So last Thursday I had a really interesting chat with Joan Graves, Chairwoman of CARA, the board that actually rates films at the MPAA. The reason I was talking with Joan is because my feeling is that the problem with the MPAA’s rating system isn’t that the line between NC-17 and R isn’t clear, it’s that the NC-17 rating is not a viable commercial space, and that the MPAA hasn’t done enough to promote this rating.

“Have you talked to the theater owners?” Joan asked.

“Joan, it’s just me and my wife here. We’re probably the smallest distribution company you’ve ever talked to. I can’t talk to all the theater owners. But the MPAA can.”

That’s not what Joan meant.

What she meant was had I talked to the National Organization of Theater Owners, and then she gave me President John Fithian’s phone number and encouraged me to mention her name when I called.

So the next morning I called John, got one of his assistants, talked his ear off until the assistant told me he had some real work he needed to get done. So I left my number and figured that was that. Imagine my surprise when two hours later I answered my phone and heard, “Hello, it’s John Fithian from the National Organization of Theater Owners.”

It turns out this whole NC-17 thing is very much on John’s mind these days. It’s John’s belief that the failure of the NC-17 rating thrive either commercially and artistically undermines the ratings system as a whole. As he said in a speech at Showest last March:

“Serious filmmakers need to take NC-17 seriously. Everyone in the industry should resist any temptation to treat NC-17 as a negative judgment, rather than an integral part of the rating system that contemplates entertainment for both children and adults.”

What concerns John is that the failure of the NC-17 rating exerts upward pressure on the other ratings. Without a place for “movies for grown-ups,” films dealing with topics, language or imagery really not suitable for children are forced into a how-many-angels-can-dance-on-the-head-of-a-pin game around what will and won’t be allowed in an R-rated film.

This conundrum is played out again when Joan and her crew CARA screen these films. Where is the line between R and NC-17? Well in the end, that’s a judgement about the film as a whole; that’s going to be a subjective judgement; and when you’ve got films that are trying to get right up to the edge without going over, reasonable people will sometimes disagree.

So then why to filmmakers feel like they have to ride this razor’s edge? What is it about the NC-17 that makes it “the kiss of death” for a film? Well that bring us to John’s three myths:

1) Theaters Won’t Play NC-17 Movies

In 2001 John informally polled his membership. Of the top 25 theater chains, only 2 had “No NC-17″ policies. While it’s true that one of these two is a biggie, that’s still only 2 of top 25 that have a policy against the rating.

All of them have policies against showing films that no one comes to see. Talking about this yesterday with a friend who owns and runs an independent theater, my friend said “The only thing any theater owner has against NC-17 is no one makes NC-17 movies anyone wants to see.”

Reserving the right to change my opinion in light of further information, I’ll rate this myth MNT, for “mostly not true”.

2) No Media Outlets Will Accept Advertising for NC-17 Movies

Prior to Ang Lee’s LUST, CAUTION, the last time a big-name director tackled the NC-17 rating was in 2003 with Bernado Bertolucci’s THE DREAMERS.

Not very many people went to see THE DREAMERS, but you can’t blame that on not being able to advertising the movie. According to John, the film’s producers are on record as stating that they were able to make advertising buys everywhere they wanted to, with the exception of two newspapers, one of which was in Utah. ‘Nuff said.

You can blame poor receipts on the fact that THE DREAMERS just isn’t a very good movie. Very pretty to look at, but not much fun to watch, and terrible to listen to. (Note to the producers: If you can’t get rights to real Jimmy Hendrix tracks, don’t use crappy sound-alike substitutes.)

Unless and until someone can show me a real rejection letters or a policy statement from a major outlet, I’m rating this myth UT for “untrue”.

3) Video Retailers and Rentals Won’t Carry NC-17 Movies

Okay, now we’re on to a “myth” that is actually somewhat true.

