"It is a very narrow view of the potential of film
expression to see the superabundance of violence as merely making use
of film language." Bob Stewart writes. Well may be. But what films are
free from violence? Why is the differnce between the physical violence of
Nightmare On Elm Street Part whatever so different from the psychic
violence of Criers and Whispers? Are we really supposed to denounce the
intense violence in Sauve Qui Peut?
My problem with most cinematic violence is that it is not thopught out.
This is my problem with most films.
The cinema is always in some relation to movement and against the horizon
of the human, not to say life itself, violence is a fundamental form of
(e)motion. If the cinema is to be a thought form it must think violence as
movement.
Furthermore their is a certain violence inherent in the cinema as formal
institution. Cinema relies on cutting. The camera's gaze is always
somewhat of a violation (and this is right their in Man Bites Dog).
lgs