The NC-17 rating has long been the movie industry's equivalent of the scarlet letter.
Slap the label on a movie and audiences would shun it, many theater owners would refuse to show it and the film certainly would be a long shot for an Academy Award.
But some in Hollywood are hoping the latest film by Taiwanese director Ang Lee will change the way American audiences perceive the NC-17 label. Lee's movie "Brokeback Mountain" shattered Hollywood convention when the stereotype-busting picture about gay cowboys catapulted into the mainstream two years ago and won him an Academy Award for best director.
Now, theater owners are being encouraged by their trade group to show his latest film, "Lust, Caution," an erotic spy thriller that opens in the U.S. today. The picture, rated NC-17, opened briskly in Hong Kong and Taiwan, where it was released earlier this week.
"If Ang Lee does well, then maybe others will follow and we can get rid of these myths that have created challenges for this rating," said John Fithian, president of the National Assn. of Theatre Owners.
That would reverse a stigma attached to the NC-17 rating since 1990, when the Motion Picture Assn. of America created the label to replace the "X," which had been co-opted by the porn industry. The designation, which means no one 17 or under will be admitted, is reserved for sexually explicit movies.
But such fare is readily available on TV and the Internet, pushing the boundaries of what is acceptable and inflaming critics who say America's values are being corroded.
Studio executives contend that the NC-17 rating is too broad, lumping movies such as "Orgazmo" and "Whore" with films from such noted directors as Pedro Almodovar, Bernardo Bertolucci and David Cronenberg.
"It is hard for audiences to distinguish what the rating means," said Tom Bernard, co-president of Sony Pictures Classics. He noted that Almodovar's 2004 film "Bad Education" suffered in part because of its NC-17 rating and was not among his highest-grossing films. "People perceive they might get an unpleasant surprise and so they stay away. That's a problem."
It wasn't always so. In the late 1960s and '70s, major directors such as John Schlesinger, Stanley Kubrick, Sidney Lumet and Bertolucci made X-rated movies with big-name actors including Marlon Brando, Dustin Hoffman, Richard Dreyfuss and Lynn Redgrave.
