A look inside Hollywood and the movies. : UNCUT (SORT OF) : What’d You Think It Was, NC-1900?

Bravo, cable’s cultural network, is heavily promoting the fact that it’s presenting the exclusive American television premiere of the original, restored, 5-hour, 11-minute version of Bernardo Bertolucci’s epic “1900” on May 25.

Rated NC-17, the restored “1900” was re-released theatrically in January to great acclaim in Los Angeles, New York and San Francisco.

The 1976 film, starring Robert De Niro, Gerard Depardieu, Burt Lancaster, Dominique Sanda and Donald Sutherland, chronicles more than 70 years of Italian social and political history through the eyes of two contrasting families.

When “1900” was released in the United States in 1977, the film was cut from five to four hours. No new scenes were added to the NC-17 version; editors just restored scenes to their original length.

But cineastes take note: Bravo isn’t really showing the complete restored version.

Bravo executives admit that the restored “1900” will be edited for airing. “We didn’t know it was NC-17,” says Kathy Dore, general manager and vice president of Bravo.

The problem is that Bravo, which has more than 6 million subscribers, is a basic cable service (10% of the subscribers to Bravo--which was formerly a pay service, still pay for it). Explicit nudity, sex, violence and language are taboo. When Bravo recently aired the R-rated Gerard Depardieu film “Loulou,” offensive language in subtitles was blacked out; computer-generated images blurred nude bodies.

After viewing “1900” Tuesday night, Dore said a few sexually explicit scenes “cross the line” for basic cable. “There are a couple of scenes we are going to have to edit very minimally. It’s primarily nudity and sexual content. I think we are talking somewhere in the range of three minutes out of a five-hour movie.”

“If Bravo was a pay service, I would have no qualms about showing the film in its entirety,” Dore said. “Frankly, some of the explicit material we have to eliminate is not integral to the plot of the film.”