Movies, Violence, and Michael Haneke
Posted on 21 March 2008 by Gary Karbon
Part 1 of 4
One of my scariest childhood memories is my grandmother taking me to our neighborhood movie theater to see the Disney animation Little Red Riding Hood.
I even forgot how old I was at the time but I remember the shock of watching the big bad wolf eating up both the grandma and the little girl with the red hood! It was the most violent thing I had encountered up until that age.
I remember most of the other kids somehow cheering and having a good time at precisely those scenes where I was trying to hide under my seat. That's why I suppose I always had a rather different take on the issue of "violence in movies" and thought about it for some time.
A lot of movies, including cartoons for children and slapstick comedies, have always been violent either at their core or on the edges.
What's Tom and Jerry if not an endless chase between a bully and a potential victim? Find me a single minute in any Three Stooges film where nobody gets kicked in the butt, hit in the face with a pie or slapped hard on the head.
Jaws was violent but it was an "us versus nature" sort of "unifying violence." It was a bonding experience for us humans to root for the destruction of a white shark. I bet even the animals' rights advocates liked the punishment dished out at the end to the big bad fish.
Who cares for that human-eating slimy Alien's right to life? In that context, again, a violent death is justice well done.
Violence was Hitchcock's bread and butter (Psycho, Birds, Dial M For Murder, etc.). He invented the "reaction shot" in which the reaction to the violent act is as dreadful as the deed itself.
The lesson is well-learned and ratcheted up to new levels of adrenaline rush by Oscar-winning directors like Spielberg (Saving Private Ryan, Jurassic Park), Coppola (Godfather, Apocalypse Now), and Coen Brothers (Fargo, Blood Simple, No Country for Old Men). The list is a very long one.
Violence, in one form or another, has been a part of a majority of all movies ever made.
Violence has been not only merely accepted but also applauded, promoted and rewarded for a very good reason, as I'll try to establish in the second part of this meditation.
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