Creationism, violence and Bogart… OH MY!
Ah creationists...
I always love going to see my grandparents, mixed in with the casual racism and creationism they do say some lovely little nostalgic things like,
“Oh, in my day movies weren’t all sex, violence and other bad things! They were wholesome fun!”
The movie that they keep referring to as great is Casablanca because there is no violence and it’s a love story. Yeah, a story of a woman having an affair with a guy who manages to keep it all a secret by lying to his husband is obviously a wholesome story for all the family. It’s about someone disobeying their marriage vows! Then, even though she is in love with the man that she’s having an affair with, she leaves him standing there because he told her to go.
While I do disagree that movies where more wholesome, they were a lot better thought out and a lot less insulting to viewers. Hollywood in the early 20th century didn’t have the technology or the budget to create the special effects that we see today. This meant that they relied on the best special effects generator in the world, the human imagination. Directors had respect for their audience, and rather than giving them second rate special effects, they decided to have certain parts of the story occur off camera. Sometimes, you really don’t need to have something spelled out for you. I’ll give you examples:
Heeeere's Alfred!
1) In Alfred Hitchcock’s “Psycho” when the girl gets stabbed to death in the shower, we don’t actually see anything other than shadows and something doing a stabbing motion towards the camera. Our minds fill in the blanks and create one of the more violent ways for you to lose your life.
2) Sex scenes used to be non-existent in moves, mostly due to not really being suitable for the silver screen in the early 20th century. A shot of the couple staring lovingly into each other’s eyes faded into the next scene of them lying in bed looking pleased with themselves lets the audience know that they had a round of bed-skiing and quite enjoyed it.
I know there are only two examples there, but this is all you really need for the moment to show the effectiveness of the human imagination as an effects generator. That is, unless we look at the 2007 film, “Funny Games”.
This is a film which I found to not be scary, but unnerving on a number of levels. The plot is simple; two men take a family hostage and proceed to spend a night playing sadistic games with them. Quite a good premise for a good thriller or horror movie eh?
Is it really?
This film makes a point of providing you with a thriller/horror movie where the director seems to climb into your head and mess around with everything in there. At no point in this movie is violence of any kind shown, yet it is a very violent movie. Why? Just as something violent is about to happen, the camera cuts away, you hear a sound and your mind automatically fills in the blanks. You find yourself creating the violence in your head and that’s only the beginning. As the movie progresses, the forth wall is broken on several occasions asking you questions like,
“What do you think? Think they stand a chance?” You find yourself really questioning your motives when watching movies. I found myself sitting there asking myself, do I want the family to be ok, or do I want them to be killed? They’re being held hostage, that’s a horrible situation to be in! I can’t stop wondering how they’re going to die!
This movie proves to me that Hollywood has lost all faith in the human imagination. Violence in movies has increased because it’s more convenient to have it spelled out for you than have to use your brain! It’s why comedy movies over the last 5 years are completely witless and practically tell you when to laugh instead of telling an amusing. It’s why horror movies are more along the lines of, look at this violent thing happen, instead of telling a scary story.
I’ve always felt that movies over the last while have just gotten plain stupid. Major blockbusters are based around poor attempts at remakes. We’ve reached a point where almost every movie in the theatre is a remake of a previously released film or else is a film adaption of a book. Why can’t every director think like the folks at Pixar and tell amazing stories from outside the box? Seriously, a story about toys that come to life when you’re not looking, a robot that’s been left behind to clean up the world who falls in love with a more modern robot, an old man who flies his house to South America by attaching a load of balloons to it. THIS IS WHAT CINEMA IS ABOUT! Imagination and creativity, taking a simple concept and turning it into something that will make you laugh, cry and sit on the edge of your seat.
I can’t recommend enough that you watch Funny Games. It is definitely a movie that will make you realise just how much wool has been pulled over your eyes. You’ll see how little of your imagination you were using when watching other films and will really see the effect of a good story being told properly without the use of visual aids.
So that’s everything for now…
Have something to say? Then be sure to leave a comment, ask me a question on formspring or on twitter.
