What Ever Became of NC-17?

By RICHARD CORLISS

Four movie scenes coming soon -- or maybe not -- to a theater near you:

1. A man and a woman are making love in heated close-up. Suddenly she stabs him with an ice pick. "She is first having sex with him, then killing him," says one person who has seen the film. "And she doesn't do either gently."

2. A woman being interrogated by police about a murder uncrosses her legs and reveals she is wearing no panties.

3. A climactic attack is drenched in violence.

4. This is it, folks: "five minutes of pure, erotic sex and lovemaking."

These scenes are from Basic Instinct, a cop-and-copulation thriller starring Michael Douglas as a San Francisco detective on the trail of a serial killer and Sharon Stone as a bisexual novelist, a suspect in the case, with whom he has a convulsive affair.

The film has courted scandal since it was a script, which earned a record $3 million for writer Joe Eszterhas. Before shooting began, the original producer, Irwin Winkler, quit, complaining that director Paul Verhoeven was obsessed with showing body parts "in various stages of excitement." Eszterhas also stormed off the project once or twice. Last spring the production was picketed in San Francisco by gay activists objecting to the script's depiction of killer lesbians. Everyone else was gossiping about the sex scenes. "Michael Douglas and I went as far as anyone could go," Stone told Movieline magazine. "So far, in fact, that I don't know how they'll ever get a rating."

They can get a rating. But their problem is getting an R, which allows children to see a film in the company of an adult. After two preliminary screenings, the Motion Picture Association of America's classification board indicated that in its present form, Basic Instinct would receive an NC-17 rating (no children; 17 or older). Douglas and Verhoeven have urged that the disputed scenes stay, even if this results in an adults-only tag. But Carolco, which produced the $40 million film, and Tri-Star, which is to release it in March, are insisting that Verhoeven keep cutting Basic Instinct until it gets an R. Fearful that they will make less money if shut out of the lucrative teen market, they are opting for holy Mammon over hot art.

If anybody in Hollywood could bring muscle to breaking the taboo against releasing NC-17 movies, Douglas and Verhoeven are the guys. The Dutch director (who in his early films Spetters and The Fourth Man peppered extravagant sexual themes with lavish male and female nudity) is known for his inventive, violent and profitable sci-fi films RoboCop and Total Recall. Douglas is one of the town's most respected and powerful actor-producers; his risks pay off. Should Tri-Star take a gamble on his instincts? Director Lili Fini Zanuck (Rush) thinks so: "You've got Michael Douglas, a major star who has proved himself in a similar film, Fatal Attraction. If the studio will back Basic Instinct, so will the marketplace."

Two years ago, directors and reviewers raised a ruckus about the X ratings given such critically acclaimed independent fare as Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer and The Cook the Thief His Wife & Her Lover. After much debate, and the likelihood that a major-studio film (Universal's Henry & June) would get an X, the film industry's rating board altered the label to NC-17. The idea was to remove the stigma of pornography that the X rating bore and allow serious filmmakers to explore provocative styles without worrying that the parents of a 14-year-old might be offended.

It didn't take. Many theaters, bound by restrictive real estate contracts, will not show NC-17 movies, and many newspapers won't run the ads. The majors continue to require directors to deliver films that will be rated no worse than R. So the rating really meant "No Change"; not a single big-studio film since Henry & June has been released NC-17. And for directors wanting the same freedom as their European counterparts, it means "No Chance."

Richard Heffner, the chairman of the ratings board, says NC-17 should not be treated as "the mark of Cain. I firmly believe that NC-17 is a rating that should be used and respected," he says. "Americans are wise enough to understand that we should discriminate between what children and adults can see, and that's all it means."

Heffner may see the NC-17 rating as a guide for concerned parents, but producers, distributors and exhibitors take it as a guide to what they can make, release and show. "NC-17 movies do not fit into our main business plan," says Thomas Pollock, chairman of the MCA/Universal Motion Picture Group. "By and large, we are designing movies as entertainment for large audiences. That is our mandate. I doubt that NC-17 will be viable unless some mainstream movie is willing to go out with the label. Otherwise the category has no real meaning, because no one's using it."

The sensible compromise -- to release Basic Instinct in both its original (NC-17) and moderated (R) versions -- is not allowed by the motion-picture association. The probable outcome is that like other films embroiled in ratings wrangles, Basic Instinct will be shown fig-leafed in the U.S. but fully frontal abroad and, later, on home video. In that scenario, the bluenoses and bean counters win; consenting adults and ambitious moviemakers lose. And once again a crucial question goes begging: if movies are allowed to make violence terrifying -- as in such acclaimed dramas as The Silence of the Lambs, Cape Fear and JFK -- why can't they make sex sexy?

With reporting by Jordan Bonfante and Sally B. Donnelly/Los Angeles