“To
consider the effect of violence
in a movie on a given spectator, let us construct a three-phase situation consisting
of: (1) predisposing
factors; (2) contact in the theater; and (3) the post-viewing situation. In the first phase the
spectator makes a choice
of film, influenced by
such factors as publicity,
location of theater, and leisure time. The publicity, for any particular film
including film reviews and
any other media references, serves as a kind of conditioning
of the spectator, somewhat preparing
him for what is to come.
Here,
aside from audience
interruptions (far fewer in number than at a play), the spectator occupies an architecture of considerable
privacy, insulated
from the street. The privacy is not
complete; there is an audience feedback
which does not affect the actors, of course, but it does affect individual
members of the audience. To see a film in, say, the suburbs and in a first-run theater are two very different experiences.
To the preconditioning of
publicity and to the conditioning of the viewing environment other sources of
knowledge can be added: the spectator’s pleasure will
be influenced by preferences
derived from his knowledge of
other films, knowledge of other
media, and
learned social behavior. When he leaves the cinema the spectator returns to
messages from other media of communication and to a world of non-media
signals, social,
familial and personal. Lotte Bailyn has stressed the presence of
‘many mediating factors between
exposure to material in the mass media and the translation of its
influence into overt action.’
If a movie-goer is to be inspired into his own
acts of violence by violent films, it can only be a movie-goer for whom this third phase, the
post-viewing situation, is abnormal.
That there are such
individuals is certain, but it is
not obvious that a change in movie content would
normalize individuals who are
already out of balance.”
Note: There is nothing remarkable in Lawrence Alloway’s observations, but in view of all the clichés and
insincere and predictable periodic public hand-wringing about the supposedly Pavlovian
relationship between violence in narrative commercial cinema and actual crime (lately,
absurdly, accompanied
by ultra-violent-movie-distributor-troll Harvey Weinstein’s call for a Troll Moviemaker Summit on
Violent Movies), I think returning one's
attention to common
sense is sensible.
Unpleasant anti-social people can
and will always do unpleasant anti-social things; crazy people can
and will always do crazy things.
And in
view of Mr. Weinstein’s just-uttered aperçu declaring President Barack Obama the “Paul Newman of
American Presidents,” I think he himself might be one of them (although not in the sense, of
course, of personally committing
atrocious acts of physical
violence). However, anyone who has ever done business with
any of Mr. Weinstein’s companies will
know exactly what I mean. The 360 degree sense of assault,
battery and violation lasts a lifetime.
Memories are made of this.
Each of
these illustrations is taken from John Frankenheimer’s extraordinary 1962 movie
rendering of Richard Condon’s novel, The Manchurian Candidate starring
Laurence Harvey, Frank Sinatra, Angela Lansbury and Janet Leigh. It’s a violent, but cathartic and redemptive film
about the possibility of triumph for battered human
spirits.
The
great photo immediately below showing Harvey and Sinatra joking around on the film set while shooting the harrowing
Korean War sequences says to me: “It’s
only a movie.”
Excerpt from: Lawrence Alloway, Violent
America – The Movies 1946-1964, Greenwich, Museum of
Modern Art, 1971.
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