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  Lot 47 Films Billy Kay (left) as Gary and Paul Franklin Dano as Howie in Michael Cuesta's "L.I.E."

By Chris Young

Daily Bruin Reporter

The new film “L.I.E.” addresses an issue society loathes to even mention: pedophilia. Although the film’s NC-17 rating brands it in the public’s mind as vulgar or pornographic, it is not.

“I think ‘L.I.E.’ is a film that can impact people in positive ways by opening their eyes to what might be going on in some segments of society,” said Jeff Lipsky, the film’s distributor. “Serious films like this should be made available for parents to take their teenagers to and spark a dialogue about this serious issue.”

The perception of movie ratings is examined in “L.I.E.,” which opened in theaters this weekend. Why a film is rated R versus NC-17 is a debatable topic, and has consequences for the success of that film and how the public perceives it.

“L.I.E.,” which stands for Long Island Expressway, is a coming-of-age film based in suburbia. It follows a 16-year-old boy, Howie, who goes through a week of intense personal loss.

Howie finds new direction in the most unlikely of persons, a pedophile named Big John. The relationship between Big John and Howie begins with pedophilic undertones, but develops into a father-son bond as Big John helps Howie through his time of loss and emotional yearning.

“L.I.E.” director Michael Cuesta said that because “L.I.E.” has an NC-17 rating, the public dismisses it as pornography, especially if people hear it has a pedophile in it.

The Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) assigns film ratings. According to the MPAA’s Web site, these ratings are for parents to use as a guide to what movies their children should watch.

  Lot 47 Films (Left to right) Tony Donnelly as Brian, James Costa as Kevin Cole, and Paul Franklin Dano as Howie. Jack Valenti, president of the MPAA, writes on the Web site that the NC-17 rating does not signify gratuitous sex or pornography, but rather a movie that parents should not take their children to see.

Lipsky said “L.I.E.” was rated NC-17 for two sex scenes that take up eight seconds of screen time, two seconds of male buttocks shown in a heterosexual sex scene, and a two-minute dialogue between Big John and Howie discussing oral sex. But it does not glorify or promote pedophilia.

“This is not a pornography film,” said Cuesta. “It has a very strong cautionary tale, and it provokes a healthy discussion between a responsible adult and a teenager.”

Richard Walter, a screenwriting professor in UCLA’s School of Theater, Film and Television, said, “It chills me that people think that because a movie treats a particular subject such as pedophilia, that it is endorsing that kind of activity.”

Also, certain theaters will not show NC-17 movies and some newspapers do not print NC-17 movie advertisements. Thus, the filmmakers said that giving a film an NC-17 rating is censorship.

“To say that this is censorship is to say the Pacific Ocean is salty. But (the MPAA) doesn’t deny that,” Walter said.

The filmmakers also mentioned a double standard against “L.I.E.” Certain movies have been rated R that the filmmakers believe are equally or more suggestive than “L.I.E.”

“‘American Beauty,’ which was rated R, is about a 45-year-old man lusting after a cheerleader,” Cuesta said. “In ‘L.I.E.’ we have a 50-year-old man lusting after a teenage boy. It’s the same lusting. (The MPAA) is just really uncomfortable with a figure like Big John being depicted in a real way, a three-dimensional way, not a back-to-school-special way.”

Film versions of “Lolita,” made in 1962 and 1997, deal with the same subject as “L.I.E.”

“The 1997 version of ‘Lolita’ was R rated, and it was all about pedophilia,” Lipsky said. “It had many scenes of a little girl copulating with a 40-year-old man, and mind-numbing violence also.”

The same paradox happens for violence, said Lipsky.

He named the violent films “Scarface,” “The General’s Daughter,” “8 MM,” “Death Wish,” and “Hannibal,” as examples of R-rated films.

“It’s serial killers, thumbs up, pedophilia, thumbs down,” Lipsky said.

Throughout the film, the line between pedophilia and familial sentiments is blurred. An especially poignant scene shows Big John teaching Howie how to shave, something Howie’s father never did. As Big John stands beside Howie in front of the bathroom mirror, the audience sees both the fatherly care Big John uses as he shaves Howie’s face with a straight razor, and the danger that Howie might be in as he stands next to the sexual predator.

Cuesta said that in a screening Q&A he attended for “L.I.E.,” the people who asked the most intelligent questions were teenagers, suggesting that they understand the mature themes of the film, casting further doubts on the reason behind the NC-17 rating.

“Kids are savvy enough to know it’s not as simple as black and white,” Cuesta said. “They saw all the sides to Big John, they saw he was a bad guy who was able to be good at times.”