From a press release we received today:
The
American Cinematheque at the Egyptian Theatre and the
Erotic Museum Hollywood present
For Adults Only: Pre-NC-17 Cinema in America, September 10 -12, 2004, a weekend of movies that were rated X upon original release.
All screenings are at the newly renovated Lloyd E. Rigler Theatre at the historic Egyptian (6712 Hollywood Boulevard between Highland and Las Palmas) in Hollywood.
"The series kicks off with a new 35 mm print of Bernardo Bertolucci's
Last Tango in Paris (1972, MGM/UA), presented in memory of the film's star Marlon Brando. Other films include Russ Meyer's
Beyond the Valley of the Dolls (1970, 20th Century Fox/Criterion), a pop-culture sexfest about a girl band, written by Roger Ebert; Ralph Bakshi's animated
Fritz the Cat (1972, MGM/UA), based on R. Crumb's '60s counter-culture comics; Stanley Kubrick's
A Clockwork Orange (1971, Warners); New York hustler drama
Midnight Cowboy (1969, MGM/UA) starring Jon Voight and Dustin Hoffman; Haskall Wexler's
Medium Cool (1969, Paramount), a look at the 1968 Chicago Democratic Convention riots; [Donald Cammell and Nicolas Roeg's]
Performance (1970, Warner Bros.) starring a very young Mick Jagger; and Ken Russell's blasphemous
The Devils (1971, Warner Bros.).
"Writer, critic and author of the book
The Movie Rating Game, Stephen Farber will appear for discussion after the screening of
A Clockwork Orange [on September 11].
"Starting in the late 1950s, a flood of largely foreign motion pictures offering a franker, more realistic view of the world hit American shores, some prime examples being Roger Vadim's
...And God Created Woman (1956), Jean-Luc Godard's
Breathless (1959) and Federico Fellini's
La Dolce Vita (1960). But, there were also such groundbreaking domestic movies as Otto Preminger's
Man With the Golden Arm (1955) and Alfred Hitchcock's
Psycho (1960) that pushed the envelope of what was acceptable on American screens. As the 1960s progressed, the mushrooming counterculture, coupled with the struggle for civil rights, the equality of the sexes and a growing anti-war mentality, spurred a gradual, steady rise of ever more controversial films on U.S. screens.
"When Jack Valenti became president of the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) in 1966, he quickly acknowledged that changes would have to be made. In an effort to stave off federal censorship and find a replacement for the antiquated, virtually useless Hays Code,
Valenti laid the groundwork for a ratings system that would address the concerns of parents, educators and politicians but still leave a 'liberal latitude' of what the discriminating adult might view on his or her neighborhood movie screen.
"The rating system went into effect in November, 1968. Out of the initial rating letter symbols -- 'G' for General, 'M' for Mature, 'R' for Restricted, and most notoriously, 'X' for no one under 17 admitted -- only X was not trademarked by the MPAA. Brian De Palma's biting anti-war satire,
Greetings, was the first film to receive the X rating, followed soon after by such adult-themed movies as
Midnight Cowboy (famous as the only 'X' film ever to win the Academy Award for Best Picture),
If...,
The Killing of Sister George,
Beyond the Valley of the Dolls,
Medium Cool,
The Devils,
Myra Breckenridge,
Last Tango in Paris,
In the Realm of the Senses and
A Clockwork Orange. While many of these films contain sexual material that seems tame today, by the standards of the era they were seen as seriously provocative. Just as important, many of these films were politically and socially subversive, redefining the boundaries of what could be shown and said in commercial, mainstream cinema.
"Unfortunately, every pornographer in the country began exploiting the X-rating as bait for the libidinous viewer interested in hardcore porn. The
deleterious effect on serious adult fare with artistic or social merit still too edgy for an R rating was almost immediately felt. Many 'respectable' theater chains refused to book films with an X rating, no matter the quality or origin, and newspapers boycotted advertising for any movie with the disreputable rating.
"The ratings system went through a series of various permutations, especially during its first two decades in existence. Although the ratings were amended to change the confusing M (Mature) rating to GP, then once again in 1984 transforming the GP to PG and PG-13, it wasn't until 1990 that the X-rating was abolished and replaced with NC-17. Initial films to receive the rating were Philip Kaufman's
Henry & June and Pedro Almodovar's
Tie Me Up, Tie Me Down (both 1990). The intent behind the NC-17 rating revision was to rescue quality adult cinema from the pariah status of what had become an X-rated ghetto.
"Unfortunately, as many studios, distributors and exhibitors soon learned, NC-17 carried its own commercial stigma, largely propagated by the religious right in America. Many theater chains and newspaper and media outlets picked up the torch, boycotting exhibition and advertising of NC-17 movies, a heinous practice that continues to this day. Although several of the films in our series such as
Midnight Cowboy,
Performance and
The Devils (as well as many other worthwhile, originally-rated-X movies) were later re-rated with the R rating after miniscule cuts (or sometimes no cuts at all), others would undoubtedly receive the stronger NC-17 if released today for the first time."
#
posted by Steve Gallagher @ 8/03/2004 03:53:00 PM
Comments (0)
