Category Archives: American culture

Violence is fine, sex is not

[Youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dDqxuGlxbWc]

Explanations on the different ratings

[Youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UTL3XMDwY0c]

More on the private investigation bit on the MPAA members

This Film Is Not Yet Rated (2006)

The MPAA gave the original cut of the film an NC-17 rating for “some graphic sexual content”: scenes that illustrated the content a film could include to garner an NC-17 rating. Kirby Dick appealed, and descriptions of the ratings deliberations and appeal were included in the documentary. The new version of the film is not rated.

NC-17 is a film rating of the United States film industry used to denote films “No One 17 And Under Admitted” (18 and older ONLY). These films contain excessive graphic violence, sex, aberrational behavior, drug abuse, strong language, or any other elements which, when present, most parents would consider too strong and therefore off-limits for viewing by their children and teens. NC-17 does not necessarily mean obscene or pornographic in the oft-accepted or legal meaning of those words. The Board does not and cannot mark films with those words. These terms are legally ambiguous, and their interpretation varies from case to case.

(A little) more on film censorship and banned films and more on Censorship in the United States.

World cinema classics #14

[Youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-8n1kDrwneg]

Blood Simple (1985) Joel and Ethan Coen

Today is Ethan Coen’s fiftieth birthday.

Look out for the scene where the detective opens the window; the woman slams it on top of his wrist and drives a knife through his hand into the windowsill. The original soundtrack is by Carter Burwell, who has done the soundtracks to all of the Coens’ films.

Previous “World Cinema Classics“

The Act of Seeing with One’s Own Eyes

The Act of Seeing with One’s Own Eyes is a 1971 American film by experimental filmmaker Stan Brakhage. The film focuses on the relations between documentary and fantasy in what may be called a limit experience. The film consists of a series of autopsies in a Pittsburgh morgue and have been described as hard to watch.

Only recommended for very strong stomachs. Here on Youtube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DIjkIJvHIzQ, click on for parts two and three.

    The perfect human

    [Youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pdn6wrM1Hqw]

    Andy Warhol by Jørgen Leth in 66 Scenes from America (1982)

    “My name is Andy Warhol and I just finished eating a hamburger.”

    Hjort: Some of your documentary films experiment interestingly with the relation between word and image. I’m thinking, for example, of “66 Scenes from America”, which presents a series of almost hyper-real, postcard-like images of America, that are identified, in a series of significantly delayed, laconic and minimalist comments. The longest sequence is that of Andy Warhol fastidiously eating a hamburger. Having completed this exercise, Warhol delivers the following line: ‘My name is Andy Warhol and I just finished eating a hamburger.’ What, exactly, is the purpose of the intentionally strained and awkward relation between images and words in “66 Scenes from America”? —Jørgen Leth interviewed by Mette Hjort & Ib Bondebjerg, September 2002