice for filmmakers. In the case of a movie like South Park, Paramount tried to get Parker and Stone to make it, from the beginning, a PG-13 film. They chose not to. But what would happen if they had to chose between an R and an A? Clearly, with a working adult rating, the MPAA wouldn't have defensively caved in on some of the really adult stuff in this movie. So, would Parker and Stone have removed the most graphic of the sexually graphic material in the film and been a little more subtle (think Bullwinkle) in some situations to get an R instead of an A, so that parents could choose to take their kids? I would guess that they would. And then South Park would be a movie that I would, still haltingly, but in all likelihood, take my nephew to see, given his enthusiasm. It would still cross the line for others, but that's the choice, isn't it? Each adult who cares for a child gets to draw their line for their child.

But don't fool yourself. An A rating would still create controversy. Is Saving Private Ryan an A for violence or should a movie that moral be available for teens as the parent sees fit? What about Wild Things and its infamous threesome? There's not a hip grind in it and only Denise Richards is fully nude. Neve Campbell doesn't even show her breasts. Is that an automatic A? These are not questions about which one can get an easy consensus. Once the problems of pornography infiltrating the system were fixed, there would still be a lot of "I know what it is when I see it." But we can only fight one fight at a time. First, we need to get an adult rating system that can work. This one is broken in one major regard. The NC-17 is so serious a penalty that it has turned CARA into a censor board even though - and I really believe this - Jack Valenti doesn't want to be America's censor.

So now you have the pitch. Here's the call to action. If critics and entertainment writers across America would start making a simple distinction: When a film is what you believe should be an A rated film, write about that and write why. Push the idea and keep pushing it. Soon it will be a hum that overwhelms Hollywood and, eventually, the MPAA.

Here's my list, as of today, for 1999. I would give A ratings to Eyes Wide Shut (with or without the CG covers), 8MM, The General's Daughter, The Loss of Sexual Innocence, Payback, Ravenous and South Park: Bigger, Longer & Uncut. And of those seven movies, I would recommend five of them, four of them very strongly. And under an A rating, one that worked so that there was no outcast status in theaters, newspapers or Blockbuster Video, I don't actually think that the box office would much be effected for any of these films. Except perhaps for The General's Daughter, which has artfully graphic portrayals of rape that I don't imagine many who went to see the R rated film expected. I'm sure some will disagree, but like I said, there will still be conflict. A new rating would just balance the playing field a bit.

And by the way, I would also have made Austin Powers: The Spy Who Shagged Me an R in a revised system. The scene between Rob Lowe and Robert Wagner that was cut was nothing in light of the entire film. This is a movie about sex, wall to wall. Just because people don't find Mike Myers sexually threatening doesn't make this a kids film, though I would be willing to take the prepubescent kids under my sphere of influence to see it if they asked. But I would explain what was appropriate and inappropriate to scream on a street afterwards. I mean, who really wants to hear their 8-year-old talking about "shagging"?

But here's the fine print. You all have to give up whining about HBO and Showtime running soft core porn. It's not relevant. These networks have decided to run NC-17 and unrated programming freely. I actually applaud that, not only for the freedom of all expression, but because it has caused them to book some high quality international and domestic product just to prove that they aren't a bunch of old pervs sitting in ivory towers. But cable TV is the only place where an NC-17 rating does not hurt a film. So, stop using that old saw. You also have to give up the notion that studios have a choice. They don't right now. My apologies to Roger Ebert, but no, Warner Bros. could not release Eyes Wide Shut unrated. As MPAA signatories, they are not allowed to. Period. Black and white. The only circumstance in which an MPAA signatory ever released an unrated film was Miramax and The Cook, The Thief, His Wife and Her Lover and that took place just after Disney bought Miramax. The MPAA looked away that time as Miramax created a dummy distribution company. It's never happened since and Miramax will never get away with it as a distributor again. Warner Bros. had and has the choice to release an NC-17 version of Eyes Wide Shut, and I am willing to bet they will in the fall, but to do it on the primary release would be horrible for the movie. Writers, before seeing the film, already were focusing on it too much as a sex film. Worse, Warner Bros. would have been accused (and you know they would) of running a "see it twice" scam with a master's last film. Don't blame Warner Bros. Blame the MPAA for being pig-headed and short-sighted even when having the studio over a major publicity barrel.

The great irony to me is that this argument can't really be about choice either. Filmmakers have a choice now. They can conform to the boundaries that the MPAA sets or not get their films financed. No one, not even the great Kubrick, has a God-given right to $60 million. Making a film is nothing except for making choice after choice after choice after choice. For those of us who want to create change, this has to be quite simply about infrastructure. As long as we keep arguing "Kubrick is great... he should be seen however he wanted to be seen," we will change nothing. Because if we fight for Kubrick, we have to fight for Harmony Korine and James Toback and Zalman King. The MPAA cannot be expected to make judgements of taste. That's asking too much of the system and the people. And it would never hold up in court. We need to fight for the field to be widened so that there is a chance for filmmakers who make films that push these boundaries to succeed. A chance.

And again, we have to take the fight to our media outlets. We have to take the fights to our friends in exhibition. We have to take the fight to the studios. We have to take the fight to the video stores. We have to take the fight to the tastemakers. Because there will be another Eyes Wide Shut and there will be another Saving Private Ryan. And when the time comes for them to go before the MPAA, we need to have an option there, waiting. And at that moment, after months of independent films making money as As and a few small studio films doing about all they could have done with an R, there will be a major movie and a major filmmaker who will make a major choice. And maybe then, or maybe the next time or the next time, there will be an A-rated $100 million movie. And the American ratings system will have a foundation from which filmmakers can work with some conscious freedom. And in an art form whose pain and canvas cost $90 million on average, that's about all we can hope for.

E ME: What do you think? And will you spread the word?