By Daniel Shakespeare
In my opinion, The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly is the greatest film of all time. I can't go on enough about how much I love this film. But it seems that my opinion wasn't shared by the majority of the American critics of the time. Some called it “repellent”, others more comfortable using “shocking”. There were of course a lot of reasons, mostly boiling down to the refusal of American critics to acknowledge Spaghetti Westerns as art. However, the most common complaint was the gratuitous violence.
By today's standards, it's considered quite tame, but for a generation raised on the pristine American Westerns of the day, it proved to be too much.
The movie was reappraised eventually, attaining the “classic” status it deserves. But looking back, I see it as yet another example of the disdain of violence in art held by some people. To this day, the ignorance of just how important violence and profanity is in all artforms is still tangible, although far less when compared to just a few decades ago.
(Note that I won't be covering video games much in this article. This is not because I don't consider them to be art (I do), but because that particular topic has been dealt with by many popular journalists and YouTubers better than I ever could.)
The most important facet of violence in art is the hyperbole. No matter what medium you prefer, good art must evoke emotion in the audience. Gasps of fear, tears of sorrow, laughters of joy etc. If art makes you feel passive towards it, it is not worth consuming. The reason why violence (and in extension profanity) is so important to art in general is because it acts as an enhancement of the emotion that's supposed to be felt. Most horror films rely on a shot of excessive blood and gore after a suspenseful scene, selling the “scare” by saying that there was a consequence to all the suspense. Villains in many superhero movies are pure evil, representing a negative trait of humanity gone too far. This is why it's satisfying to see these foes get beaten up by the hero. Conversely, it's the same reason why it's so disheartening to see the hero lose to this villain.
In other words, violence and profanity are never the message, but are instead the punctuation.
“PUT IT DOWN!” has far more impact than “Put it down.” Think of the emotion that the auteur wants to convey as the message and the violence as the exclamation mark at the end of the sentence.
A good example in music would be good ol’ Chunk of Water Below 273K, AKA Ice Cube. In Death Certificate, his second studio album, there are two songs in particular that stand out to me as very important pieces of social commentary, “I Wanna Kill Sam” and “Us”. One deals with the horrific practice in the 90’s of the government forcing young black men to enlist, the other is a scathing criticism of the black community of his times by saying that they contribute to their own downfall. Both songs are filled with profanity, but it's not swearing for the sake of it. Profanity is used in both songs to drive home his points, not to sound “cool”. As a result, the two songs are great examples of the latent power of the rap genre, which is sadly rarely seen in the current era of hip-hop.
Another key point of interest in the discussion of violence in art is optional consumption. The BBFC in Britain and the MPAA in America do fantastic jobs in certifying which films are okay for children to watch and which ones aren't. There may be a few hiccups here and there, with the PG-13/12A ratings occasionally proving hard to pin down, but overall these organisations work splendidly. Assuming you live in a country that has a top notch Board, the ratings provided by them tear away any substantial claim that violence is “too easily consumed by children”. It is your choice to show your child something. Don't blame art for your poor parenting.
I realise that I'm probably very biased on the topic at hand. I'm a huge fan of the DooM and Mortal Kombat video game franchises. Three of my favourite movies of the past few years are Logan, Kingsman: The Secret Service and The Raid. I listen to a lot of rap from artists who might be called out for hate speech if their songs were released today. But that doesn't change the fact that violence is an important part of art, and has always been so. This doesn't mean that all works of art need violence to be good, of course not. Take Me Home, Country Roads is a Puritanical masterpiece. So are most Pixar movies.
But that doesn't mean violence takes away from the artwork in question either. Even movies like The Lion King would suffer so much with the removal of violence. Remove the death of Mufasa,you have a lion, a hog and a meerkat singing Hakuna Matata… which is great, but the song would lose its meaning without the intense tragedy Simba suffered beforehand.
To back up my point (and finish this article), I'd like to pull from one of the most consumed pieces of art (if not the most) in human history. Translated into almost every language spoken today, the first book to be printed in a Gutenberg press, it has inspired so many great pieces of art since. I am, of course, referring to the Bible.
Most of the people who speak out against “obscene violence” in media (in the West, at any rate) are well-meaning Christian parents, who want to protect their children from the visceral horrors of film violence. Yet they, of all people, should know just how important violence is in art, and why it's such a powerful tool in the artist's toolkit.
Mark, Matthew, Luke and John could've left out so many details about the crucifixion of Christ, but they chose to leave in every single grotesque detail. Tell me, fellow believers, would the crucifix be such an important icon of the Christian faith if it wasn't showcased? Of course not. But now, people wear it around their necks. It's a symbol of strength and sacrifice. Billions around the world have it in their houses, kneeling before it.
The cross would be meaningless without Christ's death. You wouldn't censor The Gospel, would you?
