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Lewd Valentine
Ten films that went from NC-17 to R
Blue Valentine (Photo: The Weinstein Company)
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Earlier this week, the Motion Picture Association of America, or MPAA, gave the upcoming indie drama Blue Valentine an NC-17 rating. It’s a bit surprising, considering the film’s been shown in film festivals since the beginning of the year, and no one’s mentioned anything particularly sexual. But according to the MPAA, there’s one too intense drunken sex scene involving Ryan Gosling and Michelle Williams, the film’s stars.
The film is distributed by the Weinstein Company, who will of course fight the rating. Know the highest grossing NC-17 film of all-time? It’s Showgirls, with only $20 million. Harvey Weinstein won’t have any of that (I, for one, think it’s a good thing for Blue Valentine because most likely it’ll be changed to R, and now they’re getting free publicity from publications and websites like this one).
Below are 10 films that were originally given an NC-17 (or X, if we’re going old school) rating, only to be switched to R.
American Psycho
In the original cut of American Psycho, Christian Bale’s Patrick Bateman has sex with two prostitutes. When producers cut those 18 seconds out of the film (and a line change from “asshole” to just “ass”), the MPAA granted the film an R rating.
American Pie
The ratings change came from editing out two thrusts. Two thrusts into a pie. Jason Biggs (poor guy) has sex with an apple pie, which is totally R-rating acceptable, but in the original, he psychically has his way with the pie, not once but twice. That was too much for censors, and the brief scene was taken out. The sight of Jason Biggs having sex with a pie remains, though.
A Clockwork Orange
If a film contains a rape scene involving one of the characters singing “Singing In the Rain,” as opposed to a regular rape scene, it shouldn’t come as a surprise when your movie is rated X. And yet, it was nominated for Best Picture (like another film below). Two years after its initial release, director Stanley Kubrick removed 30 seconds of “sexually explicit footage” to achieve an R for the film’s re-release. Hilariously, Clockwork got a “C” rating from the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops. Not “C,” as in mediocre, but “C” meaning “Condemned.” It’s now just considered “O,” or morally offensive.
The Godfather: Part III
A blood spurt. A blood spurt from Don Licio Lucchesi’s neck after it’s snapped by Calo is what gave Part III an NC-17 rating. A blood spurt, for Christ’s sake! Although things still don’t end well for Lucchesi in the edited version (he gets stabbed in the throat by his own pair of glasses), Coppola got his R and continued making the perfectly meh third Godfather film.
Last Tango in Paris
This one’s my favorite: in 1972, X; in 1981, R; in 1997, NC-17 (no G?). What happened there, besides all the sex between Marlon Brando and Maria Schneider, that is? MGM released a censored version of Paris in 1981, but when the MPAA’s guidelines changed in 1997, so did the film’s rating. It’s still rated NC-17.
Midnight Cowboy
The first X film to win Best Picture was changed to an R rating not long after it was released. You know what changed? Literally nothing. Not a single frame from the X to R is different. The reasoning behind the change probably had more to do with the MPAA not wanting people to think it’s a hardcore sex film starring Dustin Hoffman. That’d be weird.
Monster’s Ball
This completely overrated movie got an NC-17 because of, well, you know THE scene. While Canada and the rest of the world could see the so-called “uncut version,” America was stuck with the slightly tamer edited film, at least until the movie was released on DVD in 2003 (and various unmentionable websites).
South Park: Bigger, Longer and Uncut/Team America: World Police
The only thing less surprising than South Park originally receiving an NC-17? Team America getting the same rating. Matt Stone and Trey Parker are no strangers to controversy, and both of their most well-known films almost got the box office kiss of death. For Team America, it was because of a scene involving puppets and oral sex, while South Park, which went before the MPAA six times before getting an R…well, here’s what Entertainment Weekly had to say at the time:
The transcript, dated March 24, reveals a smudged line separating R from NC-17. ”God f—ing me up the a– ” is grounds for an NC-17, but ”God’s the biggest bitch of them all” is perfectly R-rated. Say the word fisting and it’s an R; define that word on screen and nobody under 17 is admitted.
Orgazmo, on the other hand, that got an NC-17, and still has it.
The Wild Bunch
The greatest Western of all-time was rated R in 1969, when the film was first released. But when Warner Bros re-submitted the movie for a director’s cut re-release in 1993, featuring 10 extra minutes of footage, the MPAA gave it an NC-17, delaying the actual release until 1995. Warner Bros. eventually ended up slightly editing the extra footage, although no one seems sure why the NC-17 rating was brought up in the first place; the new material isn’t particularly violent, certainly no worse than, well, the other 130 minutes of the film.
Zack and Miri Make a Porno
The story behind the film turned out to be better than the film itself. People should know what to expect with a major motion picture that has “porno” (and “Miri”) in its title, but the MPAA first gave the film an NC-17 rating. Director Kevin Smith appealed, though, and won (similar to Clerks having to go through the same thing 14 years earlier), giving the film an R rating. Power to the porno people.