Vision is hard to come by in films. It takes more than a keen eye for imagery or an imagination doped up on daydreams to fulfill the peculiar promise of cinema. People go to the movies to be transported to places they’ve never been before, to see and experience things that only exist in the most magical regions of the mind’s eye. What they don’t want to see is the same old slop, reprocessed and repackaged to resemble what came down the pipe just a few months ago. Yet over and over again, those talentless titans of Tinsel Town deliver derivative goods, groan inducing retreads of ideas and images that didn’t really work the first time through the viewfinder. Sure, banking on originality is a gamble. But the payoff can be sweeter than sweating out the criticism.

The classic examples all prove the point. Hitchcock may have been the Master of Suspense, but audiences flocked to his films because of their iconic style, not their clockwork plotting. David Lunch sets his world in the unpredictable plain of dreams, and then slowly lets the nightmare limits of the locale seep into the slumber. Quentin Tarantino takes every trick he’s learned from three decades in front of the screen – big or small – and amplifies it through his own engorged ego into something sublime and special. In the Hollywood hierarchy, it would be nice to see a Burton for every Bay, a Gilliam for every glorified video director. But the commonplace commands commerce, and as long as the derivative is driving dollars into the BO coffers, no one is going to be calling for creativity.

It’s the same even in exploitation. The outsider arena of moviemaking did have its prophets, those inspired thinkers who moved beyond the T&A tendencies of the medium to expose the raincoat crowd to something freaky – and not necessarily deaky. But they were the rarity in a business more concerned with the bodkin than the beatific. Though true geniuses like Doris Wishman reinvented the filmic language while staying set inside a certain type of tale (in her case, the nudist and/or roughie realm) others had to seek solace in less trodden paths. Whether it was the gore film, the drug scene, the dippy hippy power of flower or the sexual revolution, these visionaries tried to find a way to get their thoughts and metaphors on screen. Many failed. But those who succeeded have a tasty Technicolor testament to be remembered by.

Fredric Hobbs was such a motion picture maverick. After helming the musical mindfuck called Roseland (about a mystical place where lust and dreams run wild…or maybe it was really a psychiatric institute sex farce) Hobbs wanted to champion environmentalism and government corruption in a showcase that would send a strong message to the Establishment. What he decided to use as his messenger however can only be called “different”. Taking a leaflet out of the “nature run amok” school of schlock and plopping it directly into one of the most offbeat settings ever conceived for a monster mash, (one of those recreationist societies that preserve everything the way it was 100/200 years ago) Godmonster of Indian Flats was born.

The film’s plot is loaded with symbolism, counterculture ideology and some of the oddest ducks this side of an irradiated game preserve. A local mine, once the home of a “legendary” creature, starts leaking a foul smelling gas. Naturally, a pregnant sheep gets a whiff, and before you can say “genetic mutation”, a bloody bulbous fetus makes a fantasy sequence appearance. That’s right, a drunken shepherd, rolled for his money by the denizens of the local dive bar, has a vision with bones and a golden light. One case of the DTs later, and our mangled mutton is born. The resident scientist, who works at the local college cum powerplant ruins, takes the sickly sweater makings back to his lab, where he nurses it back to health with a combination of chemicals and over the top tirades.

Oh course, the local big wig Mayor Silverdale (played by Russ Meyer stalwart Stuart Lancaster in a mannerism so clipped you’re liable to cut yourself on his dialogue) wants to know what’s going on in the rundown wreck of a university. He soon has his own problems to contend with, however. A high-minded businessman from “back East” is in town trying to buy up all the indigenous mining rights. Seems Silverdale wants those little leases for himself. As the two industrialists battle it out for smelting supremacy, the baby beastie grows and gets angry. He breaks out of his flimsy cage and starts stalking the landscape. When Silverdale and his gang can’t kill the creature, they decide to capture it. How else do you expect to charge the public two bits a gander to see this notorious nuclear ewe?

There is absolutely nothing normal about this movie…NOTHING! Don’t let the corporate dealings and entrepreneurial underpinnings fool you – Godmonster of Indian Flats is the strangest, most surreal exploitation movie ever made. It offers up a Six Gun Territory theme park as a township without batting an eye, has its characters dressed like rejects from Disney World’s Diamond Horseshoe Review and infiltrates the insanity with an eight foot, carpet covered sinister sheep that enjoys moonlit dances with the neighborhood Earth mother. Honestly, Hobbs has crafted a certified jaw-dropper here, a film that fails to make a lick of narrative sense but keeps us spellbound in other, less plot-oriented ways. Lancaster is in classic form, playing Silverdale as a laidback loon, a madman too lethargic to go yokel on the locals. And he is surrounded by actors who all believe that this is their Method moment. There is lots of hammy thespianism here, and as the old saying goes; it’s never good to mix your meats.

