Ultraviolent Movies: From Sam Peckinpah to Quentin Tarantino

Rating:
Summary: A must have for the action movie fanatic
Review: A lot can be said for this book, but I'll try to keep it short.

First, the cons. This book can be a bit dry. It takes a genre (i.e. Law and Order for police movies), then it will choose several films from this genre and discuss what the movie was about, why critics either hated it or liked it. Some movies even get a section on any particularly famous, gory scenes within. Another thing that I didn't particularly care for was that it included several horror films that weren't particularly violent. Psycho, which has a relatively low body count when compared with Friday the 13th, etc. Of course, Psycho was included because it was directed by the master Alfred Hitchcock, but doesn't seem ultra-violent.

The best thing about this book is that it shows how violence has progressed in movies, starting with Bonnie and Clyde, all the way through RoboCop (one of the bloodiest action movies ever made in my opinion). Many well known movies are discussed (Dirty Harry, Clockwork Orange), as well as some smaller, lesser-known movies (Walking Tall).

The pros far outwiegh the cons. For any one who lies their movies full of Desert Eagle handguns, this book is for you.

Rating:
Summary: A must have for the action movie fanatic
Review: A lot can be said for this book, but I'll try to keep it short.

First, the cons. This book can be a bit dry. It takes a genre (i.e. Law and Order for police movies), then it will choose several films from this genre and discuss what the movie was about, why critics either hated it or liked it. Some movies even get a section on any particularly famous, gory scenes within. Another thing that I didn't particularly care for was that it included several horror films that weren't particularly violent. Psycho, which has a relatively low body count when compared with Friday the 13th, etc. Of course, Psycho was included because it was directed by the master Alfred Hitchcock, but doesn't seem ultra-violent.

The best thing about this book is that it shows how violence has progressed in movies, starting with Bonnie and Clyde, all the way through RoboCop (one of the bloodiest action movies ever made in my opinion). Many well known movies are discussed (Dirty Harry, Clockwork Orange), as well as some smaller, lesser-known movies (Walking Tall).

The pros far outwiegh the cons. For any one who lies their movies full of Desert Eagle handguns, this book is for you.

Rating:
Summary: This is a sick but jovial book...
Review: And anytime an author can make gore an exciting and interesting element, then he's done his job. DEATH WISH, WALKING TALL, TAXI DRIVER, A CLOCKWORK ORANGE, and more. Buy it and be disgusted [...] and just enjoy!

Rating:
Summary: A big waste of time
Review: The author summarizes the plots of about a dozen violent movies, then he summarizes the critics' reaction to those movies. That's about it. The interview with Oliver Stone is pointless. If you want to read a really good book on this subject, try The Blood Poets by Jake Horsley.

Rating:
Summary: Violence in film... almost there, perhaps next try.
Review: Violence has been an integral part of art in all its forms ever since man invented art. It has been, and probably always will be, a part of life, no matter how civilized we become. Civilization itself is not only created and molded by violence, but sustained, perpetuated, and developed by its application or the threat of it.

Violence is disturbing but it can also be cathartic, and art presents both of these in an unsettling synthesis that is bound to get as many people upset as it will get to delight in it. Going back to Sumerian myths, Greek tragedies, Chinese folk tales, Elizabethan drama, and more recent literary examples reveals a long and cherished tradition of reveling in violent excess to the great entertainment of audiences as varied as one can imagine. Pictorial art tries to outdo the written word with cruel displays of bloodletting, and even when ostensibly depicting religious events the artists tend to go for the shocking, sensational, and sublimely disturbing.

It is little wonder then that films, just another art form, would seize on this long tradition, integrate it into its own canons, and fully participate in it, expanding it and adapting it according to the requirements and possibilities of the medium.

Films that depict violence have always been subject to the ferocious attacks from various corners, depending on what the movie portrays. What do the film-makers do or say in their defense? This is the subject matter of Bouzereau's book. It is not as much about what violence is, what role it plays in society, and how it is reflected in the arts, as it is about the various responses to its presence in films. The author traces how critics, the public, the law, the industry, and finally, the directors themselves view the presence of violence in these films.

The book is divided into eight chapters that cover everything from the films of Sam Peckinpah to those of Clive Barker. While the book does not dwell on horror films apart from some brief look at slasher, fantasy, and zombie movies, it does present a rather extensive catalogue of the most famous violent movies made in the U.S. This should be made quite clear: the book is only about American films despite featuring a Belgian B&W feature and making references to reactions in Britain and France to some of the films in the study.

This is a shortcoming, and a very serious one, because it deprives us of the comparative look at violent films that might shed some light on the role of violence in life and art, and thereby provide a much better justification for its use in films. Some cultures are even more tolerant to violence than America (e.g. Japan) and their arts inevitably reflect that as well. Omitting serious cinema from around the world handicaps the argument by forcing a distinctly American frame of reference on a globally shared phenomenon.

Ultimately, the book does not offer much insight. It is really a collection of film synopses, woven around anecdotes, interviews with directors, and cursory look at the controversies surrounding some of the films. Even this becomes fragmented in the second part of the book, with the chapters getting shorter, as if the author was in a hurry writing them, and the discussion being less and less attentive to the social implications of the subject matter. By the end of the book, the author simply recites brief summaries of the films and sometimes does not even include much of the reaction to them at all.

It is as if The Wild Bunch, Clockwork Orange, and Natural Born Killers are somehow worthier than Night of the Living Dead, Scream, or Man Bites Dog. Again, the ugly and entirely artificial distinction between art haute and the low-brow, low-budget horror flick rears its ugly head. Even in this marginalized genre hierarchy is imposed by critics who seek to redeem the images of death by uncovering some social commentary in the films.

The premise, however, appears flawed to me. It assumes that these films are in need of defending. Indeed, the book (and the directors) spend a lot of time trying to justify the violence in these films. Most of them center around the "life is full of violence, we're just showing it they way it is" variety. But this defense misses an essential point. If movies were simply photographs of reality, they would make great 8 o'clock news, but art they will not make.

It is naive to claim that art is just a mirror of reality. The film-makers do that for obvious reasons: they want to protect their creations from the depredations of the multidinous censors. Yet art's purpose is to evoke emotions. Showing violence does that. But so do romance, horror, bravery, depression, you name it. If it's well done, the audience would respond. And that is the purpose of art, to get a response. A lot of times we might be surprised at our own reactions, we might even be disgusted by them. Maybe the veneer of civilization is not as thin as many would have us believe and maybe, just maybe, our rational selves would be able to recognize and suppress these traits that we deem unworthy of perpetuating.

Civilization has routinely glorified violence and for good reason. We always have to fight for our gains, we always have to protect our freedoms. Liberty dies as soon as we are unable to kill to keep it.

Violence is destructive, it is ugly, and it is life. There is no existence apart from violence. We may not like it, we may deplore it, but it will never be further than inches away from even the most docile among us. Violence can also be a way of expressing ourselves and thus moving others. There can be no heroes without violence. Being a hero means overcoming fear and the only fear worth overcoming is that of untimely violent death. Getting rid of violence in the arts would simultaneously rid us of our heroes.