Pascal Laugier’s MARTYRS Hit With 18+ Rating In France

Reader Comments

1. mary 06/03/2008 @ 3:05pm

   Sorry.... Just want to talk about NC-17 rating.

   NC-17 rating is actually not as bad as many people thought.

   1) The myth is that no newspaper will carry ads for NC-17 movies:  in fact, I saw “Lust, Caution” ads in New York Times and Los Angeles Times. (Focus Features’ spokeman also said that most newspapers had no issue with accepting this movie’s ads, except for Salt Lake City)
   2) Another myth is that no theater will show NC-17 movies: in fact, even two largest US theater chains(Regal, AMC) had no issue with booking “Lust, Caution” .

2. dilated_in_disbelief 06/04/2008 @ 1:44am

   http://www.ohmygore.com/critique-Martyrs-423.html

   someone who can translate this review of Martyrs should. It’s in French. It was given a 10 out of 10

3. Blake 06/04/2008 @ 8:52am

   There were some jaded horror fans shocked by this one indeed. Certainly makes you wonder. Can’t wait to see it.

   Translation of above review:
   http://translate.google.com/translate?u=http://www.ohmygore.com/critique-Martyrs-423.html&sl=fr&tl=en&hl=en&ie=UTF-8

4. indiemaker0583 06/04/2008 @ 12:10pm

   This is just in response to Mary’s comment about the NC-17 rating. You used an incredibly poor example. NC-17 is still most certainly box office death for any film looking for a wide theaterical release.

   Lust Caution was a big budget film from academy award winner, Ang Lee that had zero possiblities of drawing a younger audience from the outset.

   If Ang Lee didn’t have the type of elitist stigma of being artful, and highly revered filmmaker who had previously won an oscar for Brokeback Mountain, a film about homosexuality with semi explicit sex scenes and Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon you most certainly would not have seen ads for Lust Caution in the newspaper, or on the television, nor would it have played at your local Regal.

   Had Lust Caution been the same exact film made by a first time director without a major studio backing it with pre-oscar buzz, it would have only played art house theaters in major cities with almost no advertising.

   There’s a fairly decent documentary that was released within the last two years about MPAA and the NC-17 rating. It’s pretty educational if you’re not already familiar with the ratings board. Although, like most documentaries about cinema, half of the film’s running time is devoted the egomanical directors blowing themselves being so “provactive.”

5. mary 06/04/2008 @ 8:34pm

   Lust Caution isn a big budget film?  This movie’s budget is only $15 million, which is very low budget for an US production standard.

   No only “Lust, Caution”, but “The Dreamers” (which had no pre-oscar buzz) also had ads in many newspapers. It was also shown in the theaters of Loews, Regal, AMC.....
   Hell, even “Showgirls” opened well at box office; it just had poor box office leg (I think it was because of the terrible reveiews it received, not bacause of its rating)
   I think the the effect of NC-17 didn’t as big as many people thought. 

   You talked about “This Film Is Not Yet Rated “?  I had seen it; and it didn’t had too muhh infos about how NC-17 rating hurt box office.

6. dilated_in_disbelief 06/06/2008 @ 12:23pm

   thanks for that translation, i didn’t think to look up a translation website ha. To Mary, it seems those are only a few examples of NC-17 films that had a decent level of distribution, but if you look at most films that are NC-17 and the fact that almost all film makers have their films cut if that ratings board will give the film an NC-17 should say something.

7. dilated_in_disbelief 06/06/2008 @ 12:32pm

   http://www1.worldlingo.com/SG57TOc3OQEJmUjCEaXGa1YX4YOstQGN5/translate

8. Epikt 06/06/2008 @ 3:36pm

   I don’t know exactly what are the consequences of a NC-17 rating (I’m French ^^) but French +18 may be worst. That’s why it’s really rare (most of the time +16 and a warning is enough), it’s really a big financial loss for “normal” movies (I guess for a movie that will be shown on 2 or 3 screens even with no rating, it can be a way for a little buzz, but not for movies like ‘Martyrs’). It of course reduces the number of theater that show the movie, but there are also strong restrictions in broadcasting the movie on TV (only after midnight => the channels don’t pay a lot for it).

   PS : I’m a great fan of Pascal Laugier’s first movie, and I’m expecting ‘Martyrs’ a lot. But if I were you I would not thrust the review linked above: the guy who wrote it is the kind of guy to concider every movie as a “new date on horror movie history” an so on. Trust me, he’s definitly not a good movie critic.

9. Blake 06/06/2008 @ 3:44pm

   I’ve heard Martyrs is pretty strong. How was Pascal’s first film?

   Seems mostly that creative teams on films fight to a certain degree to get their cut and vision, but do concede some more now, knowing that an “UNRATED” version will be released onhome video.

   Not sure if this plays out roughly the same in France, if it’s as common, where a film can get trimmed down and then just on home video have the uncut version out on DVD or Blu-ray.

10. Epikt 06/06/2008 @ 4:06pm

    ‘Saint Ange’ was really soft (it was rated -12), an horror movie playing more on the atmosphere than violence. Really aesthetically pleasing.

    Horror/violent production is not so large in France, so it will be hard to draw general conclusions, but it seems French directors do not concede their movie to be cut for the theater release, even if they are sure the director’s cut will be available on DVD : recently ‘A l’intérieur’ (I believe it’s ‘Inside’ in English) or ‘Frontière(s)’ were released uncut on theater (by the way ‘Frontière(s)’ was really close to a -18 rating). And I don’t remember a lot of French movies with different editings due to these kind of censorship.
    (I’m personnaly against this pratice. A good way for the studios to make more money from the movie-geeks selling the movie twice, while they can tell the director can make everything he wants ; which is not true).

11. Blake 06/06/2008 @ 10:37pm

    Epikt - thanks for that info, very interesting. Good points.

12. Blake 06/06/2008 @ 11:08pm

    There is an online petition for the film here:
    http://tinyurl.com/6hd72n

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