Do we need a better method to certify films?
In my lifetime film have been certified in two styles here in the UK. Firstly we had letters. They were U,A,AA(15 and up) and X
Now they are U,12,12A(anyone 12 must be accompanied by an adult), 16 and 18.
These ages are content warnings, rather than complexity of story or other levels of understanding. Are these the best way or is there a better one?
Now they are U,12,12A(anyone 12 must be accompanied by an adult), 16 and 18.
These ages are content warnings, rather than complexity of story or other levels of understanding. Are these the best way or is there a better one?
Comments
Well, I think there's probably a stronger imperative to avoid "My kids got into an improperly rated screening of Caligula and saw an explicit scene of a sex-and-torture orgy" than there is to avoid "My kids got into an improperly rated screening of The Seventh Seal and were confused by the plot".
But I suspect they only did that because the movie was rated Family(aka G), which might lead some people to think it's something that kids would enjoy.
15, not 16. I also think that rating a film by complexity of story would potentially make it hard to hide plot twists or other spoilers.
Interesting, when I saw Conclave (which is rated PG) I don't remember seeing anything similar - although it might have been more self-explanatory there. If Conclave had won Best Picture at the Oscars it would have been the first PG-rated movie to do so in many years.
The problem with ratings is mostly one of what we should be basing those on, because what some people consider inappropriate or offensive by some wouldn't be a concern to others.
All ages admitted. Nothing that would offend parents for viewing by children.
Some material may not be suitable for children. Parents urged to give “parental guidance.” May contain some material parents might not like for their young children.
Some material may be inappropriate for children under 13. Parents are urged to be cautious. Some material may be inappropriate for pre-teenagers.
Under 17 requires accompanying parent or adult guardian. Contains some adult material. Parents are urged to learn more about the film before taking their young children with them.
No one 17 and under admitted. Clearly adult. Children are not admitted.
The ratings are often accompanied by descriptors indicating the reasons for the rating of a particular film: e.g., language, nudity, sexual content, violence.
Being of scabrous mind, I can't helping of the list of reasons as a ticklist. No nudity, no sex, no swearing? Sod that!
I think it would be harder to do age ratings for theatre, because it's not a fixed thing like a film - each production of the same play will be different. But the content warnings tend to be specific, which I think makes it helpful for parents.
I think complexity of plot would be hard to rate, because different people find different things complex/confusing - there can be emotional complexity, relationship complexity, reading-between-the-lines complexity, and just general complexity of details. And often a film can have a really complex plot, but you don't need to understand all the complexities to get what's going on and the interactions between the characters- such as that recent spy film which was designed to be like a spy version of Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf. I didn't understand all the details of the spy stuff, but I didn't feel I needed to, as that didn't seem the main point of the story. (Edited to add: I googled to remind myself of the name. Black Bag.)
A friend of mine thinks it’s drivel that he could make neither head nor tail of. I still have occasional nightmares and it has affected me more than anything else I’ve ever seen on a screen.
I’m not sure its (current) classification of 15 is remotely appropriate, but only because it has stayed with me to such an extent since I saw it on BBC2 late night 20-odd years ago.
I may or may not have reviewed that on the Ship a few months back. One of Soderbergh's weaker efforts, in my view. I wasn't buying the premise of all these married/partnered couples working in such close proximity to one another in the same spy agency, and the justification for identifying the culprit ie.
Have you seen the other two films in Anderson's trilogy, If... and Britannia Hospital ?
I've seen those two, but, except for a few seconds while channel-surfing, not Oh, Lucky Man!. Anderson seems to have a penchant for injecting non-sequitorial medical weirdness into his stories.
Yes, I agree there are those two separate sound issues. I do expect unexpected loud noises with horror, but I don't usually watch horror. It can happen in other types of films. I would find it handy to know at what point sudden loud noises happen, if they aren't very often - things to look for in the story to alert me. It would be a bit of a spoiler, as with theatre, so the moments couldn't be written in the description (though 'sudden loud noises' could), but could potentially be info given if asked for.
Yes, that was the major criticism of it in reviews, that of course couples wouldn't be working so closely in a real life situation. I wasn't watching it in terms of realism though - I thought the whole thing was OTT, but I was fascinated by how the dynamics were depicted, particularly that dinner scene that reminded me so much of Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf, before I even knew that was the inspiration behind it.
I'm not sure if I explicitly connected it to WAOVW(in the the way I connected Blue Jasmine to A Streetcar Named Desire), though I would probably have lumped it in with the overall revelatory-psychodrama in the living room
Maybe the script shoulda have had 'em all working together in some private-sector company, or as members of the same home-owners association, or something. I suppose they were trying to attract audience with the topical Russia vs. Ukraine(or wherever) McGuffin.
Which I think at least one unimpressed critic accused Albee of ripping off from Eugene O'Neill. Maybe also something about a shotgun-wedding with postwar French absurdism.
Have you seen The Informant? Another Soderbergh thriller, about an executive exposing corruption in agribusiness.