Indeed, the Godmonster itself is what really sells this silliness. In one classic scene, it slowly ambles up to a group of children playing. As it takes its time attacking, the kids keep looking directly at the camera, waiting for their cue to react. A few screams, a couple of close-ups, a scattering of bratlings and a classic work of crackpot cinema is born. Godmonster of Indian Flats is one of those clichés in the pantheon of pathetic films – it really does need to be seen to be believed. From Silverdale’s elite squad of enforcers that appear like black dressed dandies from a gay rodeo, to the mindbending finale which resolves nothing and seems to infer victory for the villains, Hobbs’ hobbled hoot is hilarious. Disturbing and demented, but uproarious and original nonetheless. Besides, its films like this that prove once and for all that, when you’ve got your own style, substance will only hold you back.

More than ten years after a civil war that ravaged its country, Bosnia finds itself in a delicate condition. Like much of the Balkans, recovering from the wrath of Slobodan Milosevic’s reign of ethnic cleansing, Bosnia is hedged between strict cultural and economic limitations that particularly impair the prospects and desires for self-actualization of the nation’s women. Emerging Bosnian filmmaker Danijela Majstorovic addresses this crisis of women’s lives—and the troubling lack of choices—in two films which premiered at the Bosnia and Herzegovina Film Festival in New York City.

Counterpoint for Her (2004) is a short documentary that powerfully acknowledges the tragedy of sex slavery in Bosnia.  In 2003, a US House committee discovered Bosnia to be the first depot for trafficked women across Southeastern Europe, and a highly publicized investigation proved UN Peacekeepers were regular clients, committing torture and rape on girls below the age of fifteen, even purchasing women and selling them outright. The film follows the story a woman who was tricked into slavery after pursuing a job offer from a duplicitous family friend, and emphasizes how trafficking women is a seven billion dollar industry in Europe alone.  Counterpoint for Her explains the difference between prostitution and sex slavery, in which the women have no rights and make absolutely no money while being repeatedly sold to new owners at bars and brothels across Eastern and Western Europe.

In the priceless feature-length documentary A Dream Job (2005), Majstorovic approaches the world of Balkan pop-stardom with a raised eye and a tongue-in-cheek. The film pays particular attention to turbofolk music, the wildly popular musical revolution that emerged during the Milosevic ‘90s, which relies upon using women as objects, but presents a vague economic opportunity in its search for starlets.  Turbofolk, as opposed to novocomp or sevdah (also explored), revels in hypersexual aesthetics and elevates “the fast life” of wealth and conspicuous consumption. The film follows a rather un-fazed young woman from Republika Srpska as she becomes a scantily clad, lip-synching background musician in order to achieve financial freedom from her impoverished family.  A Dream Job features honest testimony from superstars Lepa Brena and Hanka Paldum, plus other luminaries and unknowns of the Balkan entertainment industry.

Bosnian documentary film has emerged as a tool to challenge and deconstruct the recent past––as well as the present and future.  At this year’s third annual Bosnia and Herzegovina Film Festival, documentaries are in no shortage, ranging from sad to sadder, and sometimes funny, such as Majstrorovic’s A Dream Job. I am thankful for the opportunity to speak with the tenacious director, whose influences include Fred Wiseman, Dusan Makavejev, Trin T. Minha-ha, about Bosnian filmmaking, her passion, and her work.

Where were you trained, or, where did you learn filmmaking?
A former English major, I got an MA in telecommunications (2001/2003) and took film classes at Ohio University. I also worked for Channel 13 PBS WNET in New York and MTV, I audited some directing classes with Milcho Manchevski, a well-known Macedonian film director, in 2002.  I also did some smaller stuff like Spinners: A San Francisco Drum ‘n’ Bass Story and some commercial video.

In your opinion, has Bosnian film developed its own aesthetic? Where is it going?
I think Bosnian filmmaking was really progressive during the early Kusturica period. [Emir Kusturica is a celebrated director of Bosnian independent cinema, b. 1954. –ed.] Now after the war, you can help it but having it all postwar-esque. Meaning, there are many stereotypes concerning the way stories are told and marketed abroad. I think it’s because foreign audience digests such stories more easily.

