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In the opening scene of The Walking Dead a Deputy Sheriff shoots a little girl in the head because apparently she is a zombie. (Although we don't actually know this at the time). The director hides nothing from us. We get to see the little girl take the bullet in her forehead and die.
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Of course killing women has been a Hollywood staple since the talkies began, but I wonder if some new line has been crossed here? Is there a difference between what these characters did and what Norman Bates does in Psycho? Clooney and Perkins are both playing anti heroes, right? And what about Casey Affleck in the new Killer Inside Me? Can we have any sympathy for him at all? I know I didnt. I have only questions. Not answers. Sorry.
31 comments:
Another blog I read this morning (Patti Abbott's,) point out that, "There are several movies out now that show mothers in a bad light."
This is not the state of movies I expected at the end 2010.
The Walking Dead is interesting in its complete lack of metaphor. It really is just a video game of shooting zombies played as a drama. I find it funny how none of the social conventions have broken down and all the characters act exacly as they would have without a zombie apocalypse. They even stay together as a group - with the Sherrif in charge - although they don't like each other.
It's fascinating, really.
John
I didnt watch it past the shooting of the girl bit.
Took the girl to see Entangled yesterday. Yes that is one bad mother. Stepmother really.
If you'd stopped this post after Clooney, I'd have guessed this was a supreme example of calculation on his part. You know, he shows brave grit and authenticity by letting his character be depicted carrying out a a horrific act, then tries to have it both ways by, you know, being a tender guy and falling in love with a hooker. But there may be something larger at work here.
Maybe the new convention in Hillywood is to defy convention (which, of course, makes it just one more convention).
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Detectives Beyond Borders
"Because Murder Is More Fun Away From Home"
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I think there was more of a clear distinction between the villain and the victim in films like Psycho, Whereas in The Killer inside me, we get background psychology as to why he turned out to be a vicious killer. That gives the film room for sympathy if the viewer was to have any. I suppose what the two characters have in common is mummy issues.
Think you're being a bit harsh on Gorgeous George there, squire. The guy doesn't shoot the woman for the want of something better to do, and we find out later he reckons she's betrayed him (rightly or wrongly, we don't know).
I thought it was very noir. I sat up straight in my seat when that happened, because I reckoned that we were in for an interesting ride.
I think Parker, in the very same circumstances, would have done the same thing. And Ripley. And Spade. And, yeah, Lou Ford. Classical noir anti-heroes to a man.
What if it had been a woman shooting a man in the back like that? Much of a difference?
I think sympathy, or empathy, for a character is overrated. I'd prefer them to be interesting rather than likeable, and I was interested to see where the Clooney character was going after that moment. I wasn't disappointed.
Cheers, Dec
Peter
I wonder if he'll ever really try and stretch himself as an actor instead of just playing versions of George Clooney. Meryl Streep he aint.
Frankie
I just really hated The Killer Inside Me whereas I loved the book as I do with almost all of Jim Thompson's work.
Dec
We've disagreed on this film before, but I do think you're wrong about this aspect: his boss asks him specifically about the woman and he says "she had nothing at all to do with it." Clooney's character knew it at the time, he knew it later and he had no regrets, so when he gets topped at then I for one was quite relieved because he is presumably a serial murderer of women who inconvenience him. A dead prostitute isnt going to keep him up nights.
And why were you so interested in his character? He makes blunder after blunder and he then - preposterously - makes a sophisticated silencer out of an old Fiat crank shaft!
I didn't enjoy TKIM much either. I thought the violent Alba scene was unrealistic, when your being punched in the face you tend to defend yourself or fight back- not sit there and just take it.
Glad to hear you've made it safely to the East Coast, icebound though you are.
I've always found the depiction of graphic violence against women in film a little suspect. It's very easy to step over the line to exploiting it. It's not that movies shouldn't address it, but re-enacting or simulating it in a really concrete way is counterproductive for the most part.
Glad that you brought this up, Adrian. I won't see Clooney's movie, even when it's out on dvd.
I avoid seeing movies like this, but Hollywood has made them for years--take Halloween I-100 or any horror film.
To take a well-known actor stoop to this level may mean something more sinister. Is this where Hollywood is going even further? Is Clooney not being offered good roles any more, as in Michael Clayton? Was he paid a gargantuan sum, not that he's hurting for cash.
And, don't ask what's happening on tv on this issue. All of the CSI shows portray so much awful violence, much goes over the line.
I hope children aren't watching it.
I want to stick up for violence in films because I'm an adult and I can take it. For every violent film there's at least ten easy going rom-coms to bore ..i mean balance it out. Also the violence against women in movies doesn't reflect society as men are more likely to suffer violence. Maybe we should stop seeing men being punched and killed in movies. I see men and women equally in these matters. I don't think anyone cares about men? Am I wrong?
