Screen Violence...the downfall of our youth apparently.

Today's lecture, though interesting, was definitely more structured towards gaming. This annoyed me a wee bit, as I feel there's so many examples of violence in film that could have been shown, yet were overlooked. Nonetheless we did see the following seriously disturbing sequence from Todd Solondz's 1998 movie Happiness.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X0Q6Ls1Eb0g
Its not disturbing in the sense that its gory or graphic, but the inappropriate music and the complete lack of expression on the killer's face creates an unsettling atmosphere.

Bill put a lot of emphasis on the significance of violence within first person shooter games. These games put you in the position of the character through the use of first person perspective. You are placed within the action, seeing it as it occurs, thus there is a heightened sense of realism.
This raises morality issues as games of this nature are often so graphic in content that they are deemed inappropriate for a child audience. Many of these style games, Grand Theft Auto being the prime example, have an 18 certificate due to their content.

GTA has caused great controversy in the past due to its moral disregard - bedding prostitutes, murdering them and then stealing their earnings is obviously not a key feature of the game's main narrative and yet it is an ability that one is granted within game play.

These concerns regarding violence within gaming are made all the more serious with the rising popularity of consoles such as the Wii which make the gamer feel even greater involved in the actions being performed by the characters on screen. Pressing a button which makes a character throw a punch is violent, but swinging a controller forcefully at the screen to literally throw the punch seems a little to far.

To relate gaming and film Bill referenced the 1994 movie Natural Born Killers directed by Oliver Stone. The influence of gaming with regards to cinematography is obvious in the diner scene where there's extensive use of first person perspective as seen in gaming.

In the seminar  we discussed our own limitations where violence is concerned. Some class members were entirely against mindless violence, either because they found it too graphic or they felt no emotional response due to their knowledge of it being pure trickery.
I on the other hand am one of the the sick buggers who loves a bit of gore in movies! Ivan showed a scene from Chien Andalou, a silent, surrealist film by Salvador Dali. In one of the opening scenes you see a woman's eyeball being sliced into with a scalpel. Its an unbelievably graphic image and I was even shocked by it. Especially when you consider how convincingly realistic it appears. You just don't expect such advanced SFX from early cinema.

With regards to my own opinions of violence and graphic imagery, I actually find the less horrific scenes of pain more disturbing because breaking bones or deep flesh wounds are something I can actually relate to. I understand the pain such injuries cause and so I find it harder to watch.

The prime example of this is in George Romero's Land of the Dead were a woman is tackled by a zombie who then rips out her navel ring. In the same movie there is a scene where the zombies are attempting to ambush a vehicle and as they claw at the car doors you see their fingernails bend backwards and break off. These sequences make me far more queasy than some of the more graphic scenes where people are literally torn apart.

Once again to link gaming and movies, as well as the film Land of the Dead there was a video game which followed. Notably this is not a new concept, before the series of Resident Evil films there was the game franchise and then there's the character of Lara Croft who made the transition from game to film.