I am more into the society and culture, power relations that are not so visible at first, and not about finger-pointing and saying “oh my tragedy was bigger than yours.”  What I try to make is a socio-cultural critical documentary that talks about subtleties, small stories, because you can’t do grand narratives at this day and age. So, the stuff that I make is not very polished, maybe it is even more TV-like than I would want. As for now, there are many good stories that deserve to be told and that’s enough, well that’s been enough for me at the beginning.

If you want your stuff to look real good that’s going to cost you a little bit more than you can normally hope for in Bosnia, unless you are established and mainstream. Talking about a developed aesthetic would be far-fetched. I don’t really like most new Bosnian blockbusters that are now trendy. There are a lot of stereotypes in these new films and a lot of politics. Deliberate politics, and not politics in the sense that “personal is political” as I’d prefer.  But it is good that filmmaking is developing in Bosnia, and Sarajevo Film Festival is a great thing. A lot of it is in Sarajevo, and not in Mostar or Banja Luka, so the voices coming from Sarajevo are ideologically very similar because of the great tragedy that happened there. Other voices, more minor voices are not given a chance and there are many tragedies that deserve to be made into films, and you can find them on all sides. It’s a bit complicated here in the Balkans. I don’t think you can go on exploiting tragedy forever, but it seems to be working in the West.

Did you meet resistance making (or financing) Counterpoint for Her?
Financing came through a State department grant as I am a Ron Brown alumnus, a fellowship given to scholars and professionals from Central and Eastern Europe, but this ended this year.  I applied for it together with 3 other people.  We started shooting in November 2003 and finished it in April 2004.  It was difficult to find the woman who was trafficked, but after extensive search, we did it.

My initial idea was to shoot it as an ethnographic film, I wanted to cook or clean for a shelter and then meet trafficked women through getting real close to them, but at the moment there were none of them at any of the shelters I had access to. The very idea came as I went to have my hair cut some time in 1997 and the hairdresser refused to cut hair of two women who were clearly from the former SSSR because she thought they were prostitutes.  I developed the idea when I was an intern in NY, but the final outcome differed a lot from what I wanted to get. But that’s always like that. People told me I shouldn’t get more deeply involved and I am a paranoid person, but I guess that’s how you combat your own paranoia; and if such filmmaking makes you feel like you are going to change a tiny bit of the society for the better, then there you are. You keep doing it.

A Dream Job really reflects the universality of pop culture and entertainment industries.  In the film you express that a place such as Bosnia may hunger for pop and entertainment more than other places. It’s almost a morale booster. Can you comment on this?
I would not say it’s a pop starvation in the sense that it is in the West. I see it as a lack of other options especially for women. Ilinka says she could either work in a grocery store, betshop or a bar. It’s not only stars like Brena, who you have seen that are now filthy rich. It’s more like getting shitty jobs for $150 a month, and no real gratification to sing or dance, but just to hold the guitar and be a part of the decor. You just have to expose your body pretty much, and nothing else is expected from you. That’s common in Bosnia, the lack of opportunities. And the owner of the TV station in the documentary is not violating any laws.  There is no public criticism in Bosnia so it almost hurts. I mean you can say it’s all very postmodern, but it tragic. It’s where your minds are at.  I thought it would be good to explore the pop culture because it’s where you can really see the patriarchy, and corruption and women almost desperate to make the most in such a deviant society. You have seen the scene with the wings and the pacifier, when he talks about the “new night show for which the script is being worked on.”  I don’t know how well the translation worked but there are so many subtleties just in the language that’s used in Dream Job.

Both films show how easily women can be oppressed by a mix of opportunism, ignorance, malice and sometimes even good intentions. You definitely create both a local, individualized human picture and a larger global one; both films tie economics and geopolitics to self-realization.
Thanks for such an observation; you’ve summed it up here pretty much. I see that what all these women have in common is to express themselves, to be somebody, to have money and there is nothing wrong with that. It’s just the more global relations that make it a risky endeavor, and if resorting to hooking or singing or fake singing are the only options, and that nobody gives a damn about it, then, wow, where do you start mending this society?

I recall the moment in Counterpoint for Her when an older woman basically states, “Some women want to be prostitutes. If it makes them happy, that’s their business and it’s up to them.”  It’s very hands-off. Is there still a lack of understanding about sex slavery in Bosnian communities?
Sex slavery supposedly finished in 2003 when [bar owner and kingpin Milorad] Milakovic and some of the bigger bosses were arrested. It’s still going on but it’s less visible, I guess; it’s more underground than it used to be. In the film, I tried to stress the difference between prostitution and sex slavery, and yet now I can see it’s a thin line. I mean how can a woman just decide one day she wants to be a prostitute? I don’t think she does, ever, it is the circumstances, and from there, it’s very, very easy to become a sex slave.

