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August 1995, Week 2

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Subject:
From:
lang thompson <[log in to unmask]>
Reply To:
Film and TV Studies Discussion List <[log in to unmask]>
Date:
Sat, 12 Aug 1995 22:47:12 GMT
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In <[log in to unmask]> Simon
Vainrub <[log in to unmask]> writes:
 
>
> In that famous movie of the 1980's(The clockworck orange), we
see
>a very violent movie that talks about 4 crimminals, that commit acts
such
>as vandalisim, rape, and murder. The Irony is that the leader is
>inspired by clasical music. Eventually, the leader is caught, the
other
>criminals become law abbiding citizen when they lose their leader.
> He goes to a "rehabilitation program" that consist of the
>following: hours of violent movies, sex movies, and Hitler movies that
>had added his favorite clasical music.
> At the end of the "program" he no longer can rape, be violent,
>swear, and his favorite music only brings him bad memories.
> He is release from the institution, rejected by his parents,
and
>hi is almost kill by his former freinds, and a relative of a woman she
>almost rape. He goes to a hospital, where he is cured, and they live
an
>open end, where the viewer ask himself. Will he become a crimminal
>again, or will he becone a law abbiding citizen?.
> This movie is actually a critic to violence, and it also shows
an
>idea that could work with some criminals(parst of the rehab program are
>effective in my opinnion).
> So there are movies that have a message even thoug they also
have
> violence.
> What do you think?
> Simon
>
 
***** Clockwork Orange came out in 1971. The "message" in the film
seems to me more like an excuse to show the violence rather than a
critique of it. A similar strategy is used in Bad Lieutenant and the
various "mondo" documentaries modelled after Mondo Cane. It's basically
"look at all this bad bad stuff but don't worry, we're telling you it's
bad so you can watch." In a rare perceptive moment, Pauline Kael
pointed out how during a rape scene the camera panned to follow the
fleeing, partly naked woman; the reaction of a voyeur and not a
dispassionate or critical observer. As a separate issue, i don't think
art necessarily needs to be critical of presenting violence. Most media
coverage of the "controversy" has almost no historical background. The
Elizabethans for instance not only presented violent plays
(Shakespeare's Titus Andronicus makes most splatter films seem timid)
but they did so quite explicitly with spurting wine for blood or
dangling sheep's eyes for blindings. And some of the most violent films
made over the past 20 years come from Japan, Hong Kong and Italy so i
don't know what kind of correlations could be drawn between countries
with such disparate crime rates. Best, LT
 
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