Screen Violence: How Far is Too Far?

[BiscLimpkit]

Ah sorry Mark, looks like you're fine. I assumed he meant 150 maximum width or height, but it looks like it's width only.

Guess yours is slightly longer than most.

[Markgway]

I don't want to put anyone out... even Eva.

So if the height is causing problems I will reduce it, but it shouldn't change the shape of the page for anyone... I hope.

Tell you what I'll post an anonymous poll so everyone can have their say...

[Kurgan]

If it's 150 maximum width, can you get a picture that shows Miss Cheung's body as well? Just a narrow full-length picture running down the side of the messages would be great
Hell, I may even change my mind to wanting to read more of your posts!

[bradavon]

Have filmmakers gone too far in pandering to the darkest, sickest aspects of our nature?

As long as the certificate is right then I don't think we can go to far.

No one is forcing you to watch violent films.

Are these films desensitising youth not by simply showing violence but by revelling in it and encouraging complicit enjoyment in the indefensible?

Yep probably. It's human nature.

Are the worst of these films a danger to society for showing women as pieces of meat and sexualising their pain and suffering?

It depends on the film but sadly often yes.

[bradavon]

Who says there's a maximum size of avatar?

Mordib here but he's not actually set it AFAIK:

https://www.bulletsnbabesdvd.com/forums/ ... php?t=1645

You've heard of 640x480, 800x600, 1024x768 etc . . . screen resolutions right? Well without getting to technical these are made up of pixels.

640x480 has 640 pixels across and 480 pixels down (they're square blocks), 800x600 has 800 across and 600 down hence why it's sharper but because the pixels are smaller (as there's more of them) the end result is that everything becomes smaller.

These numbers all translate to a 4:3 aspect ratio. If it were possible you'd be able to count each block and they'd come to the relevant number.

Try adjusting your resolution and you'll see the result. It will become sharper.

[grim_tales]

Any views on what I said?

[grim_tales]

Anyone???

[slasher13]

What did you say Grim?

[grim_tales]

If there was "no justification" for torture in a film then it might do, it would certainly be hard to watch. Its interesting that we find some types of violence more disturbing than others.
I made the example once about Battle Royale which knocked me for six the first time I saw it, really powerful - and Arnie in the Running Man. I mean we feel happy about the OTT cartoonish violence in Arnie films but there was something about children doing the blasting in BR that made it scarier.
(BTW, whilst that film may have been not the easiest to watch on first viewing, the violence in BR did have a point - it was a satire after all - in fact so was Running Man

I guess with some movies I dont mind them when they're not meant to be serious - I mean look at the Evil Dead movies and Braindead for example. It depends upon which context torture/violence is shown - Braindead/TED 1 and 2 are comedies and all of them are played for laughs.

[BiscLimpkit]

Just found this, Eli Roth writes to the Daily Mail's film critic.

Dear Chris,

I have always been a fan of British comedy, but that review takes the cake. I mean, it's pure genius. I am printing it out and framing it.

I wonder what your 15-year-old son would take away from HOSTEL? I mean, now that it's infuriated his father so much, he is surely curious to see what's so "evil" about it. Would he say the same things about Pasolini's "Salo" if you allowed him to see that film? There's a lot of violence in "Schindler's List," so you probably shouldn't let him see that one, either.

What's most upsetting to you, I imagine, is the overwhelming success of the film, both financially and critically. (It opened at number two in the U.K., and has already made back its production budget in England alone.) Surely "Hostel"is the sign of the apocalypse for you, because think of the alternative: you are getting old and are losing touch with the public. I mean, God forbid you should stay relevant to the issues that are affecting people in the world today and see those issues reflected in modern cinema.

No, you can be one of those people who reads the paper and shakes their head and says the whole world's gone to hell, while I am one of the people who lives in that world and simply reflects what I see.

Your self-righteous accusations of misogyny and homophobia are simply absurd. One of the points of the film is that many Americans don't know anything beyond their own borders and believe that all Eastern European girls are beautiful and desperate and will do anything to have sex with them for money or citizenship. A whole culture of pornography has appeared on the internet (ask your 15-year-old about that) that advertises sex for citizenship. Cites like Eurobridetryouts.com now exist by the hundreds, and American youths are getting off sexually on the power they feel they hold over desperate, poor foreigners.

