THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Saturday, February 4, 1995 TAG: 9502030111
SECTION: DAILY BREAK PAGE: E3 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Interview
SOURCE: BY MAL VINCENT, ENTERTAINMENT WRITER
LENGTH: Medium: 78 lines
A WORLD IN WHICH a pig could be charged with murder?
A world in which witches were burned at the stake and the churches fought for power against the increasingly successful merchants?
It was a time of darkness, with a little light sneaking through. It was a time between the age of superstition and the age of reason - medieval France, in the year 1400.
It is the setting of the mischievous new film ``The Advocate,'' a courtroom drama with a satirical bent. Leslie Megahey, the film's British director, is laughing at the hoopla American censors have made about the film's lone nude scene.
``In England, the film was rated `15,' '' he said, ``which means that persons under 15 can't see it. No problem. Here, I was shocked when they threatened to give us an NC-17 because of this one scene, which has Colin Firth, as our lawyer, rolling about with a Gypsy girl. Yes, the scene has nudity, but aren't American audiences used to that? The studio told me that the film absolutely could not be released with an NC-17 rating and that I must cut whatever. I had no idea what to cut but, guessing, I went to that scene and cut a few seconds - maybe two seconds in all. Now, we have a R rating. I made the right guess, didn't I? It's really ridiculous. The scene is much sexier now than it was before. What I've done is cut some of the lovemaking but leave the ending - the climax. I really can't help but think that your rating system is quite silly.''
``The Advocate,'' now playing at the Naro Expanded Cinema, is controversial on several other levels. It deals with the medieval idea that animals could be tried for their actions.
Megahey, a middle-aged and quite proper Briton, would seem to be the last man to be questioned about these things. Up until this year, he was a prominent programmer for the British Broadcasting Company. Then ``The Advocate'' came along as a project.
``It is a historical drama that simply seemed too big for the small screen,'' he said during a recent visit to New York.
The plot concerns a jaded Parisian lawyer (played by Firth of ``Valmont'') who gives up city hypocrisy to take up practice in the country. Immediately he runs into cases involving murder, rape and witchcraft. When he clears a young girl of being a witch, the church overrules him and he learns that the law is superseded by popular superstition.
``It's a different period picture in that it involves a modern man, a man who thinks in modern ways, set in medieval France,'' Megahey said. ``I particularly wanted Colin Firth for the role because he has a self-deprecating quality but also can muster the needed anger and strength when it's needed.''
The director particularly wanted his actors to speak in modern jargon. ``I didn't want them speaking in stilted poetry as some writers think people spoke in those days. I think there are many parallels between then and now. In fact, I don't think much has changed. We still have racist feelings. We still have the hierarchy of nature in which some people are more important than others. We still have superstition and ignorance. Now, we just have ignorance about different things.''
Megahey believes, too, that there are even modern tie-ins to the notion of making animals legally responsible for their actions. ``There are all those cases involving pit bulls in which people have spent thousands of dollars trying to prove that they aren't vicious,'' he said. ``I read the other day about a goat that was charged with theft in Kenya.''
Megahey doesn't agree with the studio's advertising policy, which has tried to make a great deal of the movie's final scenes - urging audiences not to ``tell the secret'' of who the advocate is.
``We didn't use that kind of ad campaign in England,'' the director said. ``We didn't have to. Actually, I think the beginning is just as surprising as the end. It's a dark period in history.'' ILLUSTRATION: MIRAMAX FILMS
Leslie Megahey, left, directs Colin Firth in ``The Advocate,'' a
historical drama set in medievel France.
by CNB