Wes Anderson’s visually stunning drama, Asteroid City, was finally released in cinemas in India on August 25. The film was scheduled to release in India on June 23, a week after its release in North America on June 16, 2023. However, the film was postponed as it was stuck at the hands of the Central Board of Film Certification (CBFC). The film was allowed a theatrical release, after two visual cuts.
As per the cut list, Scarlett Johansson’s full frontal nude shot, lasting around 3 seconds, was axed by the CBFC. The scene has been edited smoothly and viewers won’t even realize that the crucial sequence had a cut.
Scarlett Johansson, in an interview, said that she didn't feel any discomfort about filming one of her rare nude scenes. She, however, added that Wes Anderson was uncomfortable filming the sequence.
The other scene cut by CBFC lasts around 30 seconds and shows a child smoking. The removal of this scene does affect the experience a bit for the viewers as it establishes the growing romance between the two characters.
After these cuts were carried out, the CBFC passed the film with a U/A certificate. The run time of Asteroid City, as mentioned on the censor certificate, is 105 minutes, that is, 1 hour and 45 minutes. A source said, “The film was pushed by nearly two months as it took a while for the team in India to get approvals from the makers for the deletion of these two visuals.”
Asteroid City is not the first Wes Anderson film to get cuts from the Censors. His much-loved film, The Grand Budapest Hotel (2014), was given an ‘A’ certificate and yet, four minutes of its scenes were removed. Scenes of violence and even the word ‘f**k’ were retained but shots involving sexual undertones and visuals were snipped. Shockingly, a non-violent and non-sexual scene where characters decide to escape from prison using chocolate-based confectionery was deleted. CBFC suffered a lot of backlash due to these cuts.
Last month, another Hollywood film that got cut was Oppenheimer. Unlike Asteroid City, the makers of Oppenheimer self-censored the much-talked-about sex scene involving Florence Pugh. The makers went as far as editing a nude shot of her with a CGI-made black dress, leaving viewers amused and even agitated. What also shocked viewers was that the controversial Bhagavad Gita scene was retained by the CBFC.
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