Though not entirely on hard-boiled or noir films, the book
reviewed might interest some. Originally posted on the
Popular Culture listserv.
-- Bill Hagen, billha@ionet.net.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Stephen Prince. Ed. _Screening Violence_. Rutgers Depth of
Field Series. New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press, 2000.
240 pp. 36 b & w illustrations. $ 19.95 (paper), ISBN
0-8135-2818-6.
Reviewed by Steffen Hantke (
steffenhantke@hotmail.com) Dept. of English, Regis
University
Stephen Prince's anthology _Screening Violence_ features an
impressive scope of articles on the problem of media violence
and its increase since the 1960's. In his introduction,
Prince states his editorial goals, which are to examine "the
origins of ultraviolent movies, the long-standing
controversies over the effects of viewing film violence, the
evidence furnished by social science about these effects, and
the inherent characteristics of screen violence that subvert
its progressive, legitimate uses (the reasons why, in other
words, filmmakers cannot control the reactions of viewers to
the graphic violence they put on screen)" (1). The topic of
the book, as well as Prince's agenda, contribute to a public
debate that has its roots in the late 1960s, and, given the
trends in contemporary media, is not likely to subside any
time soon.
The three sections of the anthology--"The Historical Context
of Ultraviolence," "The Aesthetics of Ultraviolence," and
"The Effects of Ultraviolence"--establish a clear internal
structure for the individual essays. The first section
consists of reviews and articles from 1967 and 1968, years
that see a significant increase of violence in the media with
the release of Arthur Penn's _Bonny and Clyde_ and Sam
Peckinpah's _The Wild Bunch_ and _The Dirty Dozen_. Besides
the "Statement by Jack Valenti, MPAA President, before the
National Commission on the Causes and Prevention of
Violence," the section features commentaries originally
published in
_Newsweek_, _The New York Times_, and _Variety_. All three
sources provide insights into the non-academic debate at the
time. They illustrate the strong emotional response of
contemporary viewers, whose judgments always tend to lie
somewhere between disgust about the celebration of antisocial
behavior and the defense of artistic freedom. The arguments
presented and considered in these articles--whether films
passively reflect the culture around them, or whether they
help to establish its general rules of conduct; whether film
violence desensitizes the viewer; or whether viewers will
have to be educated to see beneath the surface of violent
entertainment--are in themselves not particularly
interesting; anyone following the public discussion between
now and then will have heard them already, a familiarity
Prince acknowledges by giving the last word of the section to
Jack Valenti, who defends the film industry pushing the
envelope by summarizing all prior arguments in defense of
artistic freedom. What is more interesting about these pieces
than the arguments themselves is their shared acknowledgment
that specific historical events and social developments
during the second half of the 1960s are the reason why the
quality and quantity of media violence increases during this
time. The Vietnam War is mentioned over and over as the most
crucial factor why America becomes a more violent society.
Its gruesome realities, as well as its disturbing visual
presence in the media, become the touchstone for much of the
debate on media violence. Vivian Sobchack's essay from the
anthology's second section corroborates this historical
interpretation, adding a slightly more theoretical
spin.
"Our films," Sobchack writes, "are trying to make us feel
secure about violence and death as much as it is possible;
they are allowing us to purge our fear, to find safety in
what appears to be knowledge of the unknown. To know violence
is to be temporarily safe from the fear of it" (117). The
necessity of having one's fears temporarily anaesthetized
stems from the increasing awareness that no one is safe from
violent death in American society, a recognition that
Sobchack attaches to events ranging from the Kennedy and King
assassinations to the Kent State shootings. Like _New York
Times_ film critic Bosley Crowther, whom Prince gives the
opportunity to refine his first condemnation of ultraviolent
films in a second essay, Vivian Sobchack is allowed to add a
postscript to her piece. In it, she modifies her initial
support of screen violence as a means of staving off mortal
fears. Written twenty-five years after the first piece, this
postscript pauses to consider a new wave of films that are
not only ultraviolent, but in which ultraviolence is "no
longer elevated through balletic treatment or narrative
purpose." Under these circumstances, violence "is
sensed--indeed appreciated--as senseless. But then so is life
under the extremity of such technologized and uncivil
conditions" (124). Sobchack's harsh judgment, which sees
little, if any, redeeming social or psychological value in
films like _Pulp Fiction_, _Payback_, or _Scream_, is topped
off by her admission that she stopped watching "compulsively"
and now merely watches "casually."
