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Dreamers Gets Searchlight Release
Latest from Bernardo Bertolucci, The Dreamers, to be released by Fox
Searchlight in February.
Wednesday, January 14, 2004
By Spencer Garvey
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For the first time in more than six years an MPAA signatory company will release
an NC-17-rated film. Fox Searchlight announced that it will release an uncut
version of Bernardo Bertolucci's The Dreamers in February. The film,
starring Michael Pitt, Eva Green and Louis Garrel, premiered at the Venice Film
Festival last year and will screen next week at the Sundance Film Festival.
"The Dreamers is finally making it to the U.S. in its uncut version.
I'm relieved -- in so many ways -- that the distributor has had the vision to
release my original film. After all, an orgasm is better than a bomb,"
Bertolucci said in a statment.
Set in France during the late '60s, Dreamers stars Garrel and Green
as French brother and sister who invite a young American student (Pitt) to come
live with them while their parents are away on a vacation. They begin to make
their own rules as the test their sexuality and emotions through a series of
mind games - each wondering just how far the other will go.
"The Dreamers provocatively explores human sexuality in a frank
way," Searchlight president Peter Rice said in a statement. "By releasing
the film as Bernardo originally intended, we are following in the footsteps
of classic films like Midnight Cowboy and Last Tango in Paris.
We believe that NC-17 is the appropriate rating for The Dreamers given
that this is not a film for children under 17; it is an audacious and original
film for intelligent critics and discerning adult audiences."
Over 30 years ago MGM released Bertolucci's Last Tango in Paris, which
was rated X (the most restrictive rating at the time) and earned both Bertolucci
and star Marlon Brando Oscar nominations. Not all NC-17-rated films have the
same fate as Tango, however. Of the 17 films released with an NC-17 rating,
only two have crossed the $10 million mark at the box office - Showgirls
in 1995 and Henry and June in 1990.
Up for a Goya for best European Film, Dreamers will be released on February
6th in Los Angeles and New York. It will then go nationwide on February 13th.
The last film released in the U.S. with NC-17 rating was Orgazmo, which
only grossed $210,000 at the domestic box office.
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