COMMENTARY : FIRE AND LOATHING IN DENS OF STUDIO DRAGONS

This film does not intend to demean or ignore the many positive features of Asian-American and specifically Chinese-American communities. Any similarities between the depictions in the film and any association, organization, individual or Chinatown that exists in real life is accidental.

--MGM/UA disclaimer to “Year of the Dragon” It’s amazing how few fellow directors (zero) have come to the support of director Michael Cimino, whose “The Year of the Dragon” drew a disclaimer from MGM/UA a couple of weeks ago.

The studio’s thinly veiled apology, reprinted above,may have partially mollified protesting Chinese-American groups, but it raises some unsettling questions for serious film makers.

Critics are divided on how serious a film maker Cimino really is. “Dragon” has been vilified in most corners as stylized carnage and, of course, “Heaven’s Gate” stands as the greatest waste of Kodak film since “Cleopatra” almost shut down Fox.

Nevertheless, a disclaimer is a smudge on a piece of art, no matter how untalented the artist, and the ease with which MGM/UA buckled under to pressure makes it suspect on two counts.

First, the film had already laid a medium-size egg at the box office. So fueling the controversy with talk of a disclaimer couldn’t hurt. (It hasn’t. The film is not a hit, but it has grossed half of its $16 million since the disclaimer was announced.)

Second, there’s a hint of vengeance here. MGM wasn’t involved in the “Heaven’s Gate” fiasco, but its merger with UA, which was, makes it a victim by association. (Who would blame MGM--or anybody else in the business--for kicking such a profligate wretch when he’s down? Can you imagine a studio tacking an apology onto a Steven Spielberg movie?)

You can’t blame the protesters. In these enlightened times, ethnic stereotyping and other sins of excess (“Dragon” has it all: slit throats, decapitation, gang rape) in a major studio movie aren’t going to pass unnoticed. And the political and protest leaders are too savvy to allow their outrage to be ignored.

But the studios, if they have enough faith to commit to a project, ought to have enough fiber to stick with it.

Scripts can be deceiving, but it’s hard to believe that the Chinese-American community’s reaction to the story, about a stubborn white cop trying to restore morality to New York’s Chinatown, came as a surprise to anyone who had read it.

A few months ago, a group of prominent film makers took out a full-page ad in Daily Variety supporting Peter Bogdanovich in his fight with Universal Pictures over the editing of “Mask.”

The point, strained in the light of contractual reality (Bogdanovich delivered a film several minutes longer than agreed to), was that the artist’s (director’s) work should be inviolable.

Where are those outraged voices now?

John Huston, a signatory on the Bogdanovich protest ad, says he finds MGM’s disclaimer offensive “on principle,” but no one else contacted was willing to discuss it on the record.

“Nobody wants to stick his neck out on that one,” said one director. “Cimino’s name is still ‘Heaven’s Gate’ in this business. He’s not someone to rally around.”

Gilbert Cates, president of the Directors Guild of America, says the DGA won’t object to a disclaimer on a film unless the director objects. Cimino, reportedly holed up in New York adapting a script from Truman Capote’s “Hand-Carved Coffins,” isn’t saying anything.

“Dragon” may be hard to rally around, but to film makers who aspire to anything greater than “Porky’s 10,” the MGM/UA disclaimer is not a good omen. It’s more a sign of the times. The new corporate Hollywood is going to get more and more image-sensitive.

MGM/UA earlier this year closed its “Pirates” set in Tunisia to the press, apparently fearing a box-office backlash to its association with fugitive director Roman Polanski. Things are not apt to loosen up when Ted Turner--whose Atlanta Braves would make a terrific product boycott target--takes over.

It may be “good” publicity to have people picketing your flop. It’s something else when your parent company is having its bread-and-butter product toasted. (Imagine the message the Chinese-American community could have sent to the Coca-Cola Co. if ‘Dragon’ had been a Columbia release?)

For that, and other reasons, the once daring film industry is now walking on little cat feet.

The ratings system, which offers the most illusory form of solace to parents, has become institutionalized censorship--keeping teen-agers in a constant supply of flesh and violence while hanging its lethal X rating like the sword of Damocles over the heads of some serious film makers.

Studio executives, who can now count on post-theatrical release cable and videocassette sales for half or more of their income, are beginning to buy concepts with small-screen ambitions as well. (Worse, the studio think tanks are being infiltrated by Nielsen-minded TV execs, and the marketing divisions are being run by people who are used to peddling cereals and six-packs.)

The critics who hated “Year of the Dragon” weren’t necessarily wrong, but in their haste to lash Cimino for “Heaven’s Gate,” and in this leanest of lean seasons, they missed something. For all its flaws, “Dragon” is a raw, uncompromising, full-blown motion picture, one of the few we’ll see this year.

No apologies were necessary.