Blockbuster wont’ carry NC-17 movies, and Walmart won’t carry NC-17 movies. But what they will carry “Unrated Director’s Cuts” of R-rated movies, versions that would have received an NC-17 rating (”See what they wouldn’t let you see in the theater!”)

This makes John quite angry, angry enough that NATO is researching a possible lawsuit.

Since Blockbuster and Walmart are important outlets for DVD sales, I’m going to give this myth an HT rating for “half-true,” and I’ll give Blockbuster an FU rating for “fuck you”.

–

So now Ang Lee has taken up the banner, trying to find fame and fortune where Bertolucci and Verhoeven found only shame and ignominy, and a lot of people (including me) are pulling for him. (Said John, “I told the producers, if you have any trouble with distribution, you let me know right away.”)

I suppose that’s the sort of “special treatment” that makes people like Kirby Dick mad, and cry “double standard”, and I don’t know that John Fithian would be as eager to go to bat for our NC-17 rated film, MARIE AND JACK: A HARDCORE LOVE STORY. But I think it’s fair to guess that has more to do with Lee’s long string of commercial and critical successes, than the fact that I’m an indie filmmaker, working “outside the system.”

What I do know is that everyone I’ve talked to on the MPAA/NATO side of this question has been unfailingly nice, courteous, and (perhaps most importantly,) lucid. I don’t agree with everything I’ve heard (Tony Hey spend a good long while talking about SAVING PRIVATE RYAN) but nothing anyone’s said has struck me us being outrageous, unfair, or unreasonable. Where I’ve disagreed with the MPAA (such as “orgasm” not being a suitable word for children) I’ve been able to understand their point of view, and the MPAA has been eager to help us find a way to communicate what we needed to communicate without dreadful compromise. It was the MPAA ad rep that suggested “climax”. It might be silly to have to substitute “climax” for “orgasm” on a boxcover, but you can hardly call it an attempt to ruin us.

There has also been much discussion of how “secretive” the MPAA is. In my experience this simply isn’t so. Their instructions on our boxcover issues were clear and direct, and if anything were intended to help us find that “razor’s edge”. Similarly, my friend Bret Woods received clear instructions on exactly what would need to be removed from his Psychopatia Sexualis to bring down from an NC-17 to an R-rating (a quasi-consensual piss drinking scene.)

Was Bret’s artistic vision ruined by that alteration? You’ll have to ask him. But if John Fithian has his way, Bret won’t feel compelled to make alterations like this to his future efforts. An NC-17 rating will mean only as much or as little to a film’s financial prospects as any of the MPAA’s other ratings, and those of us who make “films for grown-ups” will have to find a new excuse that we’re not making any money!

About a month ago I sent a letter to Dan Glickman, Chairman of the MPAA, asking what, if any plans the MPAA had to rehabilitate the NC-17 rating. Yesterday I called Mr. Glickman’s office in Washington D.C. and was told that my letter had been forwarded to the Los Angeles Office, to Joan Graves, Chairwoman of CARA, the MPAA’s ratings body.

Today I spent about an hour on the phone today with Ms. Graves. We talked about a lot of things; but my ultimate aim was to find out what future plans the MPAA had for the promotion of their NC-17 rating. I learned a couple of interesting things.

One of the first things she said was, “Have you talked to the theater owners about this?” Then she went on to tell me about her recent conversation with John Fithian, President of the National Association of Theatre Owners. It seems Mr. Fithian is upset about what he perceives as misinformation about his membership’s policies regarding NC-17 movies. Joan says John says (yes, I realize that makes it here-say) that overwhelmingly NATO members support the NC-17 rating, have no policies against showing NC-17 movies, and that he has been actively working to correct the myths and rumors that swirl around the rating in the minds of the press and the public. Ms. Graves gave me contact information for Mr. Fithian and said I should mention her name when I call or write.

Interesting.

Also interesting, last week Ang Lee’s LUST AND CAUTION received an NC-17 rating, and the film’s producers accepted the rating. (That means that like we have to do with MARIE AND JACK the producers of LUST AND CAUTION will have to submit their advertising to the MPAA for approval.)

