“This Film is Not Yet Rated” is a documentary by Kirby Dick (he also did Twist of Faith) which looks at secretive world of the MPAA’s rating board (the body that assigns rating suck as PG or R to films in the US). He made this film because of the hard time this body often gives Indie filmmakers and their movies.
Here’s the funny part… the ratings board just gave “This Film is Not Yet Rated” an NC-17 rating, which mean no one under 18 can get in to see it. This limits the demographic to which the movie can appeal to and hurts it’s chances for financial success. Ouch! Some people would call that irony.
But here’s the thing. I don’t really feel sorry for this guy, because according to the news service Reuters:
Dick, who this year was nominated for a feature documentary Oscar for “Twist of Faith,” took a calculated risk by submitting the IFC Films project for a rating because it includes several clips from NC-17 movies. Dick isn’t sure which clips inspired the rating.
“We encountered what many indie filmmakers encounter,” he said. “There are a great many inequities and inconsistencies in the rating system, in part because it is so secret. The ratings board is reluctant to be specific, which can be maddening.”
Wait a minute wait a minute. So you put clips of NC-17 rated movies in your documentary… clips that the ratings board already deemed to deserve an NC-17 rating…. and now you’re acting surprised that the board gave you an NC-17 too? Is that a joke?
I think it’s obvious that Mr. Dick intentionally got his film the NC-17 just so he could complain about it and create buzz for his project… either that or he’s the stupidest man on the planet.
Actually Stuart you’re not that far from the truth there…
The MPAA will give that sort of treatment to “lower income” movies, so to speak, compleatly ignoring any form of context in the process. However, give them a high budget flick and you can be sure that the same problems will warrant an R rating (that works mainly for violence, sex and nudity seems to work them up no matter what the context or budget).
Like most itelligent movie scholars, I realize that the MPAA is really nothing more than a high level censorship board, designed for the porpose of keeping “hard” films, or independent films (they charge an astronomical amount of money per rating check, if a filmaker wants his movie to be seen in theaters or at Blockbuster Video he HAS TO have a rating for his film, unless of course its a crude comedy staring an actor from them American Pie movies, then it can slide by with no problem.) from the masses.
From what I can tell from ratings, context plays a much bigger part in BBFC ratings than it does for the MPAA.
Sometimes I think the MPAA operates on a check list system, whereby so many ticks under so many categories “cussing/number of nipples visible/number of limbs severed” automatically get you a certain rating.
Not that the BBFC is perfect by any means but sometimes I wonder.
I could put a clip of the closing credits from an NC-17 movie in my film and not expect an NC-17. I think the question is what clips were used and if they were ones that could be deemed as being attributable to the original movie NC-17 rating, then sure it would be clear that my film would also be NC-17.
Yet if I had included clips that didn’t seem attributable to the original NC-17 rating, then I may not expect it.
Bear in mind I have no idea how the MPAA operates, but with the BBFC you can work with them to understand what scenes caused the ratings and how. Surely if the MPAA did this you could talk to them and understand what scenes or section were at fault and edit\refilm them to reduce the rating?
Darren, that’s a long indictment against a movie you haven’t seen. How do you know what the film is actually devoted to? How do you know what the message is, and how there isn’t any balance? Who said anything about a “right-wing conspiracy”?
Kirby Dick’s frustration (at least what I took away from the article) is not that the movie is NC-17, but that the MPAA is not specifying what exactly pushed it over the NC-17 rating. Is a two second clip of a 90 minute NC-17 movie enough to taint it? I think these are valid questions and will at least be interested in seeing the film.
And agree about L.I.E. being way too concerned with shocking the audience than telling a decent story.
Disclaimer: I’m friends with Eddie Schmidt, who has worked as a producer on most of Kirby Dick’s films. And I really liked Chain Camera.
Sounds like Kirby Dick’s latest is a huge miscalculation.
Instead of showing scenes which cause some movies to get an NC-17, why not devote some of the film to have the following:
*history of the MPAA
*the Hays Code of the 40’s/50’s.
*the absurd slippery slopes of the PG-13 rating vs. an R rating. Or PG vs. PG-13.
*Have interviews with filmmakers about The Cutting Room Floor (such as Brian DePalma on taking out a few shots of 1983’s Scarface-the chainsaw scene) and how some films get edited for TV and airplanes.
*The contreversy over Sam Peckinpah’s “The Wild Bunch”, which on original release, uncut, got on R, but on re-release for a restored print and anniversary – NC-17. No added scenes. No new dialog. Just a cleanup of the negative . Nothing more, nothing less. So a scene that was left in for the original R years and years ago, now had to be yanked. Talk about that to make a point. It is the *one* film which is considered a classic by many-audiences and critics-which got this treatment. NOT “Midnight Cowboy” which went from X to R- although a discussion of that film would also suffice to make some points.
Let’s also get down to it. How many films have been rated NC-17 and had to be sliced down to an R in the past five years? Ten? Since the NC-17 rating went into effect?
Since the onslaught of DVDs, directors can put back in scenes they cut out or put them in a features section. Not all scenes director’s cut out for ratings issues are handed down by the MPAA. Some directors self-censor.
Does the MPAA really target indie films? I only think of one indie movie in recent years that was an indie and made a huge, huge fuss over it. I saw the film on DVD, and I decided on the whole, the MPAA had a point. That film was “L.I.E.” which had a pedophile as a protagonist/mentor figure for the neighbor’s rebellious kid.
I don’t know if these was a ratings battle with the film “Havoc” with Anne Hathaway, which got dumped to video in the last few weeks (ahhh….some of you wondered what happened to that film, didn’t you?) but what I do know is this: if you are a filmmaker going for shock value, and go out of your way to promote shock value while making your film, why are you mad at the MPAA? You made your bed; go lay in it.
In the case of “L.I.E.”, I felt the writer-director was so busy promoting what he can shock people with he forgot the focus of his movie. He also forgot that there was “Kids” and his shock value, which is just there for the sake of shock value, doesn’t seem all that groundbreaking.
Oh, yes. The big bad MPAA. Y’know something, the rating system is meant for one thing: to inform one of the content of any given movie. While not always successful, it is helpful to parents who want to guide thier children on what films they should see. The MPAA is a friend of the filmmaker and the public, not the enemy. While NC-17 is supposed to distinguish it from porn, most of the time, it does not. That’s too bad, right? Wrong. Most of the films that get hit with NC-17 are exploitive pictures, and not “all” of them indies.
And ‘most’ being a small handful.
To me, this doc seems nothing more than an ultra far left liberal espewing out the “Right to free speech and assembly” without balance, but also with a bias agenda. “Let’s stick it to the MPAA! Who are they to tell us wht should be R and NC-17? It’s a right wing conspiracy and they are the puppets of that system!” Why is it that some people take this lousy inane attitude with the nobelest of intentions and then lose focus on what they mean to say? Why is it that those shouting ‘freedom of expression’ never want to hear or insult those with a different viewpoint? Why is it that breaking of guidelines, suggestions and rules are encouraged?
-D.