Cinematic Violence: Can Anything Be Justified?

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mfunk9786
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Re: Cinematic Violence: Can Anything Be Justified?

#301 Post by mfunk9786 » Fri Oct 21, 2011 10:51 am

domino harvey wrote:Image
Wait, I didn't realize we were allowed to post cartoons that are funny and don't have condom heads in them

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domino harvey
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Re: Cinematic Violence: Can Anything Be Justified?

#302 Post by domino harvey » Fri Oct 21, 2011 5:33 pm

I saw the cover for I Told You Not to Call the Police on Amazon and thought it was some kind of joke. Apparently not, and Vice Magazine's online site (of course) has watched and reviewed this POV rape-fest (VERY NSFW)

Somehow I don't see a defense for this coming anytime soon!

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knives
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Re: Cinematic Violence: Can Anything Be Justified?

#303 Post by knives » Fri Oct 21, 2011 5:40 pm

At least the director came up with a passable pun for a pseudonym.

Thomas Dukenfield
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Re: Cinematic Violence: Can Anything Be Justified?

#304 Post by Thomas Dukenfield » Fri Oct 21, 2011 5:54 pm

domino harvey wrote:I saw the cover for I Told You Not to Call the Police on Amazon and thought it was some kind of joke. Apparently not, and Vice Magazine's online site (of course) has watched and reviewed this POV rape-fest (VERY NSFW)

Somehow I don't see a defense for this coming anytime soon!
From the director of Jesus Christ: Serial Rapist, so at least he's consistent. Maybe someone will end up using Mr. Zebub as an example in the "Zach Snyder is an auteur" thread.

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tarpilot
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Re: Cinematic Violence: Can Anything Be Justified?

#305 Post by tarpilot » Fri Oct 21, 2011 6:54 pm

domino harvey wrote:I saw the cover for I Told You Not to Call the Police on Amazon and thought it was some kind of joke. Apparently not, and Vice Magazine's online site (of course) has watched and reviewed this POV rape-fest (VERY NSFW)

Somehow I don't see a defense for this coming anytime soon!
I think I'll stick with Street Asylum's POV sequence of G. Gordon Liddy strangling a dominatrix, thank you very much

BigMack3000
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Re: Cinematic Violence: Can Anything Be Justified?

#306 Post by BigMack3000 » Fri Oct 21, 2011 7:45 pm

HA wow, my eyes lit up when I saw his name. I went to school with him. Nice guy.

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matrixschmatrix
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Re: Cinematic Violence: Can Anything Be Justified?

#307 Post by matrixschmatrix » Fri Oct 21, 2011 8:29 pm

domino harvey wrote:Somehow I don't see a defense for this coming anytime soon!
It's hard to imagine anyone defending it as art, but I would (reluctantly) defend the dude's right to create and distribute it, as presumably nobody's actually getting raped.

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aox
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Re: Cinematic Violence: Can Anything Be Justified?

#308 Post by aox » Fri Oct 21, 2011 11:19 pm

domino harvey wrote:I saw the cover for I Told You Not to Call the Police on Amazon and thought it was some kind of joke. Apparently not, and Vice Magazine's online site (of course) has watched and reviewed this POV rape-fest (VERY NSFW)

Somehow I don't see a defense for this coming anytime soon!
This disc also contains ASSMONSTER with Gina Lynn. I think it might be the the only R1 way to get the film.

j99
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Re: Cinematic Violence: Can Anything Be Justified?

#309 Post by j99 » Tue Nov 01, 2011 10:57 am

This question has come up again in the UK in relation to the recent conviction of Vincent Tabak for murder, and his interest in violent pornography. Admittedly it's from the "usual suspect", Christopher Tookey of the Daily Mail, who suggests that pornography has extended to mainstream cinemas. The films he cites are, naturally, The Human Centipede and A Serbian Film, but also the Saw and Hostel series, and also includes another swipe at perennial Mail favourite Crash. He proposes the BBFC ban them.

Mail Article

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MichaelB
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Re: Cinematic Violence: Can Anything Be Justified?

#310 Post by MichaelB » Tue Nov 01, 2011 11:12 am

I see Tookey's mounted his hobbyhorse again.
Crash was a landmark in cinematic pornography, because it encouraged those who have a sadistic sexual bent (or discovered they had one as a result of seeing the movie) to believe they are not alone, that attractive people feel the same way, and that there is no need to worry about harm to others as a result of sado-masochistic acts. The film preached violent sexual self-gratification in a way never advocated before in a mainstream feature film.
Has there ever been a single real-life case of someone deliberately staging car crashes for the purposes of sexual gratification? Either before or after the film came out? In other words, did this apparent "preaching" have any effect whatsoever? I'd have thought people into BDSM would have found the interactive attractions of the internet to be far more fruitful than a rather chilly and decidedly cerebral David Cronenberg film.

Incidentally, this is the current lead story on the Daily Mail website.

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Re: Cinematic Violence: Can Anything Be Justified?

