“Art imitates life, and life
imitates art. I don’t think you have to choose between the two, and I think…I
think we’re a violent people.” James Gillham says this to his co-host Matt
Gamble about an hour into a recent episode (4.3 – “At the Movies”) of their
podcast
High & Low
(Brow) in which they discuss, among other things, the role violence plays
in contemporary media. It is a very wise statement, and it neatly sums up a few
things that have been on my mind for some time now – especially recently, what
with the increased discussion of gun control in the USA following such horrific
incidents as the Aurora, Colorado movie theatre shooting and Sandy Hook Elementary
School shooting in Newtown, Connecticut. I’ve been doing a lot of thinking
about my personal tastes in films and how they have changed over the years, but
also about peculiar little things I’m taking greater stock of – like how, in
the midst of the talks and debates about gun control, while the abovementioned
incidents are still fresh in people’s memories, films like
A Good Day to Die
Hard, Olympus Has Fallen, and G.I. Joe: Retaliation keep filling the multiplexes.
Now,
to be clear, this is not one of those
pieces that places the blame for violent incidents on violent films. In the
High & Low (Brow) episode, Matt is quite right when he explains that
focusing exclusively on violent films and other entertainments does not help
the situation at all and only takes critical attention away from the real key
factors of the problem: gun accessibility and mental health. Getting help to
those who need it and making it tougher for ill or dangerous individuals to get
their hands on and keep weapons and ammunition are absolutely the most
important areas to focus on. However, I can also see where James is coming from
when he questions the proliferation of violent entertainment and its impact on
consumers amidst such troubling times. As he indicates in the quote above and
his additional comments in the discussion, it is worth considering just what
kind of role violent media does
play and reevaluating what the abundance and endorsement of so much violent
entertainment really means nowadays.
For
me, I think the matter boils down to two words: healthy intake. Instead of
debating whether media violence should be labeled as cause or symptom of real
violence, I think it is much more productive to think about how media violence
affects us as both people (individuals) and a people (society). And personally, I don’t really think it’s all that
healthy. Now sure, a great many of my favorite films contain and, in some
cases, focus in great detail on screen violence, and, similarly, a great many
of my favorite filmmakers have relied on violence to express their views on
bigger themes in their work. More on that later, but for now, isn’t it a little
funny just how much violence has been fixated upon and worshipped for so long
in cinema – particularly North American cinema? Back in 2007, Tom Carson wrote
an especially illuminating piece for GQ on this matter entitled “In Violence We Trust” which explores how the
vast majority of American filmmakers have largely avoided mature takes on sex
and romance out of fear, embarrassment, or disinterest while going the opposite
route and devising ever more lavish, over the top, shock-inducing, and gravely
serious portrayals of blood, gore, death, and destruction. He’s right on the
money too – from Taxi Driver’s
orange-tinted climactic shootout and Raging Bull’s geysers of blood to the messy massacres in such
recent films as Nicholas Winding Refn’s Drive and Quentin Tarantino’s Django Unchained, violence and artistic merit have long been the
closest of bedfellows when it has come to films permeating the pop culture
current and becoming identified as exemplary specimens of cinematic
craftsmanship.
In
the past, I’ve been just as involved as anybody else in this area. Tarantino
was one of the very first filmmakers whom I identified as an auteur, and Reservoir
Dogs, Pulp Fiction, and Kill Bill were among the first films I looked at from an artistic perspective,
from a perspective besides the one that regards films as entertainments and
nothing more. To this day I still enjoy Tarantino’s work, and have lapped up Inglourious
Basterds and Django Unchained with just as much enthusiasm as I did for his
earlier works. But I will admit: lately, I have been getting tired of Quentin.
Part of it simply has to do with the annoying egoism and smugness he emanates
(yes, he’s got talent as a filmmaker, but he’s the kind of guy who wants to be
absolutely sure you know it, who wants to be sure you see that big, juicy Written
and Directed by credit over his name at the
end of his film, who wants you to be keeping track at home of how many films he
has under his belt to date, etc.), but a part of it also has to do with how he
continues to use screen violence to a fetishistic degree in his filmmaking,
leaning on it like a crutch even when digging into such big historical subjects
as World War II and the American slave trade (which, granted, are topics mired in violence). That, as well as certain other qualities of his work (specifically
the countless references to and precious emulations of his favorite films and
genres) at times make it somewhat difficult to take him and his work seriously.
I do admire Inglourious Basterds
and Django Unchained for
providing fresh insights into their respective topics (e.g. Basterds’ depiction of the cultural and linguistic diversity
in WWII-era Europe; Django’s
commendable, bravely confrontational exploration of the slave trade), but as
they coast along and hit their B-movie beats, there are times when they simply
can’t be taken all that seriously and are in fact pretty embarrassing to behold.