Criminal structures are closely tied with the political ones in Bosnia. You cannot really tell who is corrupted and who is not. But the public is soooo lethargic, and public opinion doesn’t exist. The most politically active group in Bosnia is the pensioners, and it’s because they have nothing to lose. They are true grassroot activists. A lot of brain drain happened, a lot of people left for whatever reason, I don’t know. I teach at University and it’s impossible that my students are more conservative than me. It’s just not possible because you would expect them to be rebellious, well read, well-traveled, progressive, and to fight for their rights. None of this happens on a larger scale because everyone is so poor and screwed by the system.

Do you plan to continue exploring women’s issues through your films?
It happened so with these two but any topic that fits into the “philosophy” of the Center for Social and Cultural Repair (and hammer is our logo) that I have established with a couple of friends is worth exploring and developing. We want to make docs for the marginalized groups and we want to at least provoke the society. Next time it can be Roma or even corrupt politicians, or gays and lesbians who are still unacceptable in Bosnia and God knows what would happen, if two guys kissed on the street.

How have your films been received in Bosnia?
I am a minor director in Bosnia, alternative if you want.  Several festivals and TV broadcasts and that’s it.

Ms. Majstorovic is currently based in the city of Banja Luka of Republika Srpska, Bosnia.

Filmography
SPINNERS: A SAN FRANCISCO DRUM ‘N’ BASS STORY (2002)
KONTRAPUNKT ZA NJU / Counterpoint for Her (2004)
POSAO SNOVA / The Dream Job (2005-work in progress)

Going back to the days when Beta battled VHS for market dominance, film fans have had a veritable love/hate relationship with the concept of home video. At first, machines were sold on their ability to record. In an era of limited broadcast options and inadequate cable coverage, the notion of being able to ‘tape’ and then playback a favorite program or sporting event held an overpowering mystique. Audiences accustomed to suffering through the summer subjected to untold reruns and failed replacement series could now rummage through their own collection and create their own entertainment experience. In fact, most of the original video retailers used the “why let others tell you what to watch when you can choose your own viewing” ideal to interest buyers. It was hailed as a revolution. Thirty years later, it’s had a far more regressive, radical effect.

Now, before you get the wrong idea, this is not going to be yet another rant about how watching films in the comfort of your home has ruined the in theater experience. You won’t find links being made to the leisurely, living room approach to entertainment and the frequent social slip-ups that fill up the local Cineplex. Granted, home video has forged a lax sense of acceptable behavior, especially from children who are used to the television playing the role of chief babysitter, friend, sidekick, etiquette instructor and background noise. So naturally they transfer their jittery juvenile energy to the stadium seat experience. We shouldn’t be surprised when kids clamor for attention, run up and down the aisles and treat the cinema as their home. For most, there is no difference – except for the lowered lights and gathering of unidentifiable strangers. It’s the reason restaurants once “discouraged” family dining and pointed to protocol as their explanation. Children are still learning the proper decorum.

Does this excuse the adults who talk during the significant plot points, field cell phone calls during the drama and basically conduct all manner of interpersonal and professional business as the rest of the audience adjusts, or simply joins in? Is that really home theater’s fault? In truth, the answer is no. Blame other technology - in fact, we should be afraid of such scientific shunts in our necessary social interaction. For eons, the main reason people went to the movies was to mingle with their fellow film fans and experience something communal; to connect with the outside by sharing something with like minded individuals. Now, while it’s true that the VCR put a dent in such a design (more on this in a moment), it’s the computer age that really flummoxed such a mutual mission.

For ages, only doctors and important business types demanded unqualified access to communication. They needed to be and required being in touch with their employment or office not out of convenience, but out of necessity. A missed call and a patient could be hospitalized or deceased, a deal dying or dead. So limited access to entertainment events became part of the job. You suffered through a concert knowing that your oversized beeper would go off at any moment, and purposefully avoided situations – like sold out showings of the recent hit film – out of courtesy for others, and consideration for your career. But not today. People are married to their personal contact devices, divorcing themselves from reality as they text-message a random thought during the second act denouement, complete with an attached camera-phone image to prove they really are “at the movies”. In the realm of viscous cycling, the wireless industry has the world brainwashed. You didn’t need a pocket organizer with Internet access until they said you did, and now you’ve become so reliant on it’s level of novel interactivity, you can’t be without it.