The Americans in HOSTEL believe these stereotypes, and pay for them dearly. In fact, the whole opening in Amsterdam is mirrored in the slaughterhouse later in Slovakia. These guys make fun of hookers in the window on purpose because they become those very same objects that someone else is paying for later in Slovakia.

Many critics have said the film is not an exploitation film, but a film about exploitation, and the commoditization of other human beings.

I have never ever claimed that Slovakia in the film is how Slovakia really is. Even the press in Slovakia got this. (The film, by the way, opened at number one in both in the Czech Republic and in Slovakia and is doing extremely well in both countries.) This is 'movie Slovakia,' a land made up of American stereotypes, where the cars and men are old, and the women are beautiful and just want to have sex with foreigners.

In fact, when the Americans are lured there, the person showing them photos says "ever since the war there are no guys" and the Americans don't even question it. There was no war in Slovakia, but these guys don't know the difference between Slovakia, Latvia, Estonia, Serbia, Croatia - it's all one big war. (After our first screening in America a viewer asked me if Slovakia was a made up country.) And the Americans in the film are tortured for believing these stereotypes.

The film is also as guilty as the characters are. I wanted the audience to get seduced along with the guys, to make the same decisions those characters make, only to realize once they're strapped in the chair that maybe it was wrong to think that because you have money you can control and exploit another human being.

Now, the issue of homophobia. Because you are an out of touch critic who does not live in the real world with the rest of us, you probably don't know that the word "gay" in modern American youth vernacular has nothing to do with sexuality. If Americans think something is stupid or idiotic,

They say "that's so gay." That's just how they talk.

When the Dutch businessman touches Josh's knee, Josh's reaction is clearly disproportionate to what the businessman did. Even Josh's friends notice this. Josh is clearly confused about his sexuality, and in fact the businessman is the only person he opens up to, in the scene in the bar.

The businessman was based on someone I met in real life. When I was in college, a guy from my school claimed that homosexuality could be cured through religion, and he had met a number of "recovered homosexuals," as if they had some disease like cancer.

This guy organized a symposium with "recovered homosexuals," and we all went out of sheer curiosity. The room was packed with hundreds of students, who were outraged and offended, but quickly realized how insane these people were. These people said that Jesus had saved them from a life of 'homosinuality,' and that now they were on the 'correct path,' and that they had families and that they had made 'the right choice.' It was a freak show. Some of them even said they had 'lapsed' every now and then. It was disturbing on many levels.

I ran into that guy a few years after college and asked him about his 'recovered' friends. TWO OF THEM were in prison for brutally murdering people. It was people they had met at rest stops or through picking them up in bars. It was crazy. So now, here's a repressed homosexual who is also a sociopath, who murders people. That's something I've seen in real life. These people exist.

Now, am I not allowed to put that into a movie, just because it might offend you? Just because I have seen people like that and I write them into a film, that makes ME homophobic? Huh? Does having Nazis in SCHINDLER'S LIST make Spielberg anti-Semitic? Are we not allowed to show anything negative in the world? Should films like SALO never get made?

Would you prefer to take your family to innocuous movies like NARNIA, or other movies that don't challenge you in any way or push any buttons?

My guess is, the answer is yes. You want the world to be a safe place, and you somehow think censoring movies like HOSTEL is going to solve that.

Wake up. You are out of touch. There is no real violence in HOSTEL. It is a movie. Nobody likes violence in real life, but people love it in entertainment because it is theater. It is a magic trick. In fact, everyone who dies in one of my films goes on to do quite well. So you had better get used to me. I am not going away. In fact, I am only getting stronger, because my $4million dollar movie was one of the few profitable movies made in the last 12 months, so the studios are turning to me because they feel they have lost touch with youth culture (I'm sure you can relate.)

Luckily, reviews like the ones you gave me fade over time. But 30 years from now your son's 15-year-old will still be sneaking out to the video store to rent HOSTEL to see what pissed his crotchety old grandfather off.

Eli Roth

Los Angeles, California

Christopher Tookey responds:

Eli Roth seems to think he has made a satire on American attitudes to Europe. Unfortunately, whether he knows this or not, he has made a movie that doesn't so much criticise American prejudices about Europe, as reinforce them.

