> I would argue, though, that showing violence is a
> lot like
> a game of strategy. "Here's what I'll show you now;
> guess what
> you'll see later!": that showing violence is a
> construction of possible
> realities or phantasies of realities
>
> As I wrote in an earlier post. The audience as
> Voyeur does not
> appreciate seeing/watching without this game.
>
I think this is very true- As I see it, much of
contemporary film violence has its roots in the gore
films of Herschell Gordon Lewis, who made exploitation
films in the early 60's to mid 70's. His gore films
(the first ever made) operate very much on the kind of
"show me" game you speak of. They borrow their
narrative structure from the musical (very prevalent
in exploitation- ie hard core porn) wherein the
narrative is interspersed with "numbers"- musical
numbers, sexual numbers (see Linda Williams' _Hard
Core_) or in this case gore numbers. Each number
tries to outdo the last, and strives for a
physiological instead of psychological reaction; like
all of cinema, it attempts to show the unseen, but
exploitation films do this in a way that's much more
straightforward, a sort of no-nonsense business deal:
the viewer/voyeur asks to see, the film obliges
unhesitatingly. I believe that contemporary screen
violence is very much informed by this: for example
the contemporary horror film has been so influenced by
Lewis that now his films are seen (mistakenly, i
think) as a part of the horror genre's lineage, when
in fact at the time they were made they had none of
the horror film's conventions, and did not attempt the
psychological, ie the state of fear. The only way you
can see them as horror films is in view of today's
horror (slasher films); is that not revisionist?
Any thoughts?
-Jim Crocamo
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