No, if you want to point an appropriate finger at the home video craze and lionize it for some adverse effect on the art of cinema, the accusation is painfully simple: the VCR created a nation of amateur film scholars and critics. In fact, it’s so hard to remember what it was like even at the outset of the video revolution that many would laugh at such a sentiment. Yet the truth is evident from the current culture of the web. As recently as the 1970’s film was considered an artform, right up there with the novel, music and the rest of the humanities. In order to study it though, to really get to know it, you had to do what most people do to gain such knowledge – you had to go to school. Most people prior to VHS didn’t have revival houses in their neighborhood, and almost all were exposed to classic films during the Late Late Movie, weekend afternoons and the occasional network television premiere. No one saw original edits of their favorites – they witnessed censored prints cut for time and subject matter.

Cable was the first alternative to change the viewing dynamic of the public. Via a pay channel, you could see Hollywood films the way they were presented in the theater. You could consider the violence, explore the erotica and hear all the expletives that the FCC and MPAA tried to protect you from. But better yet, you got a chance to revisit a favorite title without the burden of waiting for the actual moviemaking business to reintroduce it to you. Through the wonder of a coaxial wire – and then a plastic cassette loaded with magnetic tape – you could start your own curriculum in film appreciation. While it was slow going at first (many titles were not released for purchase, but for rental), the windfall derived from the sell-through model of home video marketing meant that, a scant few months after you saw something on the big screen, you could purchase a quasi-permanent version of it for yourself.

Better yet, once the first run film market was saturated, studios went back into their vaults and released all manner of material. Some was classic. Some was crap. But it represented the kind of exposure to cinema that many before the ‘80s seldom received, even in college. In essence, decades of research and study could be repeated in a matter of months, as long as you had a TV, a VCR, and a decent video rental/retailer in your area. Thus, the amateur training began. Masterworks only read about were optioned and absorbed. Cult films were finally found, and confirmed as true kitsch or misguided camp. Genres were fleshed out and reformed, while previously uncelebrated talent was placed into the pantheon of cinematic history. In essence, the entire legacy of film was opened up to the public – and with that, naturally, came the public opinion.

Harlan Ellison once wrote that people aren’t entitled to their opinion, just their own learned one, and the same is true about film. It is literally impossible to absorb the whole of cinema via a steady diet of videocassettes (and today, DVDs). Even the most dedicated student can’t digest the whole of motion picture making – a concept that runs from silents to moderns, familiar to foreign and all places in between. Yet the exposure to the technology of home video over the last three decades has made experts out of mere fans, and archivists out of the most casual of viewer. One surf of the Internet confirms this concept. YouTube is loaded with would be Eberts, pontificating in poorly scripted and presented clips about the recent releases. MySpace is packed with ‘best of’ lists and pages devoted exclusively to some of the most obscure filmic efforts ever created. Even worse, such resources are viewed as authoritative by fans looking for instant feedback, empowering an entire generation to avoid conventional thinking and determine their own Wikipedia fed aesthetic fate.

Now, this seems like a good idea, until you realize its substantial downside. Without consensus, nothing can be truly considered archetypal. By its very definition, something is representative because it holds the majority of the meaningful opinions. But in this focus group/test screening/Ain’t It Cool News-ing of cinema, everyone believes their belief actually matters – not counts, MATTERS. It’s the message they’ve been fed, and have self proscribed, since the VCR showed them how good/bad Ed Wood’s Plan 9 really was, or how brave/boring Kubrick’s 2001 could be. Over the decades, audiences have been brainwashed into believing that experience is the same as expertise. They know about film because they’ve seen so many. But without accompanying context, without thinking and analyzing and revising, perception is perverted. Response is not the same as consideration. Entertainment – or the lack thereof – is only part of a film’s facets, or flaws.

Yet that’s the mob mentality monster we’ve created. Aided by the sudden surge in box office performance, especially over the initial weekend (something also contributable to home video’s volatility as an indicator) and the studio’s persistent desire to endlessly fine tune a project via public opinion, the movies have moved in the direction the technology first dictated. Except, in this case, instead of telling the audience what to watch – as cinema did from it’s infancy through the ‘80s – it’s the public pushing the buttons. So before you blame Hollywood for the latest hack job, or curse a director for dropping the ball on a long beloved project, just remember this: you asked for it. Maybe not directly, but vicariously through home video. Your superficial study of film has led an entire industry to cater to your self-supported whims. It may be worse now that the Internet has upped the profile, but don’t ever forget its simple seeds. A while back, someone thought a private video taping system was a good idea. Unfortunately, the post-millennial cinematic stasis was the outcome. 