When I asked her what she thought the reason that the producers of LUST, CAUTION embraced the NC-17 rating, while producers of films like SHORTBUS or 9 SONGS eschewed the rating, her guess was that it had to do with how widely the producers expected to release the film. 9 SONGS and SHORTBUS had very limited theatrical runs, mostly playing art-house theaters that often play unrated films. The producers of LUST, CAUTION are going for a much wider release, and expect to play in many theaters that do not play unrated movies.

This pricked up my ears. The “conventional wisdom” is that NC-17 is the kiss of death for distribution, with movie-makers famously throwing fits and crying censorship when their films receive (the dreaded) NC-17 ratings. Yet here’s the follow up to BROKEBACK MOUNTAIN choosing to take the rating and all the advertising hassles and headaches because they think having the NC-17 will help them get into more theaters.

Hmmmm. Interesting…

We also chatted about a dozen other things, including mistake that the MPAA made in not trademarking the X-rating, the collapse of a legitimate space for grown-up movie making, the misadventures that my films have had with other countries’ ratings systems, and other territory that should be familiar to this blog’s readership

What it all means for our movies, well that I’m not so sure. But it’s more information to add to the pile. Maybe at some point the pile will hit critical mass. In the mean time, after the critical and box office failures of SHOWGIRLS and THE DREAMERS, I’m going to cross my fingers that working in the unrestricted space afforded by the NC-17 rating, Ang Lee has been able to produce something that turns out to be artistically exciting and financially successful!

A nice mention by Steve Erickson on Nerve’s indie film blog, Screengrab,about our recent experience with the MPAA’s advertising department. Writes Erik:

“…He recently decided to get an MPAA rating for his film Marie and Jack: A Hardcore Love Story. As expected, he got an NC-17 (not so dreaded, in his case), but the real twist came when he discovered that the MPAA now had to approve his DVD artwork… While many mainstream filmmakers start foaming at the mouth when the MPAA’s name is mentioned, Comstock describes his experiences with a surprising level of respect.”

I can understand why a producer could feel vexed about their dealings with MPAA.

(more…)

The poster for LAST TANGO IN PARIS, including X-rating symbol
(click to enlarge)

Fad23 is absolutely right. The X-rating was a part of the MPAA four-tier system first introduced in 1968.

But unlike G, PG, and R, X was not a trademarked MPAA property. The X rating was conceived of by the MPAA as a rating meaning ‘not suitable for children’ that could be and was self-applied by producers who did not feel their film needed and/or warranted a less restrictive rating.

But there have always been films deemed “not suitable for children,” and long before X or NC-17 there was an “adults only” classification, given to films like DUAL IN THE SUN, BABY DOLL, SUDDENLY LAST SUMMER, TO EACH HIS OWN and others that, by the standards of the day, were deemed to be inappropriate for children.

But in the 1950’s “foreign films”, made outside the (self imposed) Hayes Code that governed Hollywood production, began to make their way into the US. These films frequently addressed issues of sexuality in a manner that was far more frank than the coded subtexualized language required to address adult themes within the strictures of the code.

Poster for THE LOVERS, the film at the center of Jacobellis v. Ohio.

The 1950s also saw the breakup of the studio system, particularly the vertical integration of production, distribution and exhibition, which considerably loosened control on what theaters could and would screen, and by the 1960s cultural mores had shifted to the point that the old production code was becoming increasingly irrelevant. In response code was revised in 1966, and in 1968 the production code was abandoned in favor G,PG, R and X system (originally G, M, R, X.)

But it’s important to remember that from the start, the X-rating was always intended as a rating that could be self-applied by producers, and unlike G, PG, and R, the MPAA maintained no control over the X rating as a trademarked property. It’s also important to remember that when the system was introduce “X” had no special stigma, any more than the previous rating of Adults Only rating give to DUEL IN THE SUN, et al.