#311 Post by colinr0380 » Tue Nov 01, 2011 11:52 am

This is likely a follow on from Monday's edition of the Daily Mail which conflated a number of issues into a general theme of "the internet is evil". They devoted their front page to the Church threatening to crack down on ISPs, along with another article inside saying that because a recently sentenced murderer had a computer showing that he had visited porn sites that this was enough to crack down on all pornography, violent or otherwise (i.e. the 'if even one person commits these crimes after seeing such imagery then isn't that worth censorship?' argument). Another three pages were devoted to an article in the 'protect children from porn, because it is jading them' vein. And the paper's 'Editors Comments' section was devoted to the same along with an associated essay on the same subject.

Plus another page was on the 'cyber attacks on the Foreign Office by evil hackers' story (which unsurprisingly the media was covering due to a conference taking place in London today).

So this is less Tookey getting on his high horse about film censorship (he's never gotten off it, especially about Crash!), but a "me too!" piece following on from the Mail's anti-internet campaign in the wake of the recent sentencing in a murder case.

Thinking in Daily Mail terms though, the question this all brings up is that even if the UK bans certain internet sites and films what is to stop people from outside the UK who have been corrupted by viewing websites and films while living in other countries from then coming to Britain where they may commit crimes 'under the influence', so to speak? Or should we just ban all Dutchmen from coming to the UK to ensure our total safety?
Last edited by colinr0380 on Tue Nov 01, 2011 12:23 pm, edited 4 times in total.

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Re: Cinematic Violence: Can Anything Be Justified?

#312 Post by MichaelB » Tue Nov 01, 2011 12:11 pm

colinr0380 wrote:Thinking in Daily Mail terms though, the question this all brings up is what is that even if the UK bans certain internet sites and films what is to stop people from other countries who have been corrupted by viewing websites and films in other countries from then coming to Britain where they may commit crimes 'under the influence', so to speak? Or should we just ban all Dutchmen from the UK to ensure our total safety?
I don't imagine for one millisecond that Tabak sourced his porn from anywhere other than the internet, and much of the material described (i.e. violent porn and child porn) is already illegal in Britain - and illegal to possess, not merely distribute.

In other words, this is already covered by existing legislation - so what more does the Mail want? Compulsory random searches of people's hard drives?

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Re: Cinematic Violence: Can Anything Be Justified?

#313 Post by colinr0380 » Tue Nov 01, 2011 12:13 pm

And beyond the legislation it seems that the BBFC seem to be doing their job in many of these other cases, as shown by some of the recent bans, even if Human Centipede 2 came back in an edited form. To me it seems like it is muddying the water a bit too much, taking obviously illegal material and then using it as the thin end of the wedge to conflate it with pornographic material in general, whether children are viewing such things and what it is doing to the morality of the country as a whole. Then the Tookey article is taking things further by complaining again about BBFC passed films such as Crash.

EDIT: I did a couple of edits to the previous comment, since I ranted a little!
Last edited by colinr0380 on Tue Nov 01, 2011 12:31 pm, edited 3 times in total.

j99
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Re: Cinematic Violence: Can Anything Be Justified?

#314 Post by j99 » Tue Nov 01, 2011 12:16 pm

colinr0380 wrote:Thinking in Daily Mail terms though, the question this all brings up is that even if the UK bans certain internet sites and films what is to stop people from other countries who have been corrupted by viewing websites and films while living in other countries from then coming to Britain where they may commit crimes 'under the influence', so to speak? Or should we just ban all Dutchmen from coming to the UK to ensure our total safety?
And Holland is incredibly liberal on these matters, as are the Scandinavian countries, and yet never appear to have these "moral crises" the way the UK has when something like this happens.

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Re: Cinematic Violence: Can Anything Be Justified?

#315 Post by Mr Sausage » Tue Nov 01, 2011 12:17 pm

Does no one sit down and consider that if pornography really did drive the average person to commit murder, martial law would've had to have been declared years ago? Porn is the most popular thing on the internet; countries would be overrun by now.

Serial killers are driven by a complex sociopathy that isn't even fully understood, but a couple journalists think that somehow they've just discovered the cure?

The only thing apparently that can find more justifications than cinematic violence is censorship.

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Re: Cinematic Violence: Can Anything Be Justified?

#316 Post by impossiblefunky » Sat Jan 07, 2012 7:05 pm

I've interviewed Boll about Auschwitz for the latest episode of The Projection Booth podcast:

http://projection-booth.blogspot.com/20 ... hwitz.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;


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Re: Cinematic Violence: Can Anything Be Justified?

#318 Post by MichaelB » Thu Mar 29, 2012 4:20 pm

Since Dieter Laser's eye-rollingly demented performance was the only thing even vaguely entertaining about the first film, I can see why Tom Six is a bit miffed.

I liked the comment "God forbid someone loses their artistic integrity in a Human Centipede picture."