Today marks the fifth anniversary of the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, and even with said time and distance, people are still wondering if it’s too soon to explore the events via the many available entertainment mediums. In the last few weeks alone, cable outlets like The Discovery and The Learning Channel have given us devastating looks inside the Twin Towers that fateful day, and all three major networks are airing specials striving to celebrate and scrutinize the tragedy. ABC has courted the most controversy, airing a miniseries on 10 and 11 September that acts like a denouncement of the Democrats as the narrative traces the Clinton Administrations dealings with Osama Bin Laden on the Path to 9/11. Cinema also responded with its own double dose of regulated reality. Oliver Stone went for the sentimental with his August release of World Trade Center, a survival story of two port authority officers at Ground Zero. Earlier, Paul Greengrass gave the final flight of United 93 the kind of docudrama authenticity that helped amplify its rock solid suspense.

Yet the question still lingers – is it too soon? Before answering, there’s a need for some clear perspective. Such an inquiry assumes a couple of communal attributes: (1) that all individuals in America were equally affected by the events of 9/11, and (2) that all require the same recovery time from their reaction. Now, there is no doubt that citizens were shaken to their very core by the sight of airplanes slamming into the side of a skyscraper. It’s an image not even the most gifted Hollywood effects house could duplicate in its potency and abruptness. It’s epic excess, the unfathomable scope of its symbolic destruction was a crucial reminder of what exists outside our considered zone of comfort. We like to think of America as the land of opportunity and unbridled freedom, a Superpower place that anyone would trade everything to be a part of. The events of 9/11 indicated that, not only was such a sentiment short sighted, but such a belief fueled a perceived arrogant disregard for the rest of the world.

And let’s face it – we’re all ostriches. We’d rather spend our days with our heads buried in the suburban sand than deal with the real world issues constantly crashing against our free and democratic shores. We’ll elect (and re-elect) a President and support his sloppy war as long as it makes us feel secure in our SWVs, and keeps the materialistic flow unencumbered. We will use the mere mantra of “supporting our troops” as a means of avoiding a real confrontation on the politics of preemption, and balk the minute a potential threat is uncovered. Instead of living in the reality of a precarious post-modern world, where technology and ideology have met to create a continuous network of possible terror, we argue over alert levels and airport security as the rest of the planet experiences daily reminders of the tenuous nature of being a citizen within this specific planetary community.

That is why it is almost never “too soon” to address a tragedy cinematically. Unless we place some manner of shared importance on a singular event, the art of motion picture making is the perfect place to explore the deeper meaning inside any calamity. Granted, the potential is always there for exploitation or disrespect, but there are no guarantees in this constantly shifting social stratagem. All of which begs the question – why, pray tell, are the events of 9/11 so off-limits, even today? If it’s a question of time and distance, no one is pitching the kind of jingoistic hissy that critics of United 93 and World Trade Center are guilty of regarding a far more devastating - and recent - event. Last month, Spike Lee delivered his four hour documentary on the rampant destruction – and lack of proper governmental response – in the wake of Hurricane Katrina. HBO’s When the Levee Broke: A Requiem in Four Acts was a mind-boggling masterpiece, far more antagonistic and conspiratorial than anything offered in either pro-patriot 9/11 motion pictures. Amid the images of bodies floating in sewage strewn water and victims piled up like prisoners in horribly inhumane and unsanitary conditions, we heard rumors of explosions (marking the purposeful destruction of the levees), the governments’ avoidance of politically unpopular peoples, ass covering taking the place of assistance. All the while, audiences couldn’t wait to see Lee stick it to the man, while simultaneously wondering aloud how anyone can tackle the tragedy that befell America on that fateful September day five years gone.

Some may say that 9/11 and Katrina are apples and oranges, and in many significant ways, that statement is true. But a hurricane wiping out most of a city, flattening millions of Gulf coast acres and destroying hundreds of thousands of lives stands as far more important, quantitatively, than a single act of terrorism that somehow finally managed to make it to our own isolationist shores. 9/11 may be more socially, and internationally significant, but Katrina will continue to be more substantive. Call it liberal cluelessness or a lack of context, but the collapse of the World Trade Center is more important for what it symbolizes (America’s indirect entry into the cause and effect world of fundamentalism) than for the resulting devastation. Now no loss of life is acceptable, but would we view the events of that day differently if, once the airplanes hit, the city of New York and the Federal Government simply sat around, waiting until the coast was clear and all the facts were in before they decided to act? Would we feel any different if the planes had hit some nameless housing projects instead of the symbols of capitalism and commerce? In Katrina’s case, the answer seems obvious.

