The director of the upcoming Marilyn Monroe movie insulted American audiences in a new interview after it was revealed the biopic will get an NC-17 rating.
New Zealand filmmaker Andrew Dominik, who is directing the highly anticipated “Blonde” starring Ana de Armas, called Americans ”strange” when it comes to sex.
An NC-17 rating is used to certify that a motion picture is of such a nature that no one aged 17 or under can be admitted. It’s the first Netflix film to be given that designation.
“I was surprised,” the “Killing Them Softly” filmmaker, 54, told Vulture of the rare rating in a new interview published Wednesday.
“I thought we’d colored inside the lines. But I think if you’ve got a bunch of men and women in a boardroom talking about sexual behavior, maybe the men are going to be worried about what the women think. It’s just a weird time. It’s not like depictions of happy sexuality. It’s depictions of situations that are ambiguous.”
Dominik went on to say that despite the prominence of sex in American culture, “Americans are really strange when it comes to sexual behavior, don’t you think?”
He added: “On the one hand, I think if I’m given the choice, I’d rather go and see the NC-17 version of the Marilyn Monroe story. Because we know that her life was on the edge, clearly, from the way it ended. Do you want to see the warts-and-all version or do you want to see the sanitized version?”
Dominik also believes the timing of the long-awaited film’s release later this year will impact how it’s viewed.
“If it had come out a few years ago, it would have come out right when Me Too hit and it would have been an expression of all that stuff,” he told the outlet. “We’re in a time now, I think, where people are really uncertain about where any lines are.”
Though “Blonde,” according to its director, “definitely has a morality about it,” he doesn’t believe it will turn out “as cut-and-dried as people want to see it.”
“There’s something in it to offend everyone,” Dominik vowed.
“Blonde” will be available to stream on Netflix in September.
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