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A Conversation with Kirby Dick
As regular readers know, I avoid interviews like the plague - not because I can't do them, but because I usually find them boring. I ask the subject the same questions he or she has been asked a thousand times, and get the same rehearsed responses. Occasionally, I will interview a director, but almost never an actor. After all, what can the average hired gun provide to my knowledge base about a movie? Given an opportunity to spend some time with Kirby Dick, however, I accepted. Why? Two reasons: (1) I was presented with a chance to have a dialogue with him, not just to participate in a Q&A session, and (2) Dick is responsible for the year's most provocative documentary: the MPAA exposé This Film Is Not Yet Rated, which addresses the inconsistency, hypocrisy, and stupidity of the American movie classification system.
During the course of our 65-minute lunch, Dick and I discussed a number of topics, from his film to potential ways to reform the ratings system to piracy. Here are some of the highlights.
We started by talking about the current rating system - not so much the letters (G, PG, PG-13, R, NC-17) as the little content tags that accompany them. (The things that say stuff like "extreme violence," "partial nudity," etc.) Dick noted that "the descriptors are actually composed ad hoc. They're not applying any standards. They're just making them up." I remarked upon the choice of "graphic nudity" that was used for the film Broken Flowers and he nodded, indicating that such descriptors "underline the absurdity and inconsistency [of the system]." He also noted that the closest thing the MPAA has to a standard is the so-called "one fuck" rule. The word "fuck," if used once in a non-sexual context, can appear in a PG-13 film. If "fuck" is used more than once or in a sexual context, it leads to an R.
Dick understands that some sort of content report is needed, but he argues that today's system is deeply flawed. Currently, "the standard often is, 'Are they comfortable?' So if something comes along that's new," they don't know how to react to it. How to change the sytem? "You have to get more transparency and accountability." Government oversight, while perhaps not desirable in the long run, could be more positive than it sounds. "Regarding [government oversight], I think there's a strong argument for it vis-a-vis the current rating system. If it was improved, if it focused on getting information out, there's an advantage to self-regulation. As it is, [the current system] is very ineffective."
When former MPAA ratings board member Jay Landis suggested implementing a system of written standards, he was "forced off the board and threatened with a lawsuit if he talked about it." In Dick's opinion, "[The MPAA] may be the most unprofessional board operating in this country today. No training, no experts..."
He made This Film Is Not Yet Rated for two reasons: to embarrass the MPAA and to bring the truth about how they operate to the public's attention. "I want to challenge people to look at the MPAA critically. [The movie] will tarnish [the MPAA]... The people think the ratings system is ingrained in the filmmaking prodcess... They think it's a governmental organization or independently run." Those assumptions are not true, but the MPAA is happy to let the public think they are. Few groups are better at self-marketing than Jack Valenti's baby.
Getting This Film Is Not Yet Rated off the ground was not an easy task. A lot of directors Dick approached to speak against the MPAA wouldn't do it on the record. "I could not get a lot of people to speak critically about the MPAA... It's almost suicidal for someone in the system to fight it." A lot of smaller studios showed interest, but backed off after pressure was applied by their parent companies. Eventually, IFC put up the money to fund the movie. "If IFC had been owned by a studio, this film would not have been made."
Dick included clips excised from movies like The Cooler in order to assure he would get an NC-17. His intention from the beginning was not only to explain how the MPAA works and expose the "secret" members of both the ratings board and the appeals board, but to document the process. He was able to do all three. We talked about what it was like during the appeals process. Dick noted how intimidating it could be to someone who went in there with the hope of getting a rating overturned (something that happens about 15% of the time). His goal was to engage the members in a dialogue, but it didn't happen, although one man accused him: "You are obviously a talented filmmaker, but why are you attacking your own industry?" To Dick, that shows a fundamental disconnect.
Finally, there is the subject of piracy, one of the MPAA's big issues. The MPAA is the industry watchdog, fighting piracy wherever it can be found. There is more than a little irony, therefore, in the fact that the MPAA pirated This Film Is Not Yet Rated. They have admitted making an unauthorized copy of the movie (after telling Dick beforehand that they never do things like that), although they have not complied with a request made by Dick's attorney to identify the details surrounding the copying. (According to the MPAA website, piracy is defined thus: "Anyone who sells, acquires, copies or distributes copyrighted materials without permission is called a pirate." This applies to the MPAA with respect to This Film Is Not Yet Rated.) Their excuse? They were contemplating a lawsuit.
Dick is skeptical of how members of a group that profess to fight piracy can be taken seriously when they commit the offense they prosecute people for. He thinks their general approach is flawed. "Criminalizing today's youth is not the way to go." People so accused might easily react by saying, "If I'm a felon, I might as well commit a crime." According to him, the MPAA are reacting the way reactionary groups often react to the emergence of new technology - they try to "legislate it out of existence."
