Film Ratings Board Picks Mosk as Its New Leader : Movies: After 20 years, Richard Heffner is stepping down as head of a panel that remains a hotbed of controversy. Richard Mosk takes over July 1.

Two decades after his appointment as chairman of the Classification & Rating Administration, the film industry’s controversial ratings arm, Richard Heffner is relinquishing the hot seat. His successor, Richard Mosk, will assume the post July 1.

“Nothing lasts forever,” explains Jack Valenti, president of the Motion Picture Assn. of America which, with the National Assn. of Theater Owners, oversees the ratings board. “After 20 years, we’re bringing someone else in to keep the institution alive.”

Mosk, 54, an honors graduate of Stanford University and Harvard Law School, is a partner with the Los Angeles firm of Sanders, Barnet, Goldman, Simons and Mosk, specializing in litigation arbitration law. He was a staff member of the Warren Commission investigating the assassination of President Kennedy; one of three American judges on the Iran-U.S. Claims Tribunal that arose out of the hostage situation; and a member of the Christopher Commission investigating the Los Angeles police in the wake of the Rodney G. King beating.

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Once again, he’ll have his hands full.

Ratings of movies are routinely second-guessed by filmmakers who’ve called the standards ambiguous and arbitrary. Debate continues over the 4-year-old “adults-only” NC-17 rating that has proven to be nearly as stigmatizing as the “X” it replaced. And the committee--nearly a dozen parents whose job it is to provide guidelines about a movie’s suitability for children--is caught in a cross fire between artists who view its very existence as institutionalized censorship and local school boards or right-wing religious groups eager to take matters into their own hands.

The board is a political football in the industry, as well. “The system works--for the major studios, at least,” observes Mitch Goldman, president of marketing and distribution at New Line Cinema. “But there’s a definite double standard when it comes to rating the independents. Because we’re not Paramount or Universal, we had a tough time with (“Nightmare on Elm Street’s”) Freddy Krueger. He’s a very popular horror character who became Heffner’s main nemesis.”

Nonsense, retorts the departing chief. “Our badge of honor is that the big guys--as well as the little ones--are unhappy with us,” Heffner says. “Despite this industry’s cult of personality, we don’t rate producers or directors or studios but movies.”

Some argue that the 25-year-old group is, in some ways, as outmoded as the Motion Picture Code that preceded it.

“The problem with the ratings board is that they’re set up to deal with one culture--and we’re in a multi-cultural society,” observes Samuel Goldwyn Jr., chairman of the Samuel Goldwyn Co. “Words and language offensive to people in Greenwich, Conn., may have no meaning in a black environment. There’s a fear of language and a preference for violence--which is actually a far greater threat. You can cut heads off, sever hands . . . but don’t let them use the ‘f-word’ twice.”

Goldwyn knows whereof he speaks. His company picked up Martin Lawrence’s “You So Crazy” from Miramax after the movie was awarded an NC-17. Releasing the movie with an adults-only designation may have embarrassed the family-oriented Disney, which purchased Miramax last June. But releasing it without a rating--as the independent Goldwyn ultimately did--is a luxury not afforded the major studios by the MPAA.

“You So Crazy”--despite the NC-17 flap--performed well at the box office, taking in between $12 million and $13 million domestically. Though major movie chains such as AMC and Cineplex Odeon agreed to play the picture, that’s frequently not the case. Mall owners occasionally prohibit theaters from showing NC-17 films. Some newspapers and networks will not accept NC-17 advertising. And several video outfits, including Blockbuster, the largest, keep NC-17 movies off their shelves--a policy that led Universal Pictures to release two versions of “The Getaway”: an R-rated theatrical version for Blockbuster as well as a steamier unrated one.

“The board is way behind the times--not to mention the rest of the world--when it comes to sex,” maintains director Phillip Noyce, who cut three minutes from “Sliver” to get the desired R rating. “And it has very strange directives. I was told we couldn’t show Sharon Stone moving when she was astride Billy Baldwin--as though moving . . . enjoying the act . . . made it more objectionable. The focus seemed to be more on the publicity surrounding the film and Stone’s notoriety than on what was there on the screen. It’s unfortunate that an organization set up to avoid government censorship is so afraid of controversy that it bends over backward in regulating itself.”

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The R-rated “Sliver” grossed $37 million domestically, while the uncut version took in more than twice that overseas. That, according to Heffner, is at the heart of the matter.

“Most of the criticism of the ratings system comes from the fact that we are perceived to be taking money out of the pockets of people,” he asserts. “The lucrative contracts these directors sign requiring them to deliver an ‘R’ make for an incredible amount of hypocrisy. They want to maintain their ‘vision’? Fine. Just release the movie with an NC-17.”

His successor concurs: “We’re not censoring or making artistic judgments about a given movie--just providing information to help parents decide if their children should see it,” says Mosk. “The process is not a science. It’s inherently subjective. But 74% of those polled last October said they found the ratings ‘very’ or ‘fairly’ useful. The issue of what’s appropriate in art and literature has been with us forever. People criticized the nudes on Michelangelo’s Sistine Chapel ceiling--and that was a deeply religious project commissioned by the Pope.”

Valenti points out that all but two of the countries in the world--Germany and Japan--have government censorship that ranges from “stern to substantial.” Voluntarism, he’s convinced, is a plus.

“I’m not saying that we haven’t made mistakes in rating the 11,773 movies we’ve looked at over the years,” he admits. “But the question--as in all of life--is ‘If not this . . . what?’ ”