Going too far

Atom Egoyan is a Canadian filmmaker. I've seen most of his features and enjoyed all of them (Exotica is bizarre enough to be amazing, not unlike David Lynch's Mulholland Dr., which....whoof). He's been working on his latest film, Where The Truth Lies, for a while now, and it should be out any time now. Whether I'll be able to see it or not is another issue.

The MPAA has given the film an NC-17 rating. The film features a menage á trois scene between the three lead characters (played by Kevin Bacon, Colin Firth, and Rachel Blanchard). About the scene, Egoyan said, "It cannot be cut without compromising the central scene of the narrative and thus rendering the mystery of the film incomprehensible."

A friend of mine found this shocking that the film should receive such an "awful rating". She posed the question: has Atom Egoyan gone too far?

The first thing that struck me was the use of the word 'awful' in regards to the NC-17 rating. Why is it awful? I'm twenty-two, and I wasn't planning to take any 17-and-unders to see the film with me when it comes out, so what's the big deal? The thing is, there's a stigma around NC-17. It just looks bad, doesn't it? NC-17. We're just so used to seeing the PG or the R (and, really, R ratings mean nothing anymore - I was never carded when I was under 16) that anything different is scary. The first NC-17 film I can remember was Showgirls, which I never saw but I remember hearing a lot about. It was so scandalous, and I honestly can't remember if it was because of Elizabeth Berkeley or because of the rating. Probably a little bit of both.

I must admit that the MPAA's rating guidelines have grown looser of late, which I have no problem with - again, I'm a mature adult, I can handle whatever you want to throw at me. So I suppose for something to warrant an NC-17 rating, it'd have to be pretty graphic. Having not seen the film, I can't make a call as to whether or not the MPAA is right in their rating. This brings me back to the question of going too far. If I find something disturbing, what does that mean? I think that says something more about me than it does the thing which disturbs me.

More importantly, can an artist go too far?

In my opinion, no. If Egoyan had felt okay about cutting down the threesone scene, that's totally his call. But I have to applaud the fact that he stuck to his guns and isn't cutting anything. The minute an artist lets some committee dictate his/her art is the minute that that art is no longer their own.

I'm a writer. I suppose I would consider myself an artist. I believe that a writer's objective is to aspire to tell an entertaining and interesting story that reveals something about character and maybe about human nature. If someone tells me that I've gone too far or that I have to change something, I'll listen to their argument, of course, but ultimately, if I disagree with them, I won't change it. You do what you have to to best serve the story.

I wrote a story a few years ago, and the climax of the story is this guy strangling this woman. The story builds to this almost from the beginning, and it's pretty much the inevitable conclusion, if you ask me (what do I know, though, I wrote the thing). As he's strangling her, he's enraged and irrational and screaming and swearing at her and one of the last things he says before he snaps her wind pipe is "You....fucking....cunt...". I remember workshopping that in class, and more than a few people took issue with the use of that word. It's a harsh word, I know. I have personally never used that word, ever, I find it terribly offensive, but it served the story. He objectified her in that moment as he was crushing the life out of her, and, I feel, it had to stay in. That one little word - because really, it is just a word, but it's what's behind that word that makes it what it is - revealed so much about his character, I just couldn't change it. If an explicit threesome scene best serves the story, then that's what stays in (Explicit is another word that has a bit of a stigma around it, isn't it?).

Now I want to open it up to anyone that might read this (I know there's a few of you, at least I hope there is). I really would like to hear what other people think about this.

Can an artist go too far?