Violence in Films

Paper Summary:

This paper looks at violence in films and discusses the three types of violence: ritualistic, symbolic and hyper-real violence. The author discusses why violence is used in films and whether it does its job effectively. Furthermore censorship and film-makers responsibility is examined and the writer concludes saying that a humanistic morality is just as important in the content of a film as it is in the content of a life.

From the Paper:

"Ritualistic violence is the unrelenting violence in given films. Natural Born Killers provides ample examples of this mindless violence, the most disturbing being when Woody Harrelson shoots the man on the bicycle. There is no purpose behind the violence, and many audiences that had already become desensitized to the violence in the film found this sequence to be funny.

Full Metal Jacket is a film that dwells in the world of symbolic violence. The violent episodes exist in the film so that an audience might journey inside a degenerative boot-camp and then later to the Vietnam War. When Pyle kills his Sergeant and then commits suicide, the audience understands why. They've been given a look into a different world and they see the repercussions of the Sergeant's mental and emotional violence."

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