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September 1998, Week 1

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Subject:
From:
Scott Hutchins <[log in to unmask]>
Reply To:
Film and TV Studies Discussion List <[log in to unmask]>
Date:
Mon, 31 Aug 1998 12:48:29 -0500
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Steven Spielberg and Mel Gibson have be given much praise for allowing
blood to splash on the camera during battle scenes in a fiction film.
Critics seem to suggest this is a new technique, but I know it goes at
least as far back as _Chikyu Kogeki Meirei: Gojira tai Gaigan_ (Jun
Fukuda, 1972). The scene is edited out of the G-rated _Godzilla on
Monster Island_, but it is a very effective and distrubing scene in which
the tusk-fisted monster Gaigan (who is not played to camp effect in this
film, unlike Fukuda's better known _Gojira tai Megaro_ or the TV series
_Ryusei Ningen Zon_ (Zone Fighter) repeatedly beats in Angirasu's face
until penetrating the skin (yes, it's as graphically violent as it
sounds). It is also relentless, wihout much editing, so it's as
disturbing as it sounds. It's probably the most sadistic violence
perpetrated in any of the Gojira series. Admittedly, it's nowhere near as
hard to watch as _Braveheart_ or _Saving Private Ryan_, but it's
effective nonetheless, and this is not one of the best films in the
series, either.
 
Does anyone know of other fiction films to do this? The closest I can
think of is _Army of Darkness_ (Sam Raimi, 1993) in which blood rushes
away from the camera toward Ash (which replaces a cheesy shot of blood
splashing on the wall in the _Captain Supermarket_ "uncut" laserdisc
(which is actually more cut than the US tape in the windmill scene).
 
Scott
 
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