The longer we apply the hands off approach to 9/11, the longer we foster the philosophy behind the attacks. No one is saying that radical fundamentalist Islamic extremists can be reasoned with, and no one is suggesting that a movie can make sense of such outrageous, illogical motives. But there are always lessons to be learned, elements within any tragedy that need deciphering and determination. While they were unpleasantly exploitive at times, the Discovery Channel style documentaries began the process of illustrating the horrors of what happened that day. Seeing those indelible images from the inside out – the planes approaching, the stairwells choked with smoke – gave new meaning to the loss of life that occurred. That’s the power of visualizing events. It helps provide perspective, and necessary knowledge. If we mythologize events, and ask our movies to do the same, we rob the reality of its meaning.

Film can convolute and corrupt, but when done right (United 93) and in deference to other elements (World Trade Center) the results can be disarming. We require determinations, not deifications. Arguing that it’s too soon is simply asking to avoid the truth for a little while longer. And the more time that passes, the more fact fades. If we wait too long to address the aspects of 9/11, we run the risk of losing its meaning all together. If that’s the case, the terrorists have really won. Nothing spells victory like getting your victims to forget why they were targets in the first place. Without the illustrative power of film, such absentmindedness is almost assured. So it’s not too soon. In fact, it may be too late

As the Internet continues to buzz, albeit moderately, about the so-called “failure” of Snakes on a Plane, one issue seems to be getting all the attention – New Line’s decision to bow to web pressure and change Snakes rating from a kid friendly PG-13 to a far harder R. For those unfamiliar with the story, SoaP was originally going by the title Pacific Air 121, purposefully toning down the violence, and hemming in star Sam Jackson’s tendency to break out in badass expletives. When the geek squad got a hold of this information, they promised rebellion. They convinced New Line to ditch the dopey name and unleash Jackson’s inner epithet. But it wasn’t until the film was finished and the PG-13 version was screened, that all involved knew that such a youth-oriented rating was about to doom the film. So following Internet suggestions, the violence was amped up and the entire tone driven darker, and less dopey.

Naturally, once the less than spectacular box office returns were announced, people started looking for scapegoats. As with most Tinsel Town missteps, the rating became the prime suspect. So-called insiders argued that a PG-13 guaranteed a wider demographic, and allowed the most dollar-oriented film fans, the 14 to 17 years olds to freely attend the film. Parents chimed in, stating that it was a “shame” that their bratlings couldn’t attend a movie that they had been interested in since it first became infamous on the web. Unfortunately, all of this fails to address the primary reason Snakes sunk – New Line got stingy and relied on tech dorks to market its movie. Here’s betting the brainiac who thought that up is clearing out his or her desk right now.

But the whole PG-13 issue raises a much larger, much broader concern, one that Hollywood doesn’t want to really address, outright. In many ways, the studios are practicing a kind of cultural ageism. They figure if you’re over 20, single, or married without yet spawning children, and want to see genre offerings like action, horror and thrillers, you better be prepared to sit at the cinematic kids’ table. They have no intention of providing adult entertainment for adults – they assume that if you don’t want to be part of the juvenile crowd, you can simply buy or rent the DVD a few months down the line. The film biz is more or less convinced that giving everything a PG-13 is the panacea that cures all of the industries box office ills. After all, teens don’t have taste – they wait for one of the many style conscious entities (MTV, YouTube) to tell them what’s cool, and then they flock to it like proverbial, profit-margin sheep.

Now this is all well and good for the bottom line, but the truth is that such a greenback oriented mentality is corrupting, and even killing, the movie-going experience. More than the emerging technology in home theater, the ADD addled outlook of your average “got to have my Blackberry” film fan, or the sequel/remake strategy that has the weekly premieres feeling like a bad case of déja vu (starring Densel Washington, apparently), this stopgap rating is ruining the integrity of the cinematic aesthetic. The argument is simple to understand – it’s kind of like entertainment utilitarianism. Filmmakers are being forced to bend their ideas and vision to provide the greatest marketing good for the greatest number of filmgoers. And aside from the pre and tween set (who aren’t prohibited outright, and get a healthy does of hackneyed CGI every few weeks, anyway) PG-13 delivers such a bland universality.

Well, kind of. In essence, PG-13 is as useless as the X. All it really does is tell anyone who’s interested that the film they are about to see is not quite an “R”. It doesn’t define limits the way the original G/PG/R system suggested, and in reality, confused the concept of what content satisfied the “Parental Guidance” standard. Before the arrival of the censorship stopgap, films with a PG rating frequently featured nudity, violence and foul language. Even films like Beetlejuice and Big had the notorious “F” word as part of their almost all-ages aspects. While it’s true that time and temperament affects the MPAA as much as actual material (Clerks II barely batted a rating’s board eye toward its easy R, while the original got smacked with a still stinging NC-17), the fine line between what mandates the addition of a ‘13’ is so subjective that it’s hard to get a handle on.