Jack Valenti, the former president of the MPAA and the originator of the ratings system, recently retired and was replaced by Dan Glickman. In Dick's opinon, Glickman is "a company man, but not Valenti's man." Does this mean there might be changes ahead? Dick doesn't know, but he's skeptical, because Glickman's power is limited. He is beholden to the studios, which run the MPAA. So how does Dick see things in the near future? "20 years from now, [ratings] will probably still be run by the MPAA. There will probably be some cosmetic changes. I hope there will be some substantive changes." He believes his film will help to make that happen. I share that hope. The difficulty is getting people to see This Film Is Not Yet Rated. It's currently booked for 35 cities, which is impressive, but its real success could come on DVD.
If you get a chance, it's worth the price of admission. The revelations it offers will change the way you think about movie ratings.
Staying on Topic
NOTE: This will be the last "ReelThoughts" entry for a little while. After today, I will turn my attention to daily coverage of the Toronto Film Festival. Barring computer or travel snafus, the festival "blog" will have daily entries from September 7 through September 17. While I could just post those combinations of observations and reviews to ReelThoughts, it's easier to keept them separate for archival purposes. Regular ReelThought entries will resume the week of September 17 (probably mid-week).
I have been writing a lot recently about profanity and censorship, in large part because of the release of Kirby Dick's This Film Is Not Yet Rated. Last Friday, when I posted excerpts from my lunchtime conversation with Dick, I thought I was done with the subject, and could turn my attention elsewhere, like whether it's appropriate to make a pseudo-documentary about the fictional assassination of a sitting president (more about that during the Toronto coverage). Instead, however, two recent incidents have raised my ire.
The first relates to the Emmys. Admittedly, I didn't watch them, but apparently Helen Mirren made a comment about nearly falling "tits over ass" as she made her way to the stage. A common British colloquialism, this got by the censors and avoided being bleeped, possibly because whoever had his/her finger on the button didn't understand what Mirren said because she has a British accent, or didn't think it warranted being expunged. Now, a bunch of self-righteous people - probably the same ones up in arms about Janet Jackson's "wardrobe malfunction" - are complaining. Apparently, you not only can't show a tit on television, you can't say the word, either. Give me a break. Taken in context, I hardly think this is going to scandalize a nine-year old. To call this "obscene" is absurd.
Next week (September 10, to be precise), CBS intends to (re)broadcast a 9/11 documentary that includes profanity. Advocacy groups are complaining. Consider for a moment how stupid this is. We're talking about a program about an American horror - an act of murder and terror in which thousands of lives were lost - and some people are worried about cursing. They don't care, apparently, that we're seeing images of death and mayhem, but only that profanity is going to be aired during prime time on network television. And, considering the circumstances and the people who utter the curses, doesn't it seem foolish to censor the "forbidden" words? Doesn't context play a role? The decision to air this documentary unexpurgated makes as much sense as playing Schindler's List and Saving Private Ryan without edits. Anyone mature enough to watch a documentary about the horrors of 9/11 is old enough to hear a few swear words.
For some reason, a group of people have decided to protest these two instances, lobbying the FCC to levy fines. I understand there are a lot of uptight people out there who are threatened by words, images of the human body, and "non-standard" sexual orientations. Forgetting about Biblical prohibitions like "judge not, lest ye be judged," they cite other verses that support their positions, intolerant though they may be. (Taken as a whole, the Bible is a remarkably progressive document, but too many people prefer the pick-and-choose approach. Keep in mind that slaveowners used the Bible to justify the institution of slavery.) However, in these cases at least, there seems to be a lack of consideration and balance.
The next question to ask is whether these same people who are upset about Helen Mirren's comment and the 9/11 documentary would protest the showing of The Passion of the Christ in an unedited form during prime time. Granted, there's neither profanity nor nudity in that movie, but the violence is so extreme that many argued the film should have been given an NC-17 during its theatrical release. (Should I be using an MPAA rating to make a point? Circular logic will only make you dizzy...) There's no doubt that the scenes of Jesus being scourged will upset some viewers and cause others to turn away (or turn the channel). If these protesters complain about that, at least their positions are consistent. If not, they're staring directly into the face of hypocrisy. (We'll probably know in a couple of years. There's talk about a Good Friday airing of the film in 2008.) For the record, I would support showing the movie unedited. I think a great deal of its cumulative power comes from the brutality of the scourging.
