But the question is what kind of impact. Obsessive people are going to obsess on things, that’s what they do, and they will