As to whether or not I'm out of touch with modern youth, I would just point out that I predicted the success of Hostel at the box office, so I can't be all that out of touch. To predict a movie's success is, however, not to condone its style or content; and I remain convinced that Hostel is a very nasty piece of work indeed. If Mr Roth really believes his film is anti-homophobic, he is even more stupid than I thought he was.

Mr Roth's transparent delight in the amount of money his film has made helps to convince me that his intention was not, as he likes to portray it, a daring attempt to satirize American behaviour, still less to create a classic horror movie or work of art, but to make a lot of money.

I would venture to suggest that, when he is a bit older and perhaps more mature, he may look back on this repellent little movie and blush with shame. I certainly hope he will. I would also venture to suggest that he is unlikely to want his children to see it.

Chris Tookey, Daily Mail

[Markgway]

Hmm... very interesting.

First time I've seen a filmmaker and critic duke it out in public.

Where was this printed?

[thelostdragon]

Very interesting, indeed! Eli Roth is still "new" in the business which is why I would guess he sent the reviewer a mail. He will have to out up with the fact that no matter how great his films are, there will always be reviewers who disagree.

[thelostdragon]

It might look like a lot, but read it you lazy asses. It's damn interesting.

[BiscLimpkit]

Source

[BiscLimpkit]

I tell you... before I only had a mild interest in this film. Now I cannot wait to check it out. This is good publicity for Mr Roth!

[Markgway]

I'm just amazed that Eli Roth reads the Daily Mail website.

[thelostdragon]

Maybe he doesn't, but a friend drew his attention to the article.

[Markgway]

Yeah, I figured that might be the case....

[grim_tales]

There's another article here - Chris writes in response to Kate Hampson (?), she agrees with him about HOSTEL.

Disgusting, degrading, dangerous

The latest horror film to come out of Hollywood has enraged Daily Mail critic Christopher Tookey who says he has never had to 'sit through a nastier, sicker movie.' Mail online writer Katie Hampson says she now refuses to pay to see such movies as this, and it's time to take a stand against this degrading, ultra-violent material. Now, the writer-director of Hostel, Eli Roth, has hit back. Read Eli Roth's comments and feedback from other readers here

I am glad that my review has created a fuss, and I am pleased that Katie Hampson agrees with me. As a parent of a 15 year-old boy, I know very well that he and his friends get to see 18-certificate films all the time (not at my house, I hasten to add). They regard the 18 certificate as an inducement, not as a warning.Recent surveys of younger children show that they see a lot of X-rated material too, left lying around the house, with or without their parents knowing.

But really this film is not suitable viewing for any age. Anyone who reads my review of the film (which, like all my reviews, can be read at www.christookey.com) will know what I think of Eli Roth and his picture.

If anyone has a sensible rebuttal of the arguments contained in my review, I shall be interested to read them.

However, from the numerous emails and letters of congratulation that have reached me after my piece, I certainly don't think I am part of a crazed, right-wing minority - which is how I am usually portrayed on the Internet.

I think I'm part of a majority that for too long has preferred to look away rather than tackle the issues posed by the granting of an 18 certificate to this pernicious junk.

Yours sincerely,

Chris Tookey

alias "The Mad Mullah of the Mail" as I have been charmingly called on the net. My son and wife call me that when they're trying to wind me up.

[BiscLimpkit]

Yeah, I figured that might be the case....

Subtlety doesn't quite work here on B&B.

[grim_tales]

This is great publicity for Roth, sure - it even makes me want to see Hostel, not that I'm saying the movie is disgusting etc, I'm not really a fan of out and out horror/gore movies.

Now I want to see what the fuss is

[Markgway]

That Kate chick from The Mail hasn't even seen the film though. That hardly lands credibility to her opinion. Tookey himself can be a bit of turnip at times (he hates John Woo!) but gives Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer 8/10 on his website. So clearly he can accept very strong violence when he feels its justified.

[grim_tales]

If she hasnt seen the film, thats ridiculous
Fair enough about Tookey, I didnt realise that about Henry: POASK.
Why does he hate John Woo?

[Markgway]

Why does he hate John Woo?

Because he's a tit!

[grim_tales]

Woo films are violent indeed, but Bullet In The Head and The Killer are two of the most moving, emotive HK films ever, juts plain masterpieces.