CNS Movie Review: This Film Is Not Yet Rated

This Film Is Not Yet Rated

By Harry Forbes
Catholic News Service

NEW YORK (CNS) -- "This Film Is Not Yet Rated" (IFC) is a lively if disjointed and ultimately unconvincing documentary that sets out to expose biases and inconsistencies in the ratings process of the Motion Picture Association of America, the film industry's lobbying organization. Among its contentions: The ratings board treats sexual content more stringently than violence, curbs the freedom of independent filmmakers, favors the big studios and applies double standards to homosexual themes.

The filmmaker is Kirby Dick, who made an Oscar-nominated film about the Catholic sex abuse scandal called "Twist of Faith," which we judged to be well-produced when it was shown on the HBO pay-cable channel. His new one, though, is far less so.

For one thing, Dick's premise is undermined by most of the illustrative clips used here, which, if anything, seem to prove that the movies from which they derive -- Stanley Kubrick's "Eyes Wide Shut" and Atom Egoyan's "Where the Truth Lies" among them -- well deserve their restrictive ratings in terms of sex, violence and/or language, artistic matters notwithstanding.

Some might criticize a system that gives a restrictive rating to an artistically tasteful scene of sexuality and then gives a pass to gratuitous and brutal violence, but few would consider the sex scenes excerpted here to be tasteful.

Even a serious-minded documentary like Michael Tucker's "Gunner Palace" (originally rated R by the MPAA) about soldiers in Iraq is surely too strong for young children, important as it might be for them to be aware of the realities of war.

To uncover the identities of the MPAA ratings board -- ordinary parents who quite logically are kept anonymous to protect them from pressures from the studios and filmmakers -- Dick hires a private investigator, Becky Altringer of Ariel Investigations, to surreptitiously stake out MPAA headquarters in Encino, Calif., snooping around the guard's station in front of the building, going through the garbage of board members at their homes and using other similarly questionable methods.

Among those interviewed are David Ansen of Newsweek magazine, who labels the rating system "childish"; filmmaker John Waters ("A Dirty Shame"); director Matt Stone ("Team America: World Police"); former ratings board chairman Richard Heffner; director Mary Harron ("American Psycho"); director Kimberly Peirce ("Boys Don't Cry"); and actress Maria Bello and "The Cooler" director Wayne Kramer, who decry the original NC-17 rating earned for that film because of a glimpse of her pubic hair. The film later was rated R.

Joan Graves, chairman of the MPAA's Classification and Rating Administration, comes in for a particularly unfair skewering, as Dick uses her illicitly taped phone conversations as a soundtrack to an animated caricature, during which she explains very sensibly that "rules are rules."

Though Dick alleges the ratings system is arbitrary and clandestine, the guidelines (posted on the MPAA Web site at www.mpaa.org) are, in fact, quite clear. One use of the f-word as an expletive will get you a PG-13. Use it in a sexual context, and your film gets an R. Use it more than once as an expletive and it also gets an R. And so on.

When an early cut of "This Film Is Not Yet Rated" received an NC-17 rating, Dick decided to appeal the decision -- an option open to filmmakers and studios when they disagree with a rating -- and then went about stealthily tracking that process, and including the results in an expanded version of the film.

At one point, Egoyan expresses particular outrage that "members of the clergy" attend the appeals hearing, referencing a Protestant and Catholic presence. (In the interest of full disclosure, members of the Office for Film & Broadcasting do sometimes observe the appeals, but they are prohibited from voting or influencing the vote in any way, and, for the record, the Catholic representatives are laypeople.)

Former longtime MPAA president Jack Valenti, who implemented the ratings system in 1968, is particularly vilified, while the MPAA's lobbying efforts in Washington, and its crusade against copyright infringement, is painted as another form of censorship.

While filmmakers' frustrations at being given an R or NC-17 are understandable -- it can translate to lower box-office revenue (though, often, the opposite is true) -- the ratings system is far more valuable than not. Though it may offend the sensibilities of those who view a filmmaker's artistic vision as sacrosanct, many in the viewing audience -- especially parents -- want to know in advance whether a movie has content which may not be suitable for them. By providing this undoubtedly imperfect self-regulatory system (the studios voluntarily submit their films), the movie industry has warded off calls for local and federal agencies to do the job, something which Dick and his allies would certainly find even more abhorrent.

Be warned: The film contains clips from some films that originally received O -- morally offensive -- classifications, but their illustrational use in supporting Dick's thesis, however wrongheaded, is arguably valid here. Many adults may well be offended by their inclusion.

The film contains brief clips of graphic sexuality, and some rough and crude language. The USCCB Office for Film & Broadcasting classification is L -- limited adult audience, films whose problematic content many adults would find troubling. It is not rated by the Motion Picture Association of America.

- - -

Forbes is director of the Office for Film & Broadcasting of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops. More reviews are available online at www.usccb.org/movies.

END

Copyright (c) 2006 Catholic News Service/USCCB. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or otherwise distributed.
CNS · 3211 Fourth St NE · Washington DC 20017 · 202.541.3250

FIND A MOVIE

   Looking for a
   movie review?
   Click "Movie List"
   button above

   OR

   Enter a keyword
   from the movie
   title in the box
   below and click
   the "Search"
   button.

Classifications
and
ratings?