Around the same time, there were court decisions established the legality of both producing films depicting actual sex acts and showing them in theaters. This new legal climate gave rise to the open production and theatrical screening of films featuring depictions of actual sex acts. Because X, which meant “adults only” was a self-applied rating, producers of these films were free to give their films an X-rating with or without the MPAAs approval.

At first this was done to give these sexually explicit films an air of legitimacy, but with no control over who could or could not use the X-rating it quickly became associated with very low-budget products concerned with little more than creating a vehicle for the presentation of explicit sex. It was at during this time that films like MIDNIGHT COWBOY, A CLOCKWORK ORANGE, and others moved to have their ratings changed from X to R. Sometimes this was done by petitioning the MPAA to re-evaluate the rating, sometimes by simply editing out the “offending material”.

The stigma of the X-rating was further deepened when some producers began using XXX an gimmick to communicate that their films were especially raw or filled with sex, as opposed to merely X-rated, which could and did refer to films (such as MIDNIGHT COWBOY or A CLOCKWORK ORANGE,) that were unsuitable for children, but contained little, if any, explicit sex or nudity.

42nd Street, circa 1975 (click to enlarge)

This was also a time when many urban areas were in decline, and many theaters were turning to sexually explicit movies to draw audiences to theaters that would otherwise have been empty (think Times Square in the 70s.) In response, theater landlords began to write “no x-rated films” into their leases. Also theater chains enforced “no X” policies on their fanchiseese, and many newspapers had “no X” advertising policies.

Now remember, R means a film may be suitable for suitable for children when accompanied by an adult; X meant a film is not suitable for children at all. The concept of an “adults only film”, a concept that had existed from the beginning of commercial cinema, suddenly collapsed. It became impossible to advertise or exhibit a film that that was not suitable for children. For a film to be able to advertise in most newspapers, or play in most theaters, it had to have an R-rating, and that meant the omission of any element–sex, violence, language, drug use–that was not suitable viewing for children.

This collapse was not some grand conspiracy on the part of the MPAA to put an end to films for grown-ups. It was the result of the collision of changes to the MPAA ratings system, court decisions that allowed the production and public exhibition of films featuring depictions of actual sex acts, demographic and social changes that altered theater going habits, and the odd quirk that the MPAA had allowed their X-rating to be “public property”.

As a result, the X-rating was more or less abandoned by all parties. Hollywood producers weren’t going to invest millions of dollars in a film that couldn’t be advertised or screened in legitimate venues, and restricted their “adult” efforts to R-rated films. And producers of sexually explicit film and videos preferred to label their product as XXX, rather than the seemingly milder X. According to their own website, no films were rated X by the MPAA during the entire decade of the 1980s, (and virtually none in the 1970s.)

What that means is that for 20 years, all films produced by the Hollywood establishment that were produced within the confines of what could conceivably be shown to children. Moviemaking for grown-ups died.

Poster for HENRY AND JUNE, 1990, NC-17

In 1990 the MPAA attempted to reestablish a “legitimate” adults-only movie-making space with introduction of the NC-17 rating. Not wanting to repeat their mistake with the X-rating, the NC-17 is a trademarked property that can only be used if you submit your film and advertising to the MPAA process. But it was too little too late.

Not understanding the history of the X rating, and convinced that the MPAA was simply trying to put a new name on porn, most exhibition and advertising venues simply re-wrote their rules to prohibit the exhibition and advertising of NC-17 films. To this day some of America’s largest theater chains will not exhibit NC-17 movies, and many of America’s largest media outlets will not accept adverting for NC-17 movies. A few NC-17 art-house films were made, mostly in the nineties, and in 1995 MGM/UA gambled (and lost) on the NC-17 rating with the laughably bad big budget feature SHOWGIRLS. But in this decade (2000s), only a small handful of films have been rated NC-17, (including our own MARIE AND JACK: A HARDCORE LOVE STORY.)

