MPAA, eh?

The Motion Picture Association of America has been under a lot of fire lately. For those of you who don't follow the industry that close, the MPAA is the group of individuals who rate movies, movie trailers and posters in the United States. They also have divisions dedicated to preventing film piracy, and speak on behalf of the film industry to Washington from time to time. The MPAA was founded in 1922 as an answer to moral criticism of American movies. At the time, film was still in its infancy, and because there was no rating system there were two major problems. The first problem was that filmmakers were putting everything and anything into their films, including full frontal nudity at a time when an ankle was considered risqué. The second, and more serious problem, was the fact that people couldn't tell what kind of content a movie had before they had seen it, and they could be unknowingly susceptible to content which may offend them. Essentially, it was a voluntary moral group implemented by the studios to keep the government from stepping in and messing with their movies. On paper, it doesn't sound like a bad idea, and to be honest, it has worked pretty effectively for the past seventy-seven years.

The reason the MPAA has been under the microscope lately is multi-fold. First, there have been a number of arguably bad decisions in the past few months in regard to ratings. Second, there is a lot of shouting for a new rating which is higher than "R", but lower than "NC-17".

The bad decision argument stems from several movies. In the past, directors have complained that their film received an NC-17, when they needed an R, or an R when they needed a PG-13. Most of the time, these directors (and studios) are more worried about audience share than the actual rating, because an NC-17 movie gets almost no distribution (NC should stand for No Cash), and a quick glance of the top 100 grossing movies of all time will reveal very view R rated films (19, to be exact). Of the top ten highest grossing films, none are R rated. Over the years, I've seen several of the films in both their rated and unrated (or NC-17) forms. Sometimes the differences are incredibly small.

For example, in Bruce Willis' flop, Color of Night, there's a scene with frontal nudity of Willis. The MPAA decided that the male form couldn't get an R, whereas the female form (there's female nudity in the film as well) could. I've always been baffled by this one. It's perfectly fine to show full frontal female nudity, and show it often, but as soon as someone's pecker makes it on screen, it's a no-no? As a straight male, I'd like to make it clear to the MPAA that I do not find the male form offensive (if I did, how would I ever look in the mirror?). Not only are these decisions baffling, they destroy the artistic integrity of the film and are insulting to women (and men) everywhere. I have no problem with nudity on film, as long as it's called for. Personally, I find the gratuitous use of tits and ass in most R rated films to be more offensive than someone's dick. Only in America is the sight of a penis on film offensive enough to force a film out of distribution, and only because of the MPAA.

It's not only garbage Hollywood films which get the knife because of the MPAA, though. At the recent press screening of the late Stanley Kubrick's last film, Eyes Wide Shut, viewers were treated to two versions of the film. One was the international version, and the other was the North American version. Both versions are identical with the exception of an orgy scene, where the American version has had several objects digitally inserted into the frame to cover up "naughty bits". Roger Ebert has taken to calling it the "Austin Powers" cut. This change was Kubrick's answer to the MPAA's NC-17 rating for the film, and it worked. It dropped it to an R, but at what cost to the artistic integrity of the film? How can these objects not stand out like a sore thumb to those people who are familiar with Kubrick's work? How can they NOT be damaging to the film?

Very few films have ever been released with an NC-17 rating since it was implemented, and it is commonly associated with the kiss of death because a lot of theater chains won't play an NC-17 film. To understand the stigma attached to the NC-17 rating, one has to know a little bit of the history of it. The NC-17 rating was essentially devised as a replacement to the old "X" rating, which itself was associated with pornographic films (even though it could be used to cover violent situations as well). Unfortunately, just changing the name didn't change the stigma attached to it. The prime reason comes down to, I think, one film. Paul Verhoeven's trashwork, Showgirls. Showgirls was one of the first major films released with an NC-17 rating, and it flopped...big time. Sadly, theater chains and Hollywood seemed to associate this failure with the NC-17 rating. They completely forgot that the film sucked. Since that time, a few other films have been released with NC-17 ratings, but were doomed to failure because either they sucked as well (a very common thing with Hollywood pictures, as we all know), or because they couldn't get the distribution necessary to become even a minor success. Thus, expect almost no pictures to be released with an NC-17 rating, and those few which are released will fail because nobody will be able to see them. It's a catch-22.

As a double-whammy, if a film receives an NC-17 rating, Blockbuster won't rent it once it hits video. As we all know, without video, a lot of movies would never break even these days, never mind turn a profit.

A quick side note: the MPAA also rates movie posters and trailers. They recently decided that a poster for Tim Burton's upcoming film Sleepy Hollow could not be displayed because it portrayed the Headless Horseman with his head under his arm, holding it like a football. The image (which is a painting) was deemed "too graphic" for public display. I'd like to point out to the MPAA that Disney's animated version of the story contains similar imagery, and was rated "G".

