High ratings
So, back to the power of film.
The power of film? Has any movie ever changed anything in the
real world?
Well, you might remember Erroll Morris’s “Thin Blue Line”
getting an apparently innocent man off death row. More recently, Kirby Dick’s
“This Film Has Not Yet Been Rated,” his puckish and devastating exposé of the absurdities
and iniquities of the MPAA ratings system, seems to have had an effect. MPAA
head Dan Glickman and Joan Graves recently have avowed to rectify some of the
more glaring abuses, such as expanding their pool of raters beyond the
self-interested fold of studio employees, clarifying the standards of judgment
and allowing filmmakers to refer to other films when making their case. They’re
also heading to Sundance to discuss with Indie filmmakers other ways of
improving the system.
In the high altitude and thin air of Park City,
they might get more than they bargained for. Let’s just say things get a little racier than
Abigail Breslin dancing to “Superfreak” in “Little Miss Sunshine.”
In his report for the New York Post headlined “Sundance with the
Devil,” reviewer Lou Lumenick describes it as “the most shocking festival
ever.” Among the offerings are “Hounddog,” in which angelic 12-year-old Dakota
Fanning is raped and is seen partially nude; “Black Snake Moan” in which Samuel
L. Jackson chains Christina Ricci to a
radiator in her undies to keep her from misbehaving; and “An American Crime,” a
true story in which Catherine Keener plays a housewife in 1965 Indiana who ties
up a teenaged female lodger and, with the rest of her family and some concerned
neighbors, tortures her to death over the course of several days.
Ouch! It seems like the bondage, rape and torture of underaged
females might be the high concept of 2007. Meanwhile, Ms. Graves assures film
lovers: “I keep hearing about how many ‘thrusts’ you can have in a film. We’ve
never had a rule about the number of ‘thrusts.'”