This is because the films are strictly set in Quentinland, and thus are chiefly
designed to offer up highly entertaining and visceral cinematic experiences via
Tarantino’s now well-established tools of choice: flowery dialogue, flamboyant
characters, impeccable fusions of music and imagery, and, of course, elaborate
displays of violence. I perfectly understand that these traits are what
Tarantino’s films are all about – they’re simply what defines his distinctive
voice, making him the filmmaker I and many others know and love. And yet, I’m
growing increasingly weary and agitated by both the public adoration that
violent works like Django (which
recently snagged two Oscars, including one for Tarantino for Best Original
Screenplay) continue to attract and, especially, the nature of many filmmakers’
relationships with violence as a part of their storytelling vocabulary, which
I’d argue is a little too over-dependent for comfort.
While
people frequently seek out films for entertainment and escape, I have long felt
that a main goal of cinema should be to chronicle and explore universal human
experiences. After all, what better way to connect with an audience and provide
further insight into the human condition than to pick apart the stuff of
everyday life in all of its beauty and complexity? Through this lens, the
abundance of violence in film becomes unspeakably perverse – exactly how
essential is violence to illuminating the human condition if so few of us have
actually encountered serious forms of it with our own eyes? For how long have
we been tricked into thinking that murder is a useful tool for examining
so-called universal truths – that murder is, in fact, one of those universal
truths? On a few occasions, I have spoken with my close friend
Chris MaGee about the use of violence
in cinema and its relationship to real-life violence. The last time we had a
discussion on the topic, we both agreed that the average North American will
fortunately pass through his or her life without ever having to kill anybody.
Shortly afterwards, Chris showed me a documentary on Youtube that featured
Vietnam veterans talking about their experiences in the war – specifically, the
extreme trauma they went through as a result of killing other human beings
years ago. That documentary plainly illustrated the real effects of violence –
the true nature of violence. To hear those veterans’ stories, then contemplate
how Tarantino and other filmmakers use violence in their work is more than a
little off-putting, to say the least – in some cases, it simply feels wrong. To
see a detached, obsessive fanboy like Tarantino orchestrate his gleeful killing
sprees set to pop or rap music behind the argument that “it’s only movie
violence” feels wrong and irresponsible – again, not because having so much
violence in a film will turn viewers into killers, but instead because it
doesn’t afford any respect to those who have actually had to face murder and
death in their own lives. That’s why you would never want to see
Inglourious
Basterds sitting next to a World War II
veteran – a situation like that makes the insulting nature of the film clear as
day. Chris has also convinced me how a man like Samuel Fuller is infinitely
more entitled to make a film about war than Tarantino simply because of how
much life the man has seen. Fuller lived a truly extraordinary life in which he
not only served as an infantryman in World War II, but also worked as a crime
reporter and novelist before making a name for himself in filmmaking. Fuller
constantly drew from his own life when making his raw, honest films – he had a
rich field of experience he could consult to inform the stories he told. Next
to him, people like Tarantino who seemingly learned everything they know about
the world just from watching movies are simply too detached from real life, and
as a result come across as pitiful phonies.
I’m
not saying that in order for a film to have any credibility or meaning to it,
it has to be based on actual experiences lived by one or more of its key
authors. However, after not only observing Tarantino and other filmmakers flush
away human life onscreen in such a flippant manner, but also seeing how
ubiquitous and commonplace such films have become, I think it would only be a good
thing to see a) more work that is based on something thoughtful and genuine
(like actual experiences) rather than detached, adolescent fantasy, b) violence
handled in a more serious light more often in cinema, and c) more filmmakers do
away with violence altogether in their storytelling. Regarding point b), I not
only think of Tarantino (who has long been a favorite punching bag for
arguments like the ones presented here), but also other filmmakers whose use of
violence comes across as childish, grotesque, and stupid. Many have commented
on the increasingly nihilistic worldview of Christopher Nolan’s Dark Knight
trilogy; I myself can’t help but think of the video game-like anonymity of the
gun-wielding goons who threaten Inception’s
team of dream hackers – yes, they’re only dream figments, but it’s still
unsettling to see how casually they are first conjured, then eliminated
throughout the film. Then there are the Robert Rodriguezes and Michael Bays of
the world – true juveniles whose fascination with noisy, obnoxious destruction
serves no constructive purpose and leaves no room for anything resembling a
responsible or positive worldview. Sure, these directors are clearly invested
in providing escapism, not contemplation, but is this really the kind of escapism
people want? Are they really so eager to lose themselves in films that are so
sorely lacking in conscience?
