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Young Adam (2003)
Starring:
Ewan McGregor, Tilda Swinton, Peter Mullan, Emily Mortimer, Jack McElhone, Therese Bradley
Writer/Director:
David Mckenzie
Story Source:
Alexander Trocchi
Studio:
Sony Pictures Classics
Official Website:
www.sonyclassics.com/youngadam
Source: www.movies.com
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NC-17: No One 17 And Under Admitted
"This rating declares that the Rating Board believes that this is a film that most parents will consider patently too adult for their youngsters under 17. No children will be admitted. NC-17 does not necessarily mean "obscene or pornographic" in the oft-accepted or legal meaning of those words.
The reasons for the application of an NC-17 rating can be violence or sex or aberrational behavior or drug abuse or any other elements which, when present, most parents would consider too strong and therefore off-limits for viewing by their children."
Source: MPAA
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A week or so after receiving only the second dastardly NC-17 rating doled out this year, ChicagoFilm spoke with "Young Adam" star Tilda Swinton and Scottish director David Mackenzie about what it means when the MPAA says you’re dirty.
Swinton is known perhaps most widely for her role in "Orlando," as well as "The Beach," "The Deep End," "Vanilla Sky," "War Zone" and close to 40 other films. Her formative acting years, under the tutelage of director/artist/activist Derek Jarman, with whom she did eight films including "Caravaggio," left her with a fierce determination to work exclusively with directors and material of her choosing. Many of her most memorable roles have involved highly ambiguous sexuality and quite a few have been based on literary material of the highest order.
Besides sitting on the jury for this year's Cannes Film Festival, Swinton was also the viewing subject of a 1996 art exhibit called "The Maybe," wherein she slept (or feigned sleeping) in a glass box in a museum for eight hours a day while visitors walked by, gathering whatever cryptic meaning they could from the proceedings. Not a job for the claustrophobic.
She practically glides into the interview wearing a flowing purple sari wrapped loosely around her tall, rigid frame. With piercing green eyes, strikingly angular features and a world-class talent for annunciation, Swinton is the picture of elegance.
For MacKenzie, "Young Adam" is only his second feature project – an effort born largely of his passion for the subject matter, a novel by Scottish beat Alexander Trocchi. In creating the film, a rich, decidedly lusty effort concerning murder and a wayward man's barge-bound carnal meanderings, Mackenzie enlisted the help of Ewan McGregor, who manages to put on one of his finer performances (and bare his penis to boot).
The resulting film is chock full of highly awkward, strangely alluring sexual moments, but deserving of the seldom awarded NC-17 stigma? Naaah...
I was particularly interested in doing this interview because the film talks about two of my favorite subjects: sex and beat lit...
Tilda: Hah...yes, yes, we did this film for you...
In that vein, the film has just received the NC-17 rating. What do you think of it?
Tilda: What do you think of it? That's sort of the point, right?
I don’t know...I see so many movies in the course of doing this work, so I may not be the best measure. To me it makes very little difference. I saw "The Dreamers" as well, which was also by Jeremy Thomas...
TS: Yes, the Larry Flynt of producers...
It's interesting. From my perspective both that film and "Young Adam" were nowhere near as transgressive as a film like Lars Von Triers' Dogville...
David: At least thematically, certainly. The systematic rape and all that. It's a much deeper, darker film than "Young Adam."
Sony put out a rather scathing letter about the whole situation...
DM: All I can say is that Sony at no point in the proceedings ever suggested that we make any cuts in the film, which is very good and I'm very glad that both they and our producer Jeremy Thomas were prepared to stick by their guns on that one, because it's a delicate little tapestry of a thing and when you start unpicking things by making a cut here and there you start upsetting things.
Frankly, our attitude over the course of knowing about the rating is that we made a grown-up film for grownups and are quite happy to have it seen by grown-ups. The only thing is that sometimes it appears the NC-17 has a stigma attached to it and can be seen as a reflection on the quality of the film, which is not something we want.
DM: I just heard today that Blockbuster apparently won’t put any NC-17 video in their stores, which is a shame because there's a life in cinema, but hopefully there's life for this film in video as well. It's annoying when it gets categorized by one group of people and then that category starts affecting lots of other things.
I think personally that Blockbuster should buck up their ideas on that sort of thing, as should everyone else. Why can't films be made for grownups and seen by grownups?
TS: I feel fairly confident that they will buck up their ideas. I don't know why, it's based solely on instinct, but I think they will.
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005: Swinton, Mackenzie
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