kip.stratton@ni.com wrote:
>
> I'm wondering if it [Shane] might have been a
turning point in the
> depiction of violence in cinema in general and in
crime writing in particular.
> The only pre-1953 hardboiled writing I've read has
been Edward Anderson, Horace
> McCoy, Hammet, and Chandler (sheesh, there must
more...some of the really early
> John D. Macdonald?). Anyway, I can't remember just
how realistic the violence
> was. It's been a few years.
In Melville Davisson Post's "Corpus Delecti," written around
1898 and collected in THE STRANGE SCHEMES OF RANDOLPH MASON,
there's a three page scene of a murder followed by the
dismemberment and destruction of the corpse in an acid bath
that rivals any modern horror story for clinical
detail.
Or try Ambrose Bierce's "Oil of Dog," a crime story written
even earlier, for a violent black comedy designed to turn the
stomach. Bierce was never one to turn away from the accurate
and disgusting depiction of violence.
BobT
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