violence in film tagged posts

I want to assure returning readers that no, this will not be a blog devoted solely to discussions of violence—it just appears to have insinuated itself as the theme of the week. After all, we’ve got other more uplifting topics to move onto: the devil, the persistence of evil, the unremitting cruelty of nature, and various offshoots therefrom. (Detours into bondage and degradation, perhaps? Naw, no detours into bondage and degradation…)

Joking aside, yes, we will return again here to rhapsodizing on sublime beauty and human goodness—but not before at least a bit more reflection on this rich thread of commentary regarding media violence. Pondering the varied and thoughtful comments on previous posts brought to mind the director Norman Jewison’s 1975 movie, Rollerball, which he adapted from a short story by William Harrison, who also wrote the screenplay.

The storyline depicts a violent gladiatorial...

I’ve been thinking about young men and violence. And now, in the wake of the Pentagon’s announcement earlier this week that women are henceforth approved to engage in front-line combat, young women and violence, too. And this matter of how much violence some of us can stomach—and how much violence others of us seem to need (and even celebrate).

As Layne astutely pointed out in her comments to my previous post on movie violence, such films tend to attract huge audiences, and ergo, must be filling some need. The fact that fellow commenters Fred and Dennis, along with myself, are revolted rather than fed by such violence suggests how wide is the gap between different people’s temperaments and sensibilities. One person’s intolerable and gratuitous gore is another’s ecstatic celebration...