Violent film
Parent categories: film - violence
Titles: Psycho (1960) - Blood Feast (1963) - Bonnie and Clyde (1967) - Straw Dogs (1971) - A Clockwork Orange (1971) - Dirty Harry (1971) - Texas Chainsaw Massacre (1974) - Jaws (1975) - Mad Max (1979) - Man Bites Dog (1992) - Irréversible (2002) -
Related: exploitation film - gore - grindhouse - horror - kung fu - mondo film - rape revenge trope - 'roughie' - snuff film - slasher film - video nasty
Savage Cinema (1975) - by Rick Trader Whitcombe [Amazon.com] [FR] [DE] [UK]
James Cagney squashed half a grapefruit in Mae Clark’s face at the breakfast table of the 1931 Public Enemy.
The Big Heat (1953 ) - Fritz Lang
Gloria Grahame's face is burned by a pot of hot coffee thrown by Lee Marvin.
A girl about to be killed in a horror movie after her gratuitous shower scene.
Bruce Lee in Enter the Dragon (1973)
List of films by gory death scene
List of films in which special effects are used to have characters die violently and gorily.
1 Death from being eaten
2 Death by bisection or dismemberment (excluding decapitation)
3 Death by crushing
4 Death by blendering
5 Death from blinding
6 Death by chainsaw
7 Death from decapitation
8 Death due to contact with a caustic or otherwise deadly substance
9 Death from a fall into a molten substance
10 Death by fluid extraction
11 Death by gunfire
12 Death by impaling or crucifixion
13 Death due to an improper use of explosives
14 Death by violent organ removal
15 Death from slicing by such a sharp object, that it takes some moments for victim to fall apart
16 Death from decompression or over-pressure
17 Miscellaneous/Other
Cinematic violence
Screening Violence and Action/Spectacle Cinema
Two new film studies anthologies offer a substantive overview of
media representations of violence: Screening Violence deals
specifically with film and television violence, and
Action/Spectacle Cinema analyzes popular cinema’s most
consistently violent film metacategory, the contemporary Hollywood
action film/thriller/blockbuster. Screening Violence, edited
by Stephen Prince, offers a historical assessment of film violence
beginning in the late 1960s, devoting much attention to the
groundbreakingly violent Bonnie and Clyde (1967) and The
Wild Bunch (1969). Many of these analyses, from Prince and MPAA
President Jack Valenti, among others, should be familiar to many film
scholars, as most of the book’s material has been published
previously (indeed, one essay is simply a slightly condensed chapter
from Prince’s 1998 book Savage Cinema, a study of Sam
Peckinpah’s films). Editor Prince here locates the disparate
contributors’ perspectives within a specific thematic framework.
Perhaps the collection’s most useful feature is its assembly of
diverse commentaries on violence, including not only film scholars
such as Prince, Carol Clover, and Vivian Sobchack, but also Valenti,
the Hollywood cinematographer John Bailey, and two sociological
studies of violence. --http://www.nottingham.ac.uk/film/scopearchive/bookrev/action-spectacle-violence.htm [Dec 2005]
Screening Violence (2000) - Stephen Prince
Screening Violence
edited by Stephen Prince - Performing Arts - 2003 - 240 pages
Page 110 - Is today's movie violence reflective of some phenomenon presently existent in
... one believes that cinema is reflective or affective, mimetic or cathartic. ...--Vivian Sobchack
Screening Violence (2000) - Stephen Prince [Amazon.com] [FR] [DE] [UK]
Stephen Prince has taught film history, criticism and theory at Virginia Tech for 15 years. His research and publications focus on violence in motion pictures, on Japanese director Akira Kurosawa and Japanese cinema, on the American film industry, on American film during the 1980s, and on political cinema. The author of numerous essays and book chapters, his work has appeared in Film Quarterly, Cinema Journal, Quarterly Review of Film and Video, and The Chronicle of Higher Education. --http://filebox.vt.edu/users/sprince/bio.htm [Dec 2005]
Savage Cinema : Sam Peckinpah and the Rise of Ultraviolent Movies (1998) - Stephen Prince
