Tuesday was the most violent day in U.S. history since the Civil War. How we have contributed to the psychology of the times we will all discuss for years to come. For the present, during this time of fallout and the need to contribute to the level of understanding we need to avoid the viscous cycles of violence, we have a few examples in the movies. Dalton Trumbo's Johnny Got His Gun [1971] is a powerful example of a film which deals with the human dimension of something beyond our individual comprehension. This is especially interesting because the immediate horrors of violence are not depicted through actual images, instead are mental-, almost word-pictures. The viewer is instead confronted with the personal consequences of mass violence and the personal choices which are all that remains. The unreality, the dream-state that results from the horror of war, is equally relevant to our current situation. Another movie which comes to mind is Gods and Monsters: which again only implies the violent horrors which have shaped not only a man's entire adult life, but have shaped his *vision* as a movie-maker. The jewish experience of the Holocaust has effected so much of Hollywood [a seldom acknowledged aspect of L.A.], and will undoubtedly continue in these circumstances. How can we try to understand ALL the different psychologies which will pour into the collective experience. How do we try to understand those who are isolated via difference [Arabs and Muslims in largely non-Muslim countries]. I personally have thought of *MASH* a number of times: when individuals have no power over change except locally, and how they fight the insanity with humor and simply being all-too-human. Just some thoughts. Susanna Chandler Gravity Groove Productions Sky Groove Productions Cambridge, MA 02139 USA > From: [log in to unmask] > Reply-To: Film and TV Studies Discussion List <[log in to unmask]> > Date: Sun, 16 Sep 2001 14:15:46 -0400 > To: [log in to unmask] > Subject: Re: tuesday and movies > >>> Far from being repellant films like >>> Bonnie & Clyde, The Godfather, MASH, >>> Catch-22 and The Dirty Dozen were big >>> hits. > > lang is clearly right, and my wishful attempt to find > some bit of silver lining in all these clouds seems > futile . . . still, could one reasonably claim that > the violence in those films [i'm thinking especially > of the violence in CATCH-22--both movie and book] > DID feel awful and repellant, even if the films them- > selves were successful? . . . to put it differently, > could one argue that the violence in those films > aimed at playing a role in a rhetoric of anti- > violence, unlike the violence of schwarzenneger, > stallone, bronson, van damme, et. al. which is > meant to be enjoyed, celebrated and applauded? > > i'm not sure about this, and i guess that DIRTY > DOZEN shoots that theory in the foot [or in the > head] cause as i remeber it all these years later > it hardly harbored a pacifist sensibility [as CATCH- > 22 in fact did] > > what do people think?? > > mike > > ---- > For past messages, visit the Screen-L Archives: > http://bama.ua.edu/archives/screen-l.html ---- Screen-L is sponsored by the Telecommunication & Film Dept., the University of Alabama: http://www.tcf.ua.edu