Seana
We live.
It is dodgy. I dont understand how we are supposed to respect and be engrossed in his story.
Kathy
Well I've never watched CSI because I cant watch or read about anything that involves the abduction, torture or murder of children and when I've flipped on CSI or Law and Order SVU that apparently is what its been about.
Frank
Yes you are wrong. Statistically speaking women are 10 times more likely to be murdered by a man than a woman. Women are the primary victims of domestic violence not men. Women are around 6 percent of the prison population, men 94. In general women do the dying and men do the killing.
Okay but statistically more men are victims of violent crime on the street, nights out etc. Maybe not at home. Im just sticking up for men really. My problem with films is they make women look pathetic and always the victim, when there are women out there with some pretty sweet skills, like myself.
It had been an unusually cold day and the water was choppy and a forbidding grey. She was blond, probably not more than 25 or 26. And she was dead. One of that endless parade of bouncy blonds who gloried in the perpetual house party that was Bahia del Mar in the 1960s - the hoots and giggles, the clink of ice and Boodles Gin, and Sinatra on the stereo. I covered her up with a blanket and called the county sheriff.
BRIGHT WIND FROM MOUNTAIN
I think it's a good point Frank makes, though, about whether we care less about violence done to men. Because, yes, a lot of violence is perpetrated on men by men as well.
It's possible that we're more inured to it than we should be. It's also possible that in film it is used in a somewhat different way, and with different intentions than violence against women is.
Frankie I always like it when someone sticks up for men, but I'm not sure that we're even more often the victims of "night out" violence - and it is a lot easier to avoid than the the kind in the house.
But usually in fiction the violence against women is just an excuse for a male hero to show up.
After Stieg Larson, the new twist is for women to become their own avengers after they've been savaged, because waiting around for a male hero to appear can take a pretty long time.
Now if only more of us were autistic savant motorcycle daredevils, this plan might make some sense.
Crime statistics are different everywhere but I know in England men are more likely to suffer what they call stranger violence. There's a young football player called Stuart Holden from America who plays for Bolton and he was attacked outside a bar in Newcastle, probably just for having an accent, prevented him from playing for years I think. Just a young lad. That's what I would call the classic example of what men have to deal with.
(I'm still sticking up for men- This mood will know doubt change)
Good for you, Frankie. I don't think it really contradicts the point, though, unless he was attacked by a roving band of wild women.
Of course, women's shameful role in this kind of thing is sometimes to egg men on.
Bright Wind
I think that was a Frank Sinatra movie.
John
The Lovely Bones is my current bete noir. I really cant stand that book and now that I'm back in the US and perusing second hand shops etc. I see it everywhere.
Frankie
My guess is that this happened on a Friday night. Friday/Saturday night anywhere in the UK is a dangerous time to be out and about for men and women.
Seana
Yup seen it happen. Not too long ago either.
I haven't read Lovely Bones, but I do know that the situation is slightly different in that the author, if exploiting anything, was exploiting her own experience.
I can't say that I've actually met her, but I have been in the same room with her, and quite recently. My sense is that the impact was real.
Seana
She wrote the book from Heaven? Well that does sound intriguing.
Well, you must know by now that that's where I am.
Otherwise it's just poetic license. Kind of like Ghosts of Belfast.
More men are killed in street violence, true.
But women are beaten and killed in domestic violence every single day, and children, usually young teenage girls.
I can't watch certain tv channels because this is shown--the news, I mean. And, then there are the tv shows.
And, I cannot stand "The Lovely Bones." Tried to read it, as a friend loaned it to me. Made it through three pages before I threw it across the room. Ugh!
Unfortunately, i didn't follow my own instincts, and saw the movie on dvd. Aside from the heaven-as-location-of-main character issue, there is the horrendous violence implied on-screen to that character, and later on, the history of other violence done to prior victims comes out. Too horrendous to watch.
And the idiotic law enforcers can't get the perpetrator. One yells at the movie, "search the house, search the basement, keep looking, keep investigating."
But he gets away with years of history of killing young women and children. Only fate deals him a fatal blow, not the justice he deserved.
And for all fathers out there, the father of the victim was prevented by an absurd act from taking action.
Don't know why this gruesome, ridiculous book was made into a movie. A great cast, though, and too bad--such good actors.
And, it's good you don't read or see "The Lovely Bones," because a main message of the movie is for a father to "rise above the murder of his daughter," and not to act on anger against the perpetrator, but to accept what happened (and that the perpetrator isn't brought to justice) and to see his spiritual side and accept all of it.
No father would act like this or accept this situation.
Was this movie aggravating? Let me count the ways.
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