Given the extensive EWS dialogue, I just wanted to alert list members to the NYTimes piece below, and to the fact that Alan Dershowitz has a commentary on the rating board in this week's Chronicle of Higher Education. (While I'm on my shameless plugging kick: Look for Thomas Doherty's piece on the Hitchcock centennial in next week's Chronicle.) My own thought as I saw EWS and the superimposed bodies in the orgy scene was just, who does the MPAA think it's protecting? There are plenty of potentially disturbing sights and concepts in the movie (which I found to be both fascinating and, I confess--call me superficial--a little goofy). But a little anatomy more or less certainly didn't seem to be the issue. I've found helpful the contributions to the list about allusions, and how they both do and don't assist us in getting a grip on this strange picture. And as a one-time Nassau County police reporter for Newsday, I couldn't help but wonder, after seeing EWS, if I shouldn't have spent more time lurking around Glen Cove! I guess, covering Hempstead drug feuds and Long Island Rail Road accidents, I missed the big orgy story. ____________ Critics Assail Ratings Board Over 'Eyes Wide Shut' By BERNARD WEINRAUB HOLLYWOOD -- The New York Film Critics Circle has joined Los Angeles critics in attacking the Motion Picture Association of America for requiring that Stanley Kubrick's "Eyes Wide Shut" be altered to qualify for its R rating. A statement by the New York group, signed by 28 members and issued Monday night, said the association's ratings board was "out of control" and had "become a punitive and restrictive force, effectively trampling the freedom of American filmmakers." The association said the board "had created its own zone of knee-jerk Puritanism." At issue was the insistence by the board that a scene of a sexual orgy warranted an NC-17 rating, which would have meant that no one under 17 would be admitted. For the film to receive an R rating -- requiring that anyone under 17 be accompanied by an adult -- 65 seconds of the movie were digitally altered. Essentially, shrouded digital figures were placed in front of couples engaged in sex, partly blocking the audience's view.. . . . . ___________________________________ Alexander C. Kafka Assistant Editor, Opinion/Point of View The Chronicle of Higher Education 1255 23rd St., N.W., Suite 700 Washington, D.C. 20037 202/466-1777 Fax: 202/452-1033 [log in to unmask] ---- For past messages, visit the Screen-L Archives: http://bama.ua.edu/archives/screen-l.html