As a defense to the MPAA's rating system, several filmmakers have added content to their films to deliberately irk the MPAA. This film was never intended for release, but is instead inserted as a diversionary tactic. One of the best documented examples of this was in Quentin Tarantino's Pulp Fiction. When a character is accidentally shot, there's a lot of splatter, and this splatter makes up one of the subplots of the movie. Tarantino had the foresight to realize that the chunks of brain in Samuel L. Jackson's hair might be a problem for the MPAA, so in order to keep his film rated "R", he shot an effects sequence of the head exploding. In the original cut he submitted to the MPAA, it came back with a (surprise, surprise) NC-17 rating. Tarantino deleted the exploding head sequence, and "viola". Rated R. He never intended to leave the exploding head sequence in the film, but created it solely as a diversionary tactic. Too bad Kubrick never did the same with Eyes Wide Shut, shoot some REAL hard core porn, then delete it to get "down" to an R rating. Of course, any rating system which can be manipulated in this way is seriously flawed, and should be changed.

As a last blast of irony to the whole rating system argument comes the fact that it's all a moot point. Once a film is released on video, it's almost always restored to the director's original vision if that vision was modified for theatrical release. If the original cut received an NC-17, then the filmmaker might add one frame or delete another to change the film, and then release it as "unrated" (which Blockbuster will carry). Having unrated films on video store shelves absolutely defeats the purpose of having a rating system in the first place.

Also, as more films come to DVD, we're seeing more and more deleted footage. I'm betting that when the DVD for Eyes Wide Shut is released by Warner Brothers, it'll contain both versions of the offensive scene. If all the "offensive" stuff in a film is going to be included as supplements on the DVD, where does the rating system fit in? All the supplements I've seen have been unrated, and thus far, nobody has raised a kafuffle about it.

As proof that this is happening, we only need to look as far as the planned DVD for Austin Powers: The Spy Who Shagged Me. The filmmakers originally intended to insert a scene with Rob Lowe and Robert Wagner in bed together, along with a line that said "the best part is, technically it's not cheating!". If you've seen the movie, you know where the joke would've fit in, and you know it would've been hilarious. Unfortunately, the scene pushed the film from PG-13 territory into an R, and we all know what that means. So, when the scene was cut, the filmmakers immediately released a statement that it would be an extra on the DVD.

Roger Ebert's solution is to insert a new rating, like an "A", between R and NC-17. Quite frankly, this is what should have been done with NC-17 in the first place. Instead of being a replacement for X, it should've been inserted between R and X. Sadly, I think the damage is done and it's too late to fix it. Make a new "A" rating, and it'll soon have the same stigma that NC-17 films have right now.

The solution is to change the rating system itself. Instead of having a simple letter to explain to moviegoers what type of film this is (and then having the stigma of that letter attached to it), use a more complicated rating system. Use, for example, a rating system which delineates an appropriate age for the material (i.e. simply state "13"), then attach a series of submodifiers to that rating (i.e. "17VVV" for extremely violent content or "16N" for some nudity). This way the moviegoer gets the information they need, and there's no stigma attached to the film. Who will protect America's children? How about their parents. If you're under the age of the rating, you don't get in without a parent. Period. MPAA chairman Jack Valenti put it best when he said, "we (have) a duty to inform parents about film content." The duty is to inform the parents, not to dictate to filmmakers what should (or shouldn't) be in their films.

To move onto DVD news for the week, the biggest news has to be the DVD File (www.dvdfile.com) scoop about Star Wars coming to DVD. Sadly, nobody at Lucasfilm is willing to confirm it, and it sounds like it may have been inadvertently "leaked" by someone at Lucasfilm. I suspect we'll see an announcement, but not until after Titanic hits video (which is, after all, being distributed by 20th Century Fox as well). Regardless, if this news is true, it's very good news for DVD indeed. Wherever Star Wars goes, millions of people follow (as witnessed by The Phantom Menace being the number four film of all time right now).

I do have to say, though, in doing research for this week's article, I had another look at the top 100 films of all time. It's sad to say that of the top ten, only one has been confirmed as coming to DVD (Titanic). The problem seems to be that most of the top ten films have one of the dreaded DVD names attached. Paramount, Fox, Disney or Spielberg. Hopefully this will all change after this Christmas season, when I suspect DVD will become a true mainstream product.

Last week's quote of the week was correctly answered first by Dylan Oliver, who correctly identified it as a line from Waking Ned Devine (now available on DVD). As if in a bit of psychic forethought, the film from the prior quote of the week has made it back into the news. It looks like Tom Cruise is considering a role in a remake of Death Race 2000 called, appropriately enough, Death Race 3000. Even though this news is coming from very respected publications, I would tend to take it with a grain of salt. Cruise is no idiot, and he's well aware of the current ruckus around gratuitously violent films. DR2000 is a Roger Corman property, and as such, it's gratuitous and exploitative. Not exactly Cruise's territory. Besides, no matter how you slice and dice Death Race, it'll always be a B-movie, and Cruise is not a B-movie star.

This week's quote is from another film which is relatively new to DVD.

"We don't have anything in common, me and him, except maybe our last name."

I'm also still seeking suggestions for titles for this column. I've received a few, but nothing which has really leapt out and grabbed me. I really need some help here, so if you have any suggestions, email them in!

You can email column title suggestions, and guesses for the quote of the week to ken@dvdfuture.com

Until next time...

Ken Pierce
ken@dvdfuture.com
Contributing Editor, www.dvdfuture.com

--- sources for this week's column ---
mrshowbiz.go.com <--- thanks to Jeffrey Wells for his column on Eyes Wide Shut.
www.mpaa.org <--- The Motion Picture Association of America
www.aint-it-cool-news.com
My own faded memory...