Thursday, September 6, 2001

Slightly Less Mutilated Storytelling DVD

Contractually obligated to give Fine Line Features an R-rated picture, Todd Solondz has had to censor (in addition to the whole James Van Der Beek sequence) an explicit sex scene with Selma Blair and Robert Wisdom from his latest film.
Well, according to a recently published article in IndieWIRE, Solondz claims the scene will be included, un-censored, in foreign prints and the upcoming DVD, adding, "I knew that the U.S. would be the only place - except for Iran and Iraq - that I would have this problem... It's not just the MPAA; the studios are complicit and the whole country has issues that you don't have to deal with abroad."
The same article also mentions that the MPAA also censored one of the trailers Solondz wanted for the film, which explains why the big red box which covers the aforementioned Blair/ Wisdom scene is there. "The MPAA didn't approve it," Solondz said, "because it suggested they would be censors. While, strictly speaking, it's unfair to say that the red box is censorship, this is one irrefutable example of censorship in the trailer: they're not letting us state the facts about why there's a big red box in the movie."
Well, it's good news, at least, that the one scene will find its way onto the DVD uncensored, and, hey - maybe we could even get Solondz' proposed trailer on there, too, but as far as the shorn Van Der Beek/ Matarazzo subplot, it still looks like we may never see a non-butchered Storytelling. "I wish that I didn't have these obstacles," Solondz said. "On the other hand, perhaps on some unconscious level, that's what spurs me on."