LOS ANGELES -- Director James Toback is no stranger to shepherding an edgy, darkly themed film past the Motion Pictures Association of America ratings board.
A writer and director since the late 1970s, Toback's last movie, the indie hit Two Girls and a Guy, went multiple rounds with the ratings organization. The final result was that a shot with Robert Downey, Jr., going down on one of the girls showed his head bobbing only three times. The original cut had almost 10 bobs.
So when the MPAA ratings board dealt Toback's latest film, Black And White, an NC-17 rating, Toback and executive producer Hooman Majd fought back by taking their case to the people via streaming Internet video.
Slated for a winter release, Black And White, is a star-studded tale of rich white kids in New York City who become obsessed with uptown hip-hop culture and eventually find themselves entangled in a murder investigation. At Toback and Majd's site, the filmmakers have posted both versions, the one that garnered an NC-17 and the one that finally passed muster for an R.
The scene that aroused the MPAA's concern opens the film. After cutting from Central Park West, the camera closes on Bijou Phillips, Kim Matalova, and rapper Power, from the Wu-Tang Clan. The three are getting it on in a sexy three-way make-out scene in the woods near a lake in Central Park. Unbeknownst to them, a group of boys look on. There's something dark and brooding about the setting, but all three members of this menage are clearly willing participants.
Producer Majd explains the process by which a film is rated. The movie is screened and the board simply gives it a rating. Knowing that the director is seeking an R-rating, said Majd, "First they say 'The scene in the park with the guy and two girls is problematic.' While they won't say 'This is what we want you to do,' of course they mean that without that scene the movie would get its R-rating. The rating was unfair. They wanted us to cut the scene and the director wasn't willing to do that." The filmmakers took the movie to the MPAA appeals board where they earned a majority vote in support of changing the rating but not the 2/3 thirds majority they needed to overrule the larger board. That began a back-and-forth that ended with the filmmakers slightly changing the scene.
"My problem," said Majd, "is that, while anyone who sees that scene is still going to get it, it does affect the rhythm of the film, and it just doesn't work as well. The rating simply was unfair. We thought about what was the best way to expose it: The best way, we realized, is to go straight to the fans. The Internet is a great democratizer. It's a great way to see the processes of the industry."
On first viewing, the two scenes seem very similar. It takes a couple run-throughs before you realize the changes: a little less kissing between the two girls here, the camera doesn't linger on an exposed bottom for quite so long there, and instead of tweaking her partner's nipple, one of the women now cups the breast instead.
All are minor changes, and the gist of the scene is still there, but nonetheless, it's been changed. Moreover, the changes appear to be arbitrary: three seconds of girls kissing is OK, seven seconds is not. Handling a breast one way is fine, but touching it another way is taboo.
The fans appear eager to chime in, and generally agree that the ratings system seems to be arbitrary.
A visitor named Cinnamon posted the following to the message board: "I thought that the two versions were remarkably similar (one seemed a wee bit shorter) and do not exactly see how the editing of five seconds of nudity changes a rating."
Brooks, another poster, said, "The difference is trivial and I have seen much more 'explicit' material from an R-rated film than this. Really this is ridiculous."
"I hope more discussion about this kind of censorship in filmmaking will be the result," said Majd, "I want fans to see the difference, and I want parents to see how the ratings process actually works.