The Supreme Court calls this “The Chilling Effect” – the moment where speech of any kind is so hindered by outrageous or ambiguous restriction that the only safe path is none at all. While they’ve denied it for years, the media has so glorified the importance of the MPAA’s approval that newspapers won’t print ads for film’s featuring too much sex and/or violence, and trailers/movie posters aren’t permitted for general audience consumption until the board has had their say. Even worse, theaters and other entertainment outlets (read: national chain video stores) will fail to offer certain films if their rating goes against these moralized marketing strategies. While they make it very clear that no film has to follow its suggestions, the MPAA system is set up in such a way that to ignore them is to commit a kind of professional seppuku. If direct and indirect advertising bans and the inability to book play dates aren’t outright suppression, they’re pretty damn close.

So most movies and makers contractually pre-determine a rating, using their crack business acumen and any other form of glorified guessing to determine an appropriate approach to a project. Genre usually helps define the parameters, with drama being the most open ended and animation the most closed. In between are conflicting categories, from the always in flux comedy to the growing ever stricter horror film. Yet the cold fact is that most films don’t strive for a PG-13: they usually backdoor their way into it. They film the material they want, create the effects and the imagery that they believe works within the context of their movie, and then toss the entire enterprise at the MPAA like a compulsive gambler hoping to avoid another ‘snake eyes’ washout – and by doing so, they begin the process of amusement micromanagement.

With the buffer of a PG-13, and it’s perceived bankability, a kind of cinematic bait and switch beings. As stated before, it occurs with the most frequency in horror films. Unless a hard R is agreed upon and accepted (Hostel, Saw, Silent Hill), most movie macabre is purposefully fashioned to give the ratings system ample editing fodder. Scares are left intact and gore remains plentiful, all in full knowledge that they will be snipped and clipped out of existence later on. The goal is simple – get that 13. A regular PG, once a sign of some amiable adult content, now argues for the random fart joke. It’s been Disney-fied and declassified. R, of course, is a no-no, especially in our responsibility shirking society that wants to prevent anyone from understanding the truth about the real world.

No, PG-13 is the ultimate stopgap, a financial safety net that allows for a film to open to the broadest possible audience – and in some manner of backwards logic – to create the quickest connection to a target fanbase. Yet this fails to take into consideration two important elements (1) the needs of the moviegoer and (2) the needs of the genre. Horror cannot survive without the visceral and textural aspects of terror. Eradicating them to fit a non-standardized score robs the genre of its real reason for being. Some say, “No, PG-13 can be just as frightening as an R”. Bollocks! By this argument, The Exorcist would be a much better movie without all the probable NC-17 level vileness it offers.  Or even better, if we could just clean up the original Night of the Living Dead (and it’s sensational sequels) or Tobe Hooper’s initial Texas Chainsaw Massacre, we’d have UNIVERSALLY appreciated mainstream classics.

Huh? Gearing material to a specific set of individuals is understandable, but not very intelligent. What if your dream teen demographic is uninterested in vampire/werewolf wars, or the ongoing haunting of a curse-riddled home? Does shaving the story of its more potent scares really make it more acceptable to the disconnected and the inattentive? And worse, what does it do to the film itself? Could we even tolerate the new The Hills Have Eyes had the narrative not wandered over into the nauseating nuclear village sequence, or do we really prefer The Fog remake approach to terror, with all the killings either quick-cut, or occurring off camera to guarantee the MPAA’s incredibly mixed blessing. Granted, both sides have valid reasons for why they do what they do, but does using a score as the source of inspiration really help the internal structure of your story - and, doesn’t it question outright the capacity of your audience?

Seems like Snakes on a Plane may be more important than anyone on the ‘Net even imagined. Aside from all the web log marketing snafus and peer-to-peer pressure, it has laid the seeds of a debate that has been simmering for a while. There are many who feel that the PG-13 rating is a parental godsend, the kind of sage second-handed advice that makes raising kids in the post-millennial mêlée of the nu-media that much less impossible. Others, naturally, despise the notion of art being altered for the sake of a perceived payday. Whatever the rationale, the reality is actually a corrupt combination of the two. The MPAA’s PG-13 is a demographic determinate. Sadly, it censures as much as it suggests, pushing us closer and closer to a homogenized version of the cinematic arts. There may come a day when every film is a probable PG-13, whether they began that way or not. Unfortunately, we appear to be closer to that manner of filmic future shock than we care to admit.