OK, a word about Blue Valentine, which has been courting controversy and getting attention in weird ways recently. I understand the Weinstein brothers’ penchant for showmanship and salesmanship, but I’ve seen the film a couple times, and it soars on its own merits. The whole ratings controversy, about it being slapped with an NC-17? I don’t get it. It’s a very frank and sexual and emotionally pulverizing story of these two people who are not meant to be together — their respective pasts render them incapable of giving the sort of love the other needs, or is hardwired to receive — but it’s not a movie that is over the top or out of bounds or flippant with its sexuality. It reeks of a baited rating, in other words.
Now there’s the poster, which is a grungy, druggy thing. It’s not terrible, don’t get me wrong. It captures a bit of the intensity of the relationship between Ryan Gosling and Michelle Williams, it’s just that it doesn’t convey the frailty and… essential busted-ness, let’s say, of what’s really under the microscope, which is what Derek Cianfrance’s film is all about.
So, you think they deliberately added the male on female oral scene just to get that NC-17? Could be. I don’t actually think the film would suffer much with it cut.
I don’t necessarily think that one scene was added in wholesale, no, but I would not be surprised if every effort was made to encourage the filmmaker to let some of those scenes run their full course (maybe lingering in the abortion doctor’s office, too). Mainly, though, I think that the Weinsteins worked some sort of brilliant whisper-campaign mojo on the MPAA (“Seriously guys, this is a really *intense* and sexually frank adult story…”) to influence their perception of it, playing on their rich history of being totally freaked out by sexuality — and particularly representations of any female sexuality/orgasm/pleasure. The Weinsteins are masters at those sorts of head games.