Now lest I be seen as an apologist for the MPAA, I think they were slow to understand what was happening to the X-rating, slow to take action, (nearly 20 years!) and when they did finally introduce the NC-17 rating, they did “drop the ball”. More over, as far as I can tell, they’ve done precious little since then to correct their mistake.

These days there’s very little movie-making that is truly for grown-ups. Even “serious films” that have no interest in attracting a teen audience have to be made “suitable for children” to avoid the dreaded NC-17, so even “realistic adult dramas” have an odd lack of candor in the way that sex is depicted visually.

The situations are adult, the language may be frank, but the sex and nudity is strangely demure. Sex is always under the covers, or with the lights low, or the camera-angles are cheated just enough to the left or the right to preserve the all important R-rating.

As a result we have a cinematic landscape where every other aspect of the human experience is rendered in vivid detail (with often a special fetishization of violence,) but the simple truth of what people look like naked, or what people look like when they give themselves over to sexual desire remains largely unexplored by filmmakers, and remains largely unseen by audiences.

Production still from MARIE AND JACK: A HARDCORE LOVE STORY, 2002, NC-17

Back in February we submitted our first film, MARIE AND JACK: A HARDCORE LOVE STORY to the Motion Picture Association of America (The MPAA). Since MARIE AND JACK is a film about grown-up ideas, with grown-up imagery, intended for a grown-up audience, we had every expectation that the film would receive (the dreaded) NC-17 rating. From MPAA.org:

“An NC-17 rated motion picture is one that, in the view of the Rating Board, most parents would consider patently too adult for their children 17 and under. No children will be admitted. NC-17 does not mean “obscene” or “pornographic” in the common or legal meaning of those words, and should not be construed as a negative judgment in any sense. The rating simply signals that the content is appropriate only for an adult audience. An NC-17 rating can be based on violence, sex, aberrational behavior, drug abuse or any other element that most parents would consider too strong and therefore off-limits for viewing by their children.”

(You can read rest the MPAA’s explanation of their rating system on the MPAA website.)

We submitted the film back in February because we knew that sometime this Summer we’d need to make another run (the fifth!) of MARIE AND JACK DVDs, and we also knew that we wanted to update the cover so that it was more inline with the look of our more recent titles (The M&J design was mine, the more recent covers were designed by Peggy. You can guess at which ones I like better.)

The idea was since we were going to be redesigning/reprinting the cover anyway, why not submit the film and see if having an MPAA rating (even the dreaded NC-17 rating) changed the marketablity of our film.

Would the NC-17 rating and MPAA dingbat make our work seem more legitimate? Or would the MPAA rating make people think they were getting a watered-down, censored version of Marie and JACK. (Point of fact, the MPAA didn’t ask us to change a frame, and even said MARIE AND JACK was just the sort of film the NC-17 rating was made for.)

What the MPAA did ask us to change was the cover, both text and images, so that the packaging would be “suitable for all viewers,” and while you and I may disagree with the MPAA about what is or is not suitable for all viewers, it not your or my opinion that counts; it’s theirs. That’s the bargain you make if you want to be in their club. (Actually, I think the MPAA is best thought of as being like a Chamber of Commerce, or local Better Business Bureau. No one forces a merchant to join the Better Business Bureau, but if you do join, they rules they expect you to follow.)

The original re-design of the MARIE AND JACK cover looked like this:

(You can click on it for a larger version.)

The front cover has been redesigned to be in keeping with the look that Peggy developed for the series. The back cover is unchanged from the previous version.

The MPAA had two objections. To begin with, unambiguous nudity is not considered “suitable for all viewers” so the three photos on the upper left side were unacceptable. One solution suggested was that the photos could be cropped, or shadows could be airbrushed on to them sufficient that a reasonable person could say it was not clear whether or not the people were naked.

