Differences in Violence and Emotion
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- ********
I was thinking about this soon after watching Inglorious Basterds and its an observation which I wish to share here (which I am already thinking is a mistake but I like the instant gratification this site brings in response).
Why is it tha I cringe when watching the video in Jesus Karate Man ( http://www.qbn.com/topics/601644… ), you know I get those butterflies that a person gets when they are watching faces of death or something, yet when I watch a movie like IB which has a scene where this big Jewish guy beats this Nazi guy repeatedly and realistically in the head with a shovel (quite well done I might add) I dont have the same response, I get a "woah that looks pretty good hehe" feeling which makes me wonder... does watching a movie make me subconsciously shut off some elements of believability? And if that is the case is watching a film in a theater more like watching media with a condom on? Why is it that choppy, grainy footage of a beatdown can emotionally jar me so much, yet 2 hours later a movie that has a similar violent act not even come close in replicating this emotion?
Will there ever be an action film that taps into this emotion the same way faces of death or that "jesus karate man" video did for me?
to be continued.
- CALLES0
how was it?
- baseline_shift0
1. movies are fake stories. we dont actually fear for the safety of the actors.
2. Watching a jew beat down a nazi is like an act of justice or retribution. Watching ex-military beat down a mental dude is abuse of power.
- ********0
I thought inglorious Basterds was well made, a little too long, could of maybe been edited down a little. And I see Quentin kinda going to the same bag of tricks as he usually does which makes me wonder if he is becoming repetetive. But all in all I liked it. Its definitely a Quentin Tarantino movie...
- brandelec0
watch irreversible
- that scene fucked me up! fuckin brutal, and only one shot for the whole 10 min scene. yikesbaseline_shift
- Yeah, the Fire extinguisher scene was fucked up********
- ********0
your right irreversible did that to me...the shovel beatdown in that one was the most intense scene Ive ever seen, probably.
- yea face crushing and rape scene was first time i had to look away in a moviebrandelec
- dirtydesign0
basterds was a great flick.
they lighten up the violence with some dark humor, so it's easier to watch than a real guy getting his skull stomped on.- basically killing Nazi is funny & A-Okay for anyone. they are just well dressed Aryans nothing more.robotron3k
- Arvizu0
I think desensitized is the right word. The experience doesn't hinge upon the details—If it's literally a person dying in front of our eyes on youtube or an uncomfortably realistic portrayal of such a death—our experience, the viewer's experience is real. It's shocking, and it's really bad, but once we've seen it, our minds navigate the experience and we are slightly better prepared to cope with it next time. A evolutionary biologist would probably say it's a survival instinct from millions of years of adaptation. Lather, rinse, repeat...
- probably true to a point - but if that was totally true PTSD wouldn't be a problem for army veterans********
- i agree, it's not a mechanism that's by any means perfect. And some have higher thresholds than others tooArvizu
- probably true to a point - but if that was totally true PTSD wouldn't be a problem for army veterans
- ********0
oh, for the record it was a baseball bat in inglorious basterds, not a shovel.
- i concurrently laughed and cringed at that part. it made a little poop come out.7point34
- ********0
In most cases, I think that violence on screen is pretty much a caricature. I don't think that the majority of us are being desensitised to real life violence and suffering.
There's a certain aesthetic to movie violence which is always going to be missing in tapes of real stuff... I think it's this lack of cinematography / lighting / staging which lets us instantly realise that we're watching something which is serious.
Most of us probably have a lot of experience of being a witness to figurative violence, but (hopefully) far less of real violence - there's no reason that that on-screen depictions should realistically portray death (unless the director / crew went to great lengths to mimic real life snuff .. which would be gratuitous and sick behaviour).
- So Band of Brothers did a pretty good job being gratuitous and sick, right?Arvizu
- I think that particular series involved quite impressive cinematography.. which snuff film are you suggesting was used for reference?********
- used for reference?********
- i misunderstood you to mean that anything that looked realistic could be compared to snuff--not actually modeled after a snuff film... sorry. Band of Brother's is insanely well done, and seemingly realistic.Arvizu
- < film... sorry. Band of Brother's is insanely well done, and seemingly realistic.Arvizu