Savage Cinema : Sam Peckinpah and the Rise of Ultraviolent Movies (1998) - Stephen Prince [Amazon.com] [FR] [DE] [UK]
Stephen Prince has taught film history, criticism and theory at Virginia Tech for 15 years. His research and publications focus on violence in motion pictures, on Japanese director Akira Kurosawa and Japanese cinema, on the American film industry, on American film during the 1980s, and on political cinema. The author of numerous essays and book chapters, his work has appeared in Film Quarterly, Cinema Journal, Quarterly Review of Film and Video, and The Chronicle of Higher Education. --http://filebox.vt.edu/users/sprince/bio.htm [Dec 2005]
See also: Sam Peckinpah - violent film - American cinema
The Terminator (1984) - James Cameron
The Terminator was a 1984 sci-fi action film which became the break-through role for former body-builder Arnold Schwarzenegger. Directed by James Cameron, the premise of the movie is that a "cybernetic construct" (living tissue over an android skeleton) the Cyberdyne Systems Model 101 800 Series Terminator (played by Schwarzenegger), has been transported back in time from 2029 A.D. to May 12, 1984 to assassinate a woman named Sarah Connor (played by Linda Hamilton). At the same time a man, Kyle Reese (played by Michael Biehn), is sent back to protect Connor from the cyborg. Issues raised by the film include time travel, causal loops, and artificial intelligence. --http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Terminator [Feb 2005]
Why We Watch: The Attractions of Violent Entertainment (1998) - Jeffrey H. Goldstein
Why We Watch: The Attractions of Violent Entertainment (1998) - Jeffrey H. Goldstein [Amazon.com] [FR] [DE] [UK]
From Booklist
Violence in popular entertainment has been cited for every social ill that has been on the rise in recent years. So why is violence in entertainment so enduring and seemingly immune to reform? This collection of essays offers insights by anthropologists, historians, psychologists, film critics, and others to analyze our fascination with violence. The book traces public blood lust from the days of Roman gladiators to medieval jousts that crossed the line between war and games to the modern-day fascination with violence in sports, entertainment, and the news. Theories on social behavior are examined, including the purported cathartic release of watching violence and its possible link to increased aggression. Contributors dissect the appeal of violence in a wide range of entertainment venues, from sports and children's toys and games to movies and even religion. This well-researched book offers insightful analysis and extensive references. Vanessa Bush--This text refers to the Hardcover edition.
see also: violent films
One Hundred Violent Films That Changed Cinema (2003) - Neil Fulwood
One Hundred Violent Films That Changed Cinema (2003) - Neil Fulwood [Amazon.com] [FR] [DE] [UK]
From Publishers Weekly
Having alternately shocked, perplexed and fascinated viewers for years, the most violent films in American cinema-from Reservoir Dogs to Apocalypse Now to Raging Bull-get their proper due in this volume from the author of The Films of Sam Peckinpah. (Peckinpah is the notoriously gore-loving director of Westerns.) Fulwood fairly races through a smorgasbord of gruesome flicks. Thankfully, he chooses well, although minor footnotes like Executive Decision somehow sneak in with all-time classics like Psycho. Fulwood's fervor for the genre is addictive, and it should make readers forgive the book's hopscotching structure, which can haul them from John Woo to Tarantino to Scorsese and back in a blink. The author has an obvious facility with cinematic criticism, and is able to put works in their proper contexts without sounding densely academic. For that reason, a more thoughtful introduction about violence and its critical role in film culture would have been welcome. But even without one, Fulwood's giddy reverence of the films he chooses makes for a highly readable tour of the dark side of Hollywood history. 50 b&w illus.
Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information, Inc.