The MPAA also objected to the word “orgasms” in the quote from Penthouse magazine, but suggested that climaxes could be used in its place. I’ll admit this made my head spin a little, but the MPAA representative’s explanation was that while most people would probably consider our use of the word tasteful and appropriate, if they let us use the word “orgasm” on our cover, then someone else would want to splash it all over the cover in giant pink letters, and that the MPAA wanted, as much as is possible, to avoid making subjective judgments about what was and was not permissible. No doubt this was a reference to the 1997 film ORGAZMO.

The same explanation was given for their request that the back cover photos be altered: yes, most people would find our use of the nudity completely appropriate, but if they allowed unambiguous nudity on the cover of MARIE AND JACK then some other producer would want the same for their DVD packaging, claiming that their use was also “appropriate,” even if most people would find it objectionable.

The MPAA did not object to the close-up of Jack fingering Marie’s clit while they fucked in the spoon position, complete with his cock half inside her pussy that we used to illustrate the “picture in a picture” version of the un-edited, two camera love-scene offered on the DVD. Whether this is because they thought the image was it was sufficiently ambiguous, or because they simply didn’t know what they were looking at, I don’t know.

So here’s the cover the MPAA approved:

(Again, click for a larger version.)

“Orgasms” has been changed to “climaxes”, and the three back photos have been cropped or simply replace with photos that have sufficient degree of ambiguity as to where or not Marie and Jack are clothed. The close-up was removed altogether – maybe they missed it, maybe they didn’t know what they were looking at, maybe they knew, but thought a close-up of clit stroking is “suitable for all viewers” – I don’t know. Whatever the case, I don’t think it’s all-ages appropriate, that’s the standard, so we took it out. This is what the letter you get from the MPAA looks like:

The people at the MPAA have all been very friendly, and I have to admit, seeing that very distinctive MPAA dingbat on our movie is pretty nifty. But the question remains: will going through this process help us make more money? I don’t know. I think the new cover design will sell better, but I don’t know if the NC-17 is going to make much of a difference one way or the other.

As it stands now, most places that won’t show unrated films won’t show NC-17 films either. Most places that won’t sell unrated DVDs won’t sell NC-17 rated films either. In a surprisingly candid conversation with an MPAA rep last Winter, he told me “we dropped the ball when we introduced the NC-17 rating. We didn’t explain or promote it the way we should have.”

As a result, the NC-17 is sort of a no-man’s land. The only thing you get for accepting an NC-17 rating from the MPAA (aside from the chance to write the MPAA a hefty check,) is the obligation to submit your advertising and packaging for their approval.

No doubt that’s why films like 9 SONGS and SHORTBUS decide to go out unrated; not (necessarily) because the MPAA advertisement approval process is so odious, but if the NC-17 rating isn’t going to help the movie make money, who needs the hassle? In fact, the advertising and packaging on unrated movies with sexual theme tend to emphasize that they the unrated, uncensored, uncut version, even when no other version exists. In the art-house world “Unrated” has come to connote uncensored and uncompromised filmmaking.

So then why did we do it?

Well if nothing else, it’s given us a chance to experience the MPAA process, not as observers, not as critics or pundits, but as participants. Having been run through the mandatory ratings processes in other countries, I have to say I much prefer dealing with the MPAA, especially the fact that it’s voluntary. We have four other films, each unrated, each completely legal to sell or screen, and they’re doing just fine.

I’m not thrilled about the changes to the MARIE AND JACK cover, but neither am I broken-hearted. I understand why the MPAA insists on maintaining some sort of control for where and how their trademarks appear, we do the same thing here at Comstock Films. There are venues available to people who have different ideas about is appropriate or what is in good taste, or even whether or not that’s a relevant question.

In the bigger picture it’s about continuing to take risks, continuing to poke around in the places other people overlook to see if we can find opportunities. Most producers consider the NC-17 rating a stigma, a scarlet letter, but who knows, maybe (maybe) we can make it a badge of honor. We’ll play by the MPAA’s rules with MARIE AND JACK and see if it helps us. If it does, we’ll consider submitting our other films. If it doesn’t, we can always surrender the rating and go back to what we’re already doing.