That reminds me - inexplicably, despite having a checkdisc of Human Centipede II for months now, I still haven't got round to watching it. How remiss of me.

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Re: Cinematic Violence: Can Anything Be Justified?

#319 Post by mfunk9786 » Thu Mar 29, 2012 4:28 pm

It was something of a hoot in a crowded screening, but I can imagine it being a bit boring by yourself. Good luck.

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Re: Cinematic Violence: Can Anything Be Justified?

#320 Post by domino harvey » Mon Apr 30, 2012 5:20 pm

Haven't worked up the nerve to watch it yet but I noticed Anchor Bay reproduced one of Ebert's many condemnations of the film as the main pull quote on the back cover of their I Spit On Your Grave Blu-ray! Apparently "Sick, reprehensible and contemptible..." moves units more than actual praise (or maybe in this case it functions as praise for the target audience)

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Re: Cinematic Violence: Can Anything Be Justified?

#321 Post by Mr Sausage » Mon Apr 30, 2012 7:22 pm

To judge by the director's comments, the target audience is people who need to be shown thirty straight minutes of a brutally awful and protracted rape in order to understand that rape is awful, so...

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Re: Cinematic Violence: Can Anything Be Justified?

#322 Post by Brian C » Mon Apr 30, 2012 7:45 pm

Mr Sausage wrote:To judge by the director's comments, the target audience is people who need to be shown thirty straight minutes of a brutally awful and protracted rape in order to understand that rape is awful, so...
I've met conservative Christians who have told me with a straight face that they wouldn't know that murder was wrong if the Bible didn't tell them that it was (part of the whole, "atheists have no moral compass since they don't believe in anything" spiel). So maybe this director's logic isn't as silly as it sounds.

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Re: Cinematic Violence: Can Anything Be Justified?

#323 Post by colinr0380 » Mon Apr 30, 2012 8:20 pm

It has been a while since I read the Ebert review of the film, but didn't he spend more time reviewing and critiquing the reactions of the audience members in the screening that he attended than the actual film itself?

The most problematic aspect about (I'm assuming that we are talking about the original) I Spit On Your Grave is not that it is a thirty minute uninterrupted assault sequence but the way that it keeps stopping and starting again as Jennifer is attacked then abandoned only to be re-captured again and assaulted by another member of the group in a different location. So it might be thirty or forty minutes of the middle section of the film cumulatively but it is really involving an entire, almost unending series of rotating violations (Plus as Joe Bob Briggs notes in his commentary track on the film the gang do something almost as cruel by mocking passages from the aspiring writer's book in front of her before destroying it)

It is definitely a hideous series of sequences to watch but it is interesting that the film stages almost all of the assaults in very long shots (especially the most harrowing one on a rock in the forest), and the lack of any musical score does help not to make the film seem as if it is trivialising the ordeal Jennifer goes through. Though I do think that the film is seriously flawed in the revenge sequences, which are a bit too cartoonish to really feel part of the same film as the earlier horrors (perhaps it just serves to emphasise that rape is a much more horrific, 'real world' act that Jennifer's rather grand guignol violent retribution sequences cannot hope to match in impact or intensity). Plus the guys in the film are too broadly portrayed as dumb, over talkative hillbillies contrasted against the quiet, impassive and urban Jennifer. However while it is could be viewed as being a film that is pitting the city folk against the country ones Deliverance-style, I'm not entirely sure that this is an intended theme of the film itself as in the scenes post-various assaults where Jennifer is wandering naked through the countryside and then recovering by taking nature walks, eventually coming through to become mistress of her domain, Jennifer seemingly becomes comfortable both when relaxing and listening to music in her cabin as well as when she is out boating on the nearby lake! Instead it is the people who are the problem, ruining the idyll!
domino harvey wrote:Haven't worked up the nerve to watch it yet but I noticed Anchor Bay reproduced one of Ebert's many condemnations of the film as the main pull quote on the back cover of their I Spit On Your Grave Blu-ray! Apparently "Sick, reprehensible and contemptible..." moves units more than actual praise (or maybe in this case it functions as praise for the target audience)
That is often the case though. Those video nasties were likely often banned as much for their lurid, hyperbolic covers as for the actual contents of the films themselves. Though on your point about quotes I have just received my copy of Quiet Days In Clichy and that has an amusing pair of duelling quotes: "An Artistic Work, Skillful And Sensitive" The Los Angeles Times vs "Morally Offensive. A Portrait Of Human Depravity" The Catholic Bishops Board of Review(!)

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Re: Cinematic Violence: Can Anything Be Justified?

#324 Post by antnield » Wed Jul 11, 2012 5:41 am

The BBFC have just published their annual report.

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Re: Cinematic Violence: Can Anything Be Justified?

#325 Post by David M. » Wed Jul 11, 2012 1:17 pm

I love their self importance, it's actually hilarious.
The BBFC intervened with both of these works on account of their depictions of extreme violence against women.
Oh no, won't somebody think of the women! Not them!

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