It takes place in the early 90s, but has a mood and visual ambience similar to Cold War spy movies. Harbours a slightly goofy quality about itself, and the plot skips along at a brisk pace. Black Bag, on the other hand, seemed to be imparting itself with a little too much gravitas.
(A theory I have about Soderbergh is that he's especially at home with Silent Generation topics and themes. See also the Ocean movies and Behind The Candelabra.)
If… is a brilliant film - I’ve probably seen it 30 or 40 times.
Britannia Hospital is a nasty mess.
O Lucky Man! sits somewhere between the two as a brilliant, unpleasant film that is almost off the scale bleak. But does deserve to be seen. Once.
‘Basically it’s ’Threads’ without the hope.’
Thanks. Yeah, I liked If... better than Britannia Hospital. Though I saw BH much earlier, so it was hard to remember for a comparison.
I'll keep in mind the recommendation for O Lucky Man!. Don't think I could be convinced to watch The Whales Of August.
In the film a family home caught fire overnight owing to an electrical fault. Each member of the family ignored the rule Get Out, Stay Out, Get the Fire Brigade in a different way, and they all died in correspondingly different ways (Mum was smoke inhalation, Dad was exploded, kids were burnt to a crisp, dog was in the same explosion as Dad.)
At the end, the final scene showed the whole family and dog standing in their garden watching the fire brigade attending their house, and there's a moment of They were saved! until a fireman walks through them - they all died and are ghosts!
This film was brought to the school by members of the Fire Brigade. After the film my son asked the fireperson to confirm some of the details and the fireperson confirmed that if you have electricity in your house, your house might burn down THAT VERY NIGHT! And yes, if you have electricity in your house you and all your family might be faced with a hideous death THAT VERY NIGHT!
And - guess what? Our house has electricity!
His teacher was very apologetic, as she could see the direction my son's questions were going, and she didn't intervene.
That's when I found out that educational films are not classified.
Also the wilder shores of Play for Today - think of mainstream commissioners going anywhere near the script for Penda’s Fen now, let alone giving it a green light.
I wonder if there was actually a higher bar in the past for classification? Not for the public information films as discussed, but in terms of cinema, and what was made for tv.
No, I haven't. I don't usually like spy movies. (I find them boring and confusing. Even in my 50s, so I'm not sure an age rating for confusion factor would work!) I watched Black Bag because I have an unlimited cinema subscription, and I look up the films that are playing, and saw that this was supposed to be good in its own right, so I thought I'd try it. I suppose it worked for me because I like plays and I've seen Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf (I googled afterwards to see if anyone else had found it similar, and that's how I learnt it was intentional). I do agree there is quite a bit of gravitas about it, but I thought that was exaggerated for effect, kind of making fun of itself, rather than taking itself too seriously. I dunno. Do you recommend The Informant for someone who doesn't usually like spy movies, but likes something a bit different and interesting?
I've really only started watching films regularly in the past couple of years, when I decided to get an unlimited membership. My favourite thing to watch is event cinema, when operas and National Theatre plays are streamed (I get those half price with my membership). So I don't know a lot about different film makers, though I have worked a bit with film students, so I have learnt about film techniques. I prefer arthouse films, foreign films, or any film that is unusual. I get impatient with Hollywood films that follow a certain formula.
There is a Facebook (and Twitter IIRC) group called ‘Scarred for Life’ which exists to circulate British public information films of the 70s and 80s
My son's fire safety film was shown to him around 2005, when he was about 11. His teacher said that it definitely wouldn't have been classified below 12, but as an educational film it was unclassified.
I think the "don't play on railways" one was worse, but as my son wasn't in the habit of playing on railways, he was unconcerned about that one.
Yes. I would recommend The Informant. It actually isn't a spy movie, just a true story about a corporate whistleblower, so it involves secrets and whatnot, and I thought it was maybe playfully alluding to spy movies. But the plot isn't really the same as in that genre, and it's not overly suspenseful or violent.
I was severely traumatised by the railways film https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Finishing_Line IIRC it caused a load of copycat incidents of kids throwing rocks at trains, not exactly the desired effect.
Thanks. I'll check it out.
You're welcome.
The music is by Marvin Hamlisch, which I think might've partly influenced my interpretation of the film as a James Bond(etc) tribute.
Ah, I associate him with musicals - I do like A Chorus Line!
Yeah. I never paid much attention to him, but I knew he wrote The Spy Who Loved Me, so that's kinda my reference point for him.
Similar to Tom Jones, Hamlisch always strikes me as someone from an older generation than he actually was(probably because musicals and James Bond seem like my parents' interests), which probably ties into my view of Soderbergh.
And, speaking of which, while pondering all this stuff an hour or so ago, I got thinking about Terence Stamp, star of The Limey. And then I checked out The Guardian...
(In my defense, the words "...the spy who loved me..." do appear in the lyrics, and I THINK the usual nomenclature for Bond themes is the name of the film.)
According to google, there have been six Bond themes that don't take the film's title as their own.
My school put on Equus many years ago. Without actual nudity, for obvious reasons, but there was strong advice to parents that this was a show to hire the babysitter for, and not a show to bring younger siblings to see their older sibling perform.