Synopsis
From Brighton Rock, The Hill and The Long Good Friday to Manhunter, Clockwork Orange and Reservoir Dogs, this book focuses on 100 powerful films that have profoundly affected the portrayal of violence in cinema, be it in terms of influence, iconography, social response, media controversy or censorship. The 100 films are covered - and highlighted - within the following chapters, analysing the film's content and influence to illuminate the true meaning of the violence: - Influence and Iconography: violence and the art of cool from Alain Delon in Le Samorai, Clint Eastwood in Dirty Harry to the stylisations of John Woo. - Taking it to the Limit: how filmmakers pushed back the boundaries from Bunuel's depiction of eyeball-slicing in Un Chien Andalou, Michael Powell's serial murder and voyeurism in Peeping Tom, to Hitchcock's dissonant editing techniques in the shower scene in Psycho - Amorality and Anti-Heroism: film noir, spaghetti westerns and the long hand of the Vietnam War - Censorship and controversy, including Natural Born Killers, Crash, Texas Chain Saw Massacre and Baise Moi. - No Farewell to Arms: why filmmakers use violence whether it's to kickstart a revenge-themed thriller, provide thrills in blockbusters or as a response to social and political events. - Endpiece in the light of September 11th. --via Amazon.co.uk
Book Description
Here are 100 of the most violent films in cinema history, the ones that viscerally affected moviegoers and stayed fixed in their minds forever. Understand how and why these films work through an illuminating analysis of their influence and iconography in such classics as Sam Peckinpah's The Wild Bunch, and John Woo's The Killer. See how directors kept pushing back the boundaries of acceptable violence, from the slicing of an eyeball in Un Chien Andalou to the chopping of an ear in Reservoir Dogs, from the creepy voyeurism of Peeping Tom to the shocking shower scene in Psycho, Amorality, anti-heroism, censorship, controversy, and the continuing popularity of the violent image to kickstart a movie and provide thrills all receive an enlightening discussion. Plus: an endpiece written in the light of September 11th --via Amazon.com
see also: violent films
Violence In the Cinema, Part 1 (1971) - George Miller
Author: Frank Adey from Wolverhampton, England
A gory, entertaining spoof, 26 September 1998
In the early seventies, when I saw this film, the depiction of violence on the screen was a hot media topic. Therefore the opening of this short feature took most of us in; an academic type, filmed against the background of his study, addresses the screen on the title subject. Just as we have settled down to the tedious tempo, - BANG! The study door bursts open, and a shotgun toting intruder blasts part of the speaker's head away, hurling him backwards out of his chair. It would spoil the fun if I described the rest of the increasingly blood-soaked proceedings; suffice it to say that the joke works wonderfully. --http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0067953/ [May 2005]
from the Director of Mad Max
Violence in the Cinema (1963)
Found the below at my local second hand store: Motion 4 [Feb 1963], titled a 'Companion to Sadism and Violence in the Cinema,' includes entries by Durgnat on monsters, flagellation, leather, Barbara Steele, Elisha Cook Jr., Rififi and even William Wyler. --http://www.durgnat.com/mundy.html [May 2005]
subtitled: Companion to violence and sadism in the cinema.
Why do we devote an entire issue to violence and sadism?
Because they are there. --Raymond Durgnat, from the intro
Note: Lily Abegg, The Mind of East Asia (NewYork: Thames and Hudson, 1952)
see also: Raymond Durgnat
Sadism in the Movies (1965) - George de Coulteray
De Coulteray, Georges: Sadism in the Movies, New York, Medical Press, 1965.
Le Sadisme au Cinéma (1964) - George de Coulteray LE SADISME AU CINÉMA by George de Coulteray Published by Le Terrain Vague. 1964 Also available in English as: SADISM IN THE MOVIES. Published by Medical Press. 1965
Le Sadisme au Cinéma (1964) - George de Coulteray [Amazon.com] [FR] [DE] [UK]
You can find this title on Amazon.com and UK by searching for Coulteray and clicking on zshops.
Ultraviolent Movies: From Sam Peckinpah to Quentin Tarantino () - Laurent Bouzereau
Ultraviolent Movies: From Sam Peckinpah to Quentin Tarantino () - Laurent Bouzereau [Amazon.com] [FR] [DE] [UK]
Almost all the movies included in Laurent Bouzereau's Ultraviolent Movies come from the past 30 years. Covering films ranging from Bonnie and Clyde to A Clockwork Orange, Bad Lieutenant and Hellraiser, the book is divided into seven sections on different genres, including psycho-killers, mafiosi and revenge movies. (Citadel, $17.95 256p ISBN 0-8065-1787-5; Sept.)
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