And
really, that’s what it boils down to for me. I’m just so weary and tired of
filmmaking that lacks a conscience, and utilizes death so thoughtlessly and
frequently, positioning it as the ideal way to resolve conflict. Just to get
away from the nastiness and cynicism that saturates so much of film culture, I
have been taking more comfort in filmmakers who in fact don’t feel they need to
rely on screen violence to tell interesting stories in interesting ways, and I
feel so much better for it. They have meaningful things to say about the world
that are grounded in easily relatable experiences and come across as so much
more positive and compassionate than the majority of the messages I’d be likely
to find in a heavily violent film. Along these lines, I’m specifically thinking
of filmmakers like Jean Renoir, the humanist par excellence; Jacques Tati, the gentle clown of French cinema;
and François Truffaut, whose relatively rare uses of violence in his films
often, significantly, come across as rather clumsy – sometimes to great effect,
as in Shoot the Piano Player;
sometimes to poor effect, as in The Bride Wore Black. In any case, he is better remembered for sunnier,
stronger films like Stolen Kisses,
Day For Night, The Wild
Child, and Small Change. More recent efforts from Asian cinema have created
an interesting dichotomy: while Park Chan-wook has been lavished with praise
for his prettily framed studies of violence and its harmful consequences right
up to Stoker, others like Hou
Hsiao-hsien, Apichatpong Weerasethakul, and Hirokazu Kore-eda have been at work
making some of the most peaceful and light-hearted films you could hope to
find. If there is a cinematic father figure for these modern masters, it is
surely Yasujiro Ozu, whose calm, orderly family dramas say so much without
resorting to outlandish scenarios – indeed, they hardly ever leave the
households, office buildings, bars, and train platforms of a bygone – yet still
familiar – Tokyo. A number of his contemporaries in the Japanese film industry
– Hiroshi Shimizu, Mikio Naruse – likewise remained quite content with the
stuff of everyday life. As for Akira Kurosawa, while he is well known for
creating some of the most striking scenes of violence in all of cinema, one
need only think of films like Rashomon, Seven Samurai, or Ran
to understand that Kurosawa’s violence is
nearly always in service to his critiques of mankind’s stupidity and savagery.
Kurosawa did not use violence lightly, and made sure to put it to some
constructive purpose in his films.
Kurosawa
was another big gateway filmmaker for me, but these days I’m more likely to
turn to Ozu. It’s not that I have lost sight of Kurosawa’s greatness, nor have
I grown scared of or extra-sensitive to screen violence – hell, if anything,
I’ve developed a pretty high tolerance level of all manner of movie gore. But
that’s part of the point I’m making here – how did it reach that point where I
and so many other viewers are unshaken by the carnage we see in so many films?
How wide is the disconnect between the seemingly harmless, fantastical violence
of the movies and the real thing? I’m not passing any judgments on anyone’s
tastes, nor am I saying that I’m done with violent films forever. I’d just like
to take a bit of a break and lessen my intake of violent cinema for a bit – and
why not? The way I see it, having more playful, compassionate, and
conscientious films in my viewing intake can only be a good thing.
Yet while this is a personal choice in the way I watch and think about film, it
would be interesting to see more filmmakers follow this route as well – to see
them challenge themselves by turning away from violence and murder and towards
more relatable and commonplace subject matter for their stories. There is a
delightful documentary tribute to Ozu called
Talking with Ozu (available on the Criterion edition of Tokyo
Story as well as on Youtube in separate
parts) in which such filmmakers as Hou, Claire Denis, Wim Wenders, and Lindsay
Anderson share their personal connections to the Japanese master. In it,
Finnish filmmaker Aki Kaurismäki offers up his words of gratitude and
affection, at one point voicing his admiration for Ozu’s aversion to violence:
“What I respect most is that Ozu never needed to use murder or violence to tell
everything that’s essential about human life.” While he admits in his typically
self-deprecating manner that he will never reach Ozu’s level, Kaurismäki can
rest easy: a deeply conscientious filmmaker in his own right, he rarely resorts
to violence, and only ever lets it play a small part in his nourishing humanist
tales.
But what about other filmmakers? Are there any who would be willing to
take up the Ozu challenge and ease off of the bloodshed in their own films?
Pedro Costa voices a similar wish at the end of a
recent interview for MUBI.com’s Notebook in which he imagines a
version of David Fincher’s The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo devoid of any violence: “Let’s avoid every single murder, killing, weapon. That’s the challenge.” It’s challenges in cinematic
storytelling like that that I’d be very happy to see more of. After all,
there’s something to be said for the filmmaker whose idea of an essential prop
is a red teapot rather than a human skull.
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| Yasujiro Ozu's Equinox Flower |
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| Quentin Tarantino's Django Unchained |
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