violence
I was lucky enough to get the chance to interview The Hard Stop’s director, George Amponsah, producer, Dionne Walker and co-star Marcus Knox-Hooke, recently, before watching a screening of the film followed by an audience Q&A with Amponsah, Walker, Knox-Hooke and co-star Kurtis Henville. It was one of the most moving and insightful experiences I’ve had for a long time, and I’m still unravelling the many thoughts and feelings both the film and our conversation inspired. The IMDB description of the film The Hard Stop explains:
You may be surprised to learn that David Fincher’s career almost never got off the starting grid. 1992’s Alien 3, a poisoned chalice if ever there was one, turned out to be a torrid experience for the former music video director (he had helmed videos for luminaries such as Jermaine Stewart & Madonna, most famously ‘Vogue’), to the point he genuinely considered giving up filmmaking. What a loss to cinema that would have been.
One of the most controversial directors currently working today, Nicolas Winding Refn is a provocative force to be reckoned with. He has an utterly distinctive voice that couldn’t ever be mistaken for anybody else. Each of his films is widely divisive, almost always opening to heated opinion from audiences.
Carrie is a movie inspired by one of Stephen King’s first novels, a dark story mixed with dramatic notes, where all the uncertainties and fears of adolescence, such as the problem of being different in a society that does not forgive, are transformed into anger and the desire for revenge. The movie was directed by Brian De Palma in 1976, but I believe it is a timeless story; indeed there have been many remakes, the last one in 2013 by Kimberly Peirce, setting it in a modern context. De Palma’s film, which can be considered a cult classic, shows the daily life of teenagers at an American high school and explores the theme of bullying deeply, adding some gory scenes towards the end.
Within the last couple of years, the Western seems to have made a semi-comeback. Recent notable titles include John Maclean’s directorial debut Slow West, the horror-thriller Bone Tomahawk, and Quentin Tarantino’s claustrophobic and violent The Hateful Eight. And, in just a few months, a remake of The Magnificent Seven will be released, a film adaptation which has attracted the likes of Denzel Washington, Chris Pratt, Vincent D’Onofrio and more (which is hopefully an indication that it is at least halfway decent).
It may be fair to first point out that the question of this article has always been a conflicting issue that continuously floats around in the film industry. People often perceive the growing medium of cinema as a device for entertainment or as a brief, escapist distraction from society’s painful realities. This experience has impacted on how people think and behave within society, and Hollywood continue to question the extent to which films influence reality.
Action cinema is a pain to bring to light. Let’s be clear that every film is difficult to make and they all have inherent problems, ranging from little to gigantic nuances. But action takes the cake when it comes to painstakingly long hours and the mundane repetition that is required to capture the choreography of a scene just right.
Since they first hit cinema screens in 1984, the Coen Brothers have had a firm grip on audiences and critics alike. Renowned for their idiosyncratic, high quality work, they have found themselves increasingly in demand with studios and actors, many of whom aim to make their next project a Coen Brothers film. They have written, directed and produced all of their own pictures, edited most of them, and have recently ventured into the ‘gun for hire’ realm of screenwriting, contributing to Steven Spielberg’s Bridge of Spies, Angelina Jolie’s Unbroken, Michael Hoffman’s Gambit, and George Clooney’s upcoming Suburbicon.
A fatal flaw runs through many conversations about gender issues: they narrowly focus on women. The problem largely stems from comfort, as that is how the battle has been framed for decades.
To try and properly describe The World of Kanako is quite a tough feat. So far I have a mix of the youth-filled slaughter of Battle Royale, the rapid-fire non-linear editing of John Boorman’s Point Blank, and the grittiness of Sam Peckinpah’s Bring Me the Head of Alfredo Garcia, smashed together in a blood soaked blender and left to sit in the sun. The World of Kanako is a brutal, convoluted and pop-culture infused neo-noir which punctures a bandage-wrapped fist in the face of decency in delivering its twisted story.
Deadpool is a comic book character with an interesting history. Premiering in the early 1990s, he was originally created as a parody of comics in general, with both the DC character Deathstroke and Marvel’s Spider-Man influencing his name and appearance (Wade Wilson is Deadpool’s real name, while Slade Wilson is the civilian name of Deathstroke). Over the years, though, the character has gained an unusually strong following, even for those that are not typical comic book fans.
To successfully make a genre hybrid that satisfies the needs of both genres is one of the most difficult accomplishments in modern mainstream cinema – something made even more difficult when the genres being mashed-up together couldn’t be in a sharper contrast. There is no sharp contrast between the elements to The Keeping Room, director Daniel Barber’s attempt at a feminist revision of Sam Peckinpah’s tales of masculinity in crisis in the old West. A Peckinpah homage that pales in comparison to its influence Essentially, The Keeping Room is a hybrid between the classical Western and the home invasion thriller, with fantasias of violence depicted in a gruesome and shockingly heartless way that would have made the old master proud.
As 2015 comes to a close, the promises of 2016 in film leave excitement fizzling like the fireworks of New Year amongst Quentin Tarantino fans. We have been treated to an influx of releases ripe from the mind of the divisive director over the past few years, with Inglourious Basterds and Django Unchained providing much controversy and dividing many opinions, but it is The Hateful Eight that is now beginning to incite anticipation about its January release. But, as this excitement grows towards the end of Tarantino’s twenty-fourth year in the filmmaking business, the success he enjoys now has progressed in an initially unexpected way.
Violence in cinema isn’t a new concept. In fact, some of the earliest films ever made were surprisingly violent, even by todays standards. But how can we determine a desensitisation to violence in modern audiences?
On a chilly night in November 1959, two desperate young drifters slaughtered a family outside Holcomb, Kansas for $40, a pair of binoculars, and a transistor radio. The macabre slayings and the manhunt, trial, and execution of the pair of “natural born killers” who committed the crimes gripped the nation. Celebrated writer Truman Capote published a bestselling book about the case called In Cold Blood that was turned into a gripping 1967 movie, which is one of the best of the later film noirs.