Or hey wait! Maybe we’ll even redesign our packaging and make sure the words “unrated,” “uncut,” and “uncensored” appear in the biggest, pinkest letters possible!

Press release speak:

MARIE AND JACK: A HARDCORE LOVE STORY earns an NC-17 rating from the Motion Picture Association of America.This February, MARIE AND JACK: A HARDCORE LOVE STORY, the first erotic documentary from Comstock Films underwent review by the Motion Picture Association of America and was assigned an NC-17 rating for it’s explicit sexuality.

Yesterday was a blood-bath. The Google Site Index for Comstock Films continues to look extremely weird, full of robot.txt excluded pages, and even pages that haven’t been live on our website for years, and our Google search related traffic is in the toilet.

Why does Googles’s index of our site have pages that we took down two years ago? I don’t know. Why does it have pages from directories we’ve excluded from indexing in our robot.txt? I don’t know. (And yes, we checked them using Google’s webmaster tools.) Why doesn’t the site index have our important and well-linked to pages like index.html and main.html? I don’t know. I wish I did, and I wish I knew what to do to fix it.

Adding to my puzzlement, while here the US, ComstockFilms.com is somewhere around page 10 for the search ‘real sex’ our site continues to enjoy a relatively high position for the search in Australia (currently page 1) and the UK (currently page 3).

There’s a certain irony to this. Both Australia and the UK have government-imposed ratings for films, and our DVDs are illegal to sell in most of Australia and in all of the UK.

Coincidentally, a copy of our first film MARIE AND JACK: A HARDCORE LOVE STORY is currently at the Motion Picture Association of America, and we expect a rating decision by the end of the month. No doubt the film will receive an NC-17, which means adults only.

50 years ago there were only two ratings; adults only and general audience. Children couldn’t get into adults only films, not even with their parents. Adult films were for adults in the same way that bars are for adults.

But somewhere along the way we lost the idea of exclusively adult cinema. Yes, the MPAA has an adults only rating, but it’s an economic dead-zone. SHORTBUS went out unrated, rather than bear the stigma of the NC-17 rating. (Many media outlets will not accept advertisements for films rated NC-17, and some theaters will not show them.)

Conversely, the ultra-violent SAVING PRIVATE RYAN, a film that is utter inappropriately for children was given an R by the MPAA, which means kindergardeners can go see it, provided they are accompanied by a parent or guardian.

I can understand (both commercially and ethically) the MPAA wanting save PRIVATE RYAN from the burden of carrying the NC-17 rating, but the idea that it’s a film suitable for children of any age, provided they are accompanied by an adult is manifestly absurd. Although what can be shown is far more permissive than it was 50 years ago, in the process we’ve given up the space for adults to experience genuinely adult films.

Meanwhile, in Australia and the UK, there is a litigate adults only rating. In Australia and the UK, rated-R means no one under 18, and that’s the rating films like SAVING PRIVATE RYAN receive in those countries, (and SHORTBUS and DESTRICTED because they’re not intended to arouse!)

(Lest I sound too in love with the Australian and UK system, please remember that their systems are manditory and governement imposed, and that’s why our films are illegal to sell in Australia and the UK.)

MARIE & JACK will have its MPAA rating by the end of the month, an NC-17; and have no intention of running from the rating. In fact, we intend to embrace it, to wear our NC-17 as a badge of honor.

Like the rest of our work, MARIE & JACK is a film for adults about the very adult experience of sex. No, it’s not okay to bring your kids. Maybe you think it’s okay to bring them to see SAVING PRIVATE RYAN, but you can’t bring them to see MARIE & JACK. It’s grown-up time now, and this is a movie for grown-ups to watch with other grown-ups. We don’t want to here your 12 year-old giggling, or you stammering when she asks an awkward question. Get a sitter, or stay home, or wait for it to come out on DVD.