I suppose the point of all this, beside giving me an opportunity to vent, is to point out how far minority groups of "watchdogs" will go to restrict what mainstream Americans can see. A blanket ban on profanity takes us down a dangerous road. There's a difference between gratuitous bad language in a network TV program and contextually relevant profanity in a documentary or a brief slip of the tongue during an awards show. People who refuse to acknowledge those differences are betraying their ignorance or intolerance, and are not the people I want legislating morality to anyone in this country, let alone impressionable children.
Fatigue
Film festivals generate two types of fatigue. The first is the kind everyone is familiar with: not enough sleep. For me, a typical day at the Toronto Film Festival begins with the alarm going off at 7:00 am (or earlier) and doesn't end until about 1:30 or 2:00 am, when I turn off my computer and crawl under the sheets. I can easily withstand five hours of sleep for a day or two at a time (provided I am allowed a morning cup of caffeine), but when it goes on for over a week, it becomes draining. To make matters worse, I developed a cold mid-way through the festival. When I'm sick, I don't sleep much (and when I do sleep, it's a fitful slumber), so I was working on about four hours' sleep for the last three days when I was in Toronto.
The second kind of weariness is what I call "movie fatigue." It comes from highly concentrated film viewing. In this case, that means more than 30 films in a little over a week. (Plus a stretch of 13 consecutive days in which I saw at least one theatrical movie - not a record, but close.) When it's all over, the last thing I want to do is trudge out to a multiplex and "catch up" on stuff I have missed, especially since so much of it looks unpromising. After seeing the likes of Babel, Little Children, and Black Book, who wants to endure Feast and The Guardian?
Returning from a film festival requires a short period of adjustment. This typically means taking a few days to not do anything (except maybe cutting the lawn), then "easing" back into my normal routine. For those who are there to see movies and write about them, a festival becomes an intense experience. There's always a sense of falling behind and rushing to catch up. If I get a write-up of a film on-line less than 48 hours after seeing it, I'm in good shape. That doesn't always happen, and the longer it takes to write something up, the less clear it will be in my memory. Normally, I can go about a week between seeing a movie and writing the review if circumstances dictate it. During a festival, that luxury doesn't exist. I can start the day "caught up" and finish it five movies behind.
There are few Toronto-related topics I plan to address in the next few ReelThoughts. One is movie related (why a mediocre film like Death of a President can generate so much discussion) and one is not (the agony of air travel). Then I'll get back to my usual rants about piracy, the MPAA, why Americans fear female breasts, and whether the high def DVD format war is killing the golden goose.
The Emperor's New Clothes
2006, more than any other recent twelve-month period, has been a year when hype and controversy have sold movies. From United 93 to World Trade Center, from The Da Vinci Code to Snakes on a Plane, studios have been courting the free advertising that comes from doing things that push people's hot buttons. But no film has been more guilty of delivering less content to go with more controversy than Death of a President, the British pseudo-documentary that screened earlier this month at the Toronto Film Festival and will be coming soon to a theater near you. This movie is a perfect example of The Emperor's New Clothes. The guy's naked, but the critics are lining up to praise his wardrobe.
One school of criticism argues that anything controversial must be good. A related school accepts that any movie that adopts the political viewpoint of the critic is good. I reject both approaches because I find them to be fundamentally dishonest. It's not necessary to agree with a movie to admire its craftsmanship. Herein lies the difference between Fahrenheit 9/11 and Triumph of the Will. Both are propaganda. However, Triumph of the Will is superbly made, while Fahrenheit 9/11 has the feel of something slapped together in a hurry. Yet many critics will condemn Triumph of the Will because they don't like its politics and praise Fahrenheit 9/11 because they agree with Michael Moore. If I was to reduce film criticism to that level, I would agree with them. However, I have no moral qualms about recommending Triumph of the Will. It's an important film, and appreciating it does not make one a Nazi. Likewise, I suffer no pangs of conscience for recommending that viewers stay away from Fahrenheit 9/11. It isn't an important piece of filmmaking. (In fact, it's not even an interesting one.)
I am not a George W. Bush supporter. I believe he has done more damage to this country than any president in the last 75 years except Richard Nixon. I will rejoice in January 2009 when he leaves office. It's hard to imagine anyone - Democrat or Republican - doing a worse job. 10 years ago, the United States was regarded with respect across most of the globe. Today, it's either a laughingstock or a magnet for hatred, depending on which country you're in. Most of that is the fault of George "nucular" Bush.
Based on my political perspective alone, I should love Death of a President, which presents a fictional scenario in which Bush is assassinated in 2007 in Chicago. The problem is, while it may represent wish fulfillment for 90% of those who are reviewing it, it is not a well made motion picture. From a technical standpoint, it's clumsy and amatuerish (there's one voice dub when it's clear the lips are saying one thing while the soundtrack says another). From a cinematic standpoint, it's dull. Yet many critics are praising it for its daring.