Just some food for thought.
In my opinion, The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly is the greatest film of all time. I can't go on enough about how much I love this film. But it seems that my opinion wasn't shared by the majority of the American critics of the time. Some called it “repellent”, others more comfortable using “shocking”. There were of course a lot of reasons, mostly boiling down to the refusal of American critics to acknowledge Spaghetti Westerns as art. However, the most common complaint was the gratuitous violence.
By today's standards, it's considered quite tame, but for a generation raised on the pristine American Westerns of the day, it proved to be too much.
The movie was reappraised eventually, attaining the “classic” status it deserves. But looking back, I see it as yet another example of the disdain of violence in art held by some people. To this day, the ignorance of just how important violence and profanity is in all artforms is still tangible, although far less when compared to just a few decades ago.
(Note that I won't be covering video games much in this article. This is not because I don't consider them to be art (I do), but because that particular topic has been dealt with by many popular journalists and YouTubers better than I ever could.)
The most important facet of violence in art is the hyperbole. No matter what medium you prefer, good art must evoke emotion in the audience. Gasps of fear, tears of sorrow, laughters of joy etc. If art makes you feel passive towards it, it is not worth consuming. The reason why violence (and in extension profanity) is so important to art in general is because it acts as an enhancement of the emotion that's supposed to be felt. Most horror films rely on a shot of excessive blood and gore after a suspenseful scene, selling the “scare” by saying that there was a consequence to all the suspense. Villains in many superhero movies are pure evil, representing a negative trait of humanity gone too far. This is why it's satisfying to see these foes get beaten up by the hero. Conversely, it's the same reason why it's so disheartening to see the hero lose to this villain.
“PUT IT DOWN!” has far more impact than “Put it down.” Think of the emotion that the auteur wants to convey as the message and the violence as the exclamation mark at the end of the sentence.
A good example in music would be good ol’ Chunk of Water Below 273K, AKA Ice Cube. In Death Certificate, his second studio album, there are two songs in particular that stand out to me as very important pieces of social commentary, “I Wanna Kill Sam” and “Us”. One deals with the horrific practice in the 90’s of the government forcing young black men to enlist, the other is a scathing criticism of the black community of his times by saying that they contribute to their own downfall. Both songs are filled with profanity, but it's not swearing for the sake of it. Profanity is used in both songs to drive home his points, not to sound “cool”. As a result, the two songs are great examples of the latent power of the rap genre, which is sadly rarely seen in the current era of hip-hop.
Another key point of interest in the discussion of violence in art is optional consumption. The BBFC in Britain and the MPAA in America do fantastic jobs in certifying which films are okay for children to watch and which ones aren't. There may be a few hiccups here and there, with the PG-13/12A ratings occasionally proving hard to pin down, but overall these organisations work splendidly. Assuming you live in a country that has a top notch Board, the ratings provided by them tear away any substantial claim that violence is “too easily consumed by children”. It is your choice to show your child something. Don't blame art for your poor parenting.
I realise that I'm probably very biased on the topic at hand. I'm a huge fan of the DooM and Mortal Kombat video game franchises. Three of my favourite movies of the past few years are Logan, Kingsman: The Secret Service and The Raid. I listen to a lot of rap from artists who might be called out for hate speech if their songs were released today. But that doesn't change the fact that violence is an important part of art, and has always been so. This doesn't mean that all works of art need violence to be good, of course not. Take Me Home, Country Roads is a Puritanical masterpiece. So are most Pixar movies.
But that doesn't mean violence takes away from the artwork in question either. Even movies like The Lion King would suffer so much with the removal of violence. Remove the death of Mufasa,you have a lion, a hog and a meerkat singing Hakuna Matata… which is great, but the song would lose its meaning without the intense tragedy Simba suffered beforehand.
To back up my point (and finish this article), I'd like to pull from one of the most consumed pieces of art (if not the most) in human history. Translated into almost every language spoken today, the first book to be printed in a Gutenberg press, it has inspired so many great pieces of art since. I am, of course, referring to the Bible.
Most of the people who speak out against “obscene violence” in media (in the West, at any rate) are well-meaning Christian parents, who want to protect their children from the visceral horrors of film violence. Yet they, of all people, should know just how important violence is in art, and why it's such a powerful tool in the artist's toolkit.
Mark, Matthew, Luke and John could've left out so many details about the crucifixion of Christ, but they chose to leave in every single grotesque detail. Tell me, fellow believers, would the crucifix be such an important icon of the Christian faith if it wasn't showcased? Of course not. But now, people wear it around their necks. It's a symbol of strength and sacrifice. Billions around the world have it in their houses, kneeling before it.
The cross would be meaningless without Christ's death. You wouldn't censor The Gospel, would you?
Just some food for thought.
Comments
Post a Comment