In a harsh decision, the racy Michelle Williams and Ryan Gosling film Blue Valentine has been slapped with the dreaded NC-17 rating over its “shocking, gory depiction of a dying marriage”.
Its Indie Film status was already going to limit its releases, and now this rating will reduce the audience able to view it as well. Those involved are attempting to fight the decision and have even resorted to an online petition.
Get the Big Picture quotes Harvey Weinstein:
“We want to express our deepest gratitude to our colleagues in the industry and in the media for their recent outpouring of support for Derek Cianfrance’s Blue Valentine after the film surprisingly received an NC-17 rating from the MPAA. We are taking every possible step to contest the MPAA’s decision. We respect the work of the MPAA and we hope, after having a chance to sit down with them, they will see that our appeal is reasonable, and the film, which is an honest and personal portrait of a relationship, would be significantly harmed by such a rating.”
The film is not harmed by the rating. The ability to sell at the boxoffice is.
And Director Derek Cianfrance spoke out too:
“We have a team of great lawyers and so much support from the industry, media and fans. I haven’t really met anyone who thinks that [NC-17] rating is just. We are still fighting it and hoping it can be changed to an “R.” Bottom line is we are not changing the movie out of respect. The movie is this movie … it has no harm in it. It is about loving, intimacy, care and emotions. It is the intangibles of emotion and intimacy you don’t see that got us the rating. If you take those out, that’s the heart of the movie.”
Don’t see how the NC-17 rating is just? Well for starters, the limitations of that rating is exactly the same as a Canadian Rated R. Minors cannot attend. Period. The world still turns. The content of your film is what they have deemed as too mature for minors. Its not porn, but its content above their presumed maturity level. In the US if a film gets an R, you have to bring an adult with you to make the decision as to what you are allowed to see. That adult is responsible for your exposure to the film, and they get to help make the judgement call as to whether the minor is mature enough to handle the content. There is nothing unjust about the rating. The rating is a standard, and that your film fits that standard is a label on your film, not the rating.
I am puzzled why they would expose a movie described as “shocking gory depiction of a dying marriage” to teenagers? Oh yeah. They want to sell tickets – to anyone.
Now I am not a big fan of the MPAA but they have a job to do, and they are doing it. It is these ratings that is regulating who can see a film and to further educate people of the type of movie they are seeing without revealing anything at all about the plot. It is a valid institution and I don’t think abolishing the organization is neccessary. But they have to keep their standards if they expect to be valid.
This ability to take their rating and appeal for it to be changed without changing the film diminishes their function. Don’t like the rating you got for the content you willingly created? Then appeal it! Make a stink about it and get fans to line up and yell at us, then we will change our minds.
Where is the point of rating a film if their decision is so easily overturned. I have not seen Blue Valentine, and I cannot pass judgement on whether the rating is justified for that film, but the rating itself is a valid standard to have.
I also think that these petitions are pointless, and this one would be even MORE pointless considering they are seeking 100,000 signatures that would be amassed by people who couldn’t have seen the film. What value do THOSE signatures have? You found enough people to blindly disagree? I think that’s proving an entirely different point.
They want the MPAA to change their mind because they urged 100,000 people to blindly assume they are making a bad decision?
I admit they don’t have an easy job, and films are often compromised to get the rating required to earn them a wider demographically appealling rating. But that is the choice of the film maker to make those sacrifices, not the MPAA. So often the MPAA gets “blamed” for removing content from a movie, but it was never the MPAA who told them to do it. These flimmakers CHOOSE to.
Some are arguing that horror films have far more visually graphic content and are given an R rating, but those films are disconnected from reality at some level, where this film appears to have a very real and honest look at an adult relationship falling apart. That isn’t disconnected from reality at all, and perhaps the graphic realism of the film is too mature for younger viewers. More mature and impacting than dyed cornsyrup and latex simulated death scenes.
I admire their desire to be uncompromising with their art, but to ask for the MPAA to change their decision might have some grounds (if the film is not as mature and graphic as they suggest) the way they are gathering a voice against the decision is just nonsense. It’s ok to disagree with the judgement. That is opinion.
A blind petition is not a valid arguement. Let’s face it. They want the rating changed so they can sell the film better.