One key point to argue is raised by Jim Emerson, the perceptive film critic who acts as the webmaster of rogerebert.com. In Emerson's look at Death of a President, he makes the following observation: "What the film does is to take the real events that have characterized the Bush administration -- particularly its most infamous political modus operandi of marshaling selected and manufactured 'facts' to fit a preordained conclusion -- and transpose them from the past into the future. When a forensics expert talks about the evidence against a suspect as being supportive but, in itself, inconclusive... and says he was told repeatedly to 'look again' to strengthen a weak case, it's exactly like the CIA analysts who were interviewed in several 'Frontline' documentaries talking about the phony case the administration made for the invasion of Iraq." I don't disagree with much of what Emerson says, but his conclusions are skewed by his politics. While it's true that injustices are committed on the way to convicting someone of the Death of a President assassination, this is not a case of Bush's policies being "transposed from the past to the future." It's a reality of any high-profile crime (past, current, or future) that there is an incredible amount of pressure placed on Law Enforcement to arrest someone, even if that person turns out to be a patsy. Bush's policies have nothing to do with this. How many people doubt that Lee Harvey Oswald acted alone? How many theories are there that Sirhan Sirhan wasn't the one who fired the fatal shots at RFK? The list goes on... The cops pounce. A suspect is jailed. A trial is held. The suspect is convicted. The public feels justice has been done. That's the way things have always been in America. Trying to tie this into Bush's policies is a leap down a blind alley.
These are the kinds of justifications emerging when a film critic defends the movie. It requires an astounding degree of naivete to find anything compelling about the film's themes. It's also interesting to note that the majority of the movie's most ardent supporters, like its director, live outside of the United States (Emerson is an exception). This fits with my theory that the affection for the film is based largely upon its potential for wish fulfillment. Death of a President eliminates Bush, proposes that civil injustices were done in arresting an assassin, and pretty much ignores the fact that Dick Cheney ascends to the Oval Office. Fictionally killing a real person, regardless of how poorly liked he is, is tacky at best and unwarranted at worst. Could it be justified for a powerful, thought-provoking movie? Yes, but neither of those descriptors applies here. For wish fulfillment, why not make an alternate history movie in which Al Gore won the 2000 election? All we have with Death of a President is a mediocre fake documentary hiding behind a curtain of controversy. The Emperor's New Clothes are no clothes at all.
Turn It Down!
It's late at night. The date on the calendar has already switched over. I'm sitting placidly at the computer surfing as I do research on one subject or another. My cat is curled up on my lap, sleeping, and my wife is in the next room, having gone to bed two hours earlier. Suddenly, my computer starts screaming at me. "YOU MAY HAVE JUST WON AN XBOX 360!" It shouts, threatening to wake the dead. Panicked after being jolted out of her slumber, the cat scratches me as she flees the room. My wife has been awakened and makes her displeasure known in ways that only rudely awakened wives can. By the time I find the volume switch on my speakers, the damage has been done.
I recognize the need of Internet advertisers to find new and flashy ways of attracting the attention of surfers. Regular banner ads have lost much of their effectiveness. (Remember the days when it was fun to click on them just to see where they would lead?) 90% of pop-ups are blocked. However, the decision to use music and voices in ads crosses the line that separates catchy advertising from intrusive advertising. It has forced me to operate in a default "speakers off" mode whenever I'm surfing.
The problem with talking ads isn't that there's sound, but that it's loud and jarring - the internet equivalent of a used car dealer's radio commercial. If the makers of these ads would lower the volume, they would be more effective. The noise of faint talking would get my attention but it wouldn't encourage me to turn the speaker volume to zero and close every browser window I have open.
Advertisers (at least some of them) seem to have forgotten the term "consumer friendly." The objective of some ads is to be as obnoxious as possible. This is not a good way to sell a product. When I find a commercial to be offensive or irritating, I go out of my way not to buy the product. The same thing is true in the politicial arena, by the way. If I identify a political ad as being misleading or untruthful, I make a note to vote for the opponent in that election. (Of course, there's always the possibility that the opponent is running an equally malicious commercial, in which case I don't vote for either.)
Movie sites, by the way, are among the worst offenders. Some of them accept ads from studios that contain trailers that begin playing automatically. When I visit a site and this happens, I do not visit again. Now that I have allowed advertising on ReelViews, I field requests for advertising, and I have turned down all that involve audio. It hurts the bank balance a little, but when the alternative is pissing off readers, it doesn't take a lot of thought. After all, I do enough of that with my inflammatory ReelThoughts columns.
©2006 James Berardinelli
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