Just like Sobchack's essay has a distinct autobiographical
bent, director John Bailey speaks from personal experience in
his piece condemning all on-screen violence that is solely
justified by technique. But autobiographical writing in this
section is supplemented by more straight-laced academic
essays. Prince himself, for example, analyzes in detail the
aesthetics of slow-motion and montage in Sam Peckinpah's
films, while Devin McKinney suggests a way of making a basic
classificatory distinction between certain forms of violence.
McKinney distinguishes between "strong" and "weak" violence,
that is, between images that engage the viewer emotionally,
sometimes to a degree of painful intensity and proximity, and
images of distant, casual violence. Gratuitous violence is
dangerous; all violence, he argues, should matter, to the
characters as much as to the viewers.
The third section of the book features two essays summarizing
the bewildering flood of psychological research on the
effects of media violence on the viewer. Referring to some of
the same studies, both authors, Leonard Berkowitz and Richard
Felson, admit that there is no clear, equivocal result to all
of this research; audiences are too diverse, and causal
relationships take place in a social field determined by too
many factors acting simultaneously and in combination. Both
agree, however, that there must be some sort of impact of
these images on society, given the vast size of audiences and
the mass quantities of media violence they are exposed to.
Unsatisfactory as this conclusion may be, the theoretical
overview presented in both essays provides a fascinating
glimpse of an approach that most readers who come from the
humanities are unlikely to come across otherwise. All three
section add up to a latter-day cultural Jeremiad. Committed
to premise that media violence does in fact constitute "a
problem"--a premise that is itself an ideological
construction--the anthology stands its ground against
theories of catharsis. Prince's choice of words in his
introduction
("the inherent characteristics of screen violence that
subvert its progressive, legitimate uses"), as well as the
argumentative revision Sobchack's postscript performs upon
her original essay, indicate an editorial tendency to give
short shrift to all positions from which ultraviolence can be
ethically and socially defended. Though cathartic theories
are mentioned in a few of the essays, Prince's position
prevails; most viewer responses, he cautions, "should make us
pessimistic about the psychological health promoted in
viewers by much contemporary visual culture" (1-2). Since all
of the essays in _Screening Violence_ are reprints, most
readers are unlikely to encounter arguments they have never
heard before. McKinney's discussion of how viewer positions
are constructed in regard to violence has been developed more
systematically by Laura Tanner in her 1994 book Intimate
Violence. The longest, most detailed, and theoretically most
solid essay in the anthology, Carol Clover's "Her Body,
Himself: Gender in the Slasher Film," constitutes Chapter 1
in Clover's seminal and well-known _Men, Women, and
Chainsaws_ from 1992. The rest of the material Prince has
collected provides the foundation for Christopher Sharrett's
anthology from 1999,
_Mythologies of Violence in Postmodern Media_, where they are
applied to
"sexier" primary texts and examined in a greater variety of
social contexts. While academic readers may pass up Prince's
anthology in favor of Sharrett's, _Screening Violence_ offers
an excellent introduction to the topic for use in the
classroom. The inclusion of autobiographical essays makes the
anthology as a whole more readable than Sharrett's and
Tanner's book, and the variety of sources invites selective
courses of reading. Students will also appreciate the focus
on the historical moment, before their time, when the
discussion of media violence begins to take the shape
familiar to them from their own experience.
This review is copyrighted (c) 2000 by H-Net and the
Popular Culture and the
American Culture Associations.
It may be reproduced
electronically for educational or
scholarly use. The
Associations reserve print rights
and permissions.
(Contact: P.C.Rollins at the following
electronic address:
Rollinspc@aol.com)
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