A nice interview with Firth and Rush: http://www.cnn.com/2011/SHOWBIZ/01/27/firth.piers.morgan/index.html?hpt=C2
And then there’s the bloke who turned down the role that Colin Firth took.
It seems the film’s critical acclaim and awards nominations are gaining it wider distribution and the potential for a much larger audience. And consequently producer Harvey Weinstein is considering re-editing the film to remove those parts, and get rid of the ‘R’ rating.
I haven’t seen it, but it sounds like the profanity is key to important scenes. Is it? Would admirers of the film prefer to see it kept intact, or to maximize its audience in amended form?
In the Oscar edition of Newsweek Firth speaks to this (presumably clearly):
It’s a key scene, and a very funny/moving one. Is an R rating that much of a commercial handicap?
I wouldn’t have thought so. I’ve even heard people say that an ‘R’ is like a seal of approval; they assume anything less may be less than compelling. That’s a little silly, of course.
Weinstein feels the film is doing particularly well in Britain because it got a ‘12A’ rating there, and that its popularity in America would benefit from having a ‘PG’ rating here by the time the Academy Awards winners are announced a month from now (presumably he expects to win a few).
I can think of other reasons the film might be doing particularly well in Britain.
But evidently there is believed to be a significant faction of Americans who would see a duly-decorated film, but only if it doesn’t have f- and s-words.
I just got back from seeing it. It was simply brilliant.
When the Beethoven Seventh started to play under his climactic speech, it was so perfect, I teared up (a sentimental softie!). I knew it for Beethoven, but couldn’t ID the exact piece until later. No matter - it fit the scene perfectly.
That’s not the way it works.
If it has an R rating, most movie goers won’t be allowed to see it.
And then not everyone knows that the R rating was only for bad language. An R rating could also mean that the film has sex or graphic violence.
I went and saw it last night and loved it. I have a lot of friends who dislike language in a move and rarely go see R-rated films, but this one is turning out to be an exception, because of the way it’s done.
However, it may well be perceived as a movie for the PBS crowd. I think I was the youngest person in the theater. Everyone else was over 50. But most of my friends my age have gone and seen it too.
And therein lies an important difference between the US and a lot of other Western nations: the former is unduly influenced by a bunch of self-righteous prigs who would be happy to have a whole bunch of teenagers miss an outstanding movie because it contains a few incidences of profanity.
Of the ratings listed on the movie’s IMDB entry—US, UK, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Malaysia, Ireland, Switzerland and Japan—only the United States and Malaysia have an age restriction on the movie for children over the age of 12. In Malaysia, the age restriction is 18, and in the United States it’s 17.
All the other countries on the list have no age restrictions at all, or restrictions only on children 12 and younger or 7 and younger (Switzwerland). That leaves just the US and Malaysia who believe that this film is inappropriate for an unaccompanied 16-year-old. Pretty sad, really.
If the director wants to take out the cuss words in a revised edition to reach a wider audience, I’ll grumble a bit, but it’s his prerogative. It’s not quite on the same level of Hollywood horribleness as colorizing Casablanca or making Greedo shoot first.
Most movie goers are under 17 years old? For a real-world drama?
We went to see it, and adored it, and on the way in my husband, who knew next to nothing about the content of the film, asked if the R rating he’d heard about was due to WWII content, I suppose assuming it was a violence related rating. I told him the rating was due to the graphic oral sex scene between Firth and Rush; he nodded and grimaced a little, but said nothing. It wasn’t until about an hour in that he turned to me and whispered, “You were having me on with that blowjob joke; weren’t you?”
Anyway, I find the ‘R’ rating of the movie in some countries complete garbage, for a couple of bad words. It’s a stream of words, not even directed at anyone!
Actually I don’t quite understand the issue here. It’s my understanding that R rated movies generally make more money than PG-13 movies, that many movies insert adult material just to get the R rating, and that most movie theatres don’t check the ages of ticket holders anyway.
It’s generally an NC-17 rating that kills a movie because a lot of cinemas just won’t show them.
Why donthe producers of this movie think the R rating is restricting their viewership?
I don’t see how an R rating would even matter here. It’s not like there is a line of teenagers just waiting to get in to see this film, and the only thing holding them back is the rating!
I think part of it is that this is a film that would be great to show a class of school children once it is released on DVD, but many schools would balk at showing an R rated film. There’s always one kid who mentions it to their parents, who write angry letters about their dear, innocent child being exposed to a four letter word…
Quick question, I haven’t seen the movie as of now as its not yet released in Philippines.
Are there any actual genuine original transmissions of Bertie’s speeches used in the film?
As much as I liked this movie, I don’t think it would be a good choice to show in an American school. It’s not of enough relevance to the curriculum to justify taking up two class periods, and it’s not going to be entertaining enough for kids to use for a class party.
I would guess that if the R rating is indeed hurting this movie, it would be because some of the “PBS crowd” might stay away because they wrongly assumed the movie had graphic violence or gratuitous sex.
Agreed, of course. To an audience of young American viewers, there’s not perhaps too much to be interested in. However, in those places in the world that were or are part of the British Commonwealth, it may have more relevance. In the twelfth grade, my Social Studies class - or half its students, anyway - spent three periods discussing Edward, his abdication, and his Nazi sympathies. This movie, though not entirely historically accurate, might have been an interesting side note, or perhaps a way to draw the other half of the class into the discussion. But being slapped with an R rating could give teachers pause.
My kids saw it. They are 11 and 12. They liked it (I was surprised, it has relatively few explosions for a 12 year old boy). R ratings simply mean they need to be attended by a parent or guardian. Frankly, I think that in this case parents should be strongly cautioned. I wouldn’t want to see this movie in a theater full of bored twelve year olds.
Often, as a parent, when I look for movies to take my kids to, I look for “anything rated PG” and start from there. In this case the R rating doesn’t really mean “my kids might be shocked” - it means “my kids might be bored.”
I didn’t take them. My mother did. I have few issues with the language, I’m just surprised they sat through it.