Now that contemporary attention has turned to the rampant abuse throughout Hollywood (and virtually every industry), Last Tango in Paris has become emblematic of a culture that not only permitted abusive behavior, but celebrated it. The actress has since gone on record to say that this scene was not in the script, and she felt humiliated by it, but was too young and inexperienced to speak up. In one of the film's most can't-unsee-it scenes, a stick of butter is used as a lubricant as Brando forces himself upon Schneider. Though it was widely hailed as an erotic masterpiece when it was originally released (at least by those who weren't complaining that it was porn and shouldn't be shown in mainstream theaters), its problematic production has tainted its reputation over the years. But there's a darker psychology happening here, if you can look past Brando's bare ass to see it. There, he meets a beautiful young woman (Maria Schneider) and they begin a wild, frequently sadomasochistic affair based purely on sex. 20th Century FoxĮven if you've never seen Bernardo Bertolucci's Last Tango in Paris, you probably know the premise: A crusty American businessman (Marlon Brando) heads to Paris to clear his head after his estranged wife kills herself. As it turns out, he may not have had to: in 1971, the MPAA - of its own volition - downgraded the film to an R.
"We didn't want to go through the exercise since we weren't prepared to change the movie," Picker told The Hollywood Reporter. Figuring that the film's graphic sex scenes would earn it an X rating, David Picker - United Artists's then-president of production - decided to save both himself and the MPAA some time and stamp it with his own X. While it's famous for being the first - and only - X-rated film to ever win a Best Picture Oscar, what's lesser known is that its rating was self-mandated. While the plan doesn't quite work out, the development of the genuine opposites-attract friendship is what sells the movie. Midnight Cowboy is the surprisingly touching story of a naïve Texan (John Voight) and seasoned con man (Dustin Hoffman) who attempt to turn a buck by selling the Lone Star transplant as a plaything-for-hire for New York City's lonely uptown ladies. "What no one had the nerve to say was that it was a political X," he once said. Though its graphic language and nudity were the official reasons given for its X rating, Wexler knew better. Wexler, of course, managed to capture it all. It's a cinéma vérité-style masterpiece that incorporates elements of both narrative storytelling and documentary-making, and culminates at the (very real) 1968 Democratic National Convention in Chicago, where a riot erupted.
#THE X FILES HOME MENTAL FLOSS TV#
Wexler was best known as a cinematographer - he won Oscars for Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? (1966) and Bound for Glory (1976) - and used that background to write, direct, and shoot this partly improvised story of a once-complacent TV cameraman (Robert Forster) who experiences a political awakening as he's paid to witness, firsthand, the quiet revolution that is happening all around him. Here are 50 great X-rated (NC-17-rated and unrated) movies to add to your viewing queue.įor several decades after its release, Haskell Wexler's Medium Cool was difficult to get your hands on, which might explain why it's not as well-known as many of its New Hollywood-era counterparts, which used cinema as a way to express the disillusionment so many Americans were feeling.
They may not all be masterpieces (hello, Showgirls), but even a guilty pleasure is called a "pleasure" for a reason. We pored through each group - X, NC-17, and unrated - to create an adults-only celebration of movies for grownups. In 1990, the X begat the NC-17 rating - though some filmmakers have opted to distribute their movies with no rating at all (the ratings system was, and is, voluntary).
When the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) decided to implement a ratings system in November 1968, its purpose was to easily communicate to parents whether a flick would be fun for the whole family… or earn them a visit from child protective services.īut it didn't take long for the adult industry to join the party and co-opt the salacious-sounding X - then take it two steps further by adopting a XXX rating for its spiciest titles.īecause the MPAA neglected to trademark its ratings system (opening the door to that aforementioned porn penetration), rather than compete with or take on the adult industry to bring the X rating back to its original purpose, they dropped it altogether.
#THE X FILES HOME MENTAL FLOSS MOVIE#
While the phrase "rated X" likely conjures up images of the kind of movie to which Travis Bickle might squire a date, the rating's original intention had little to do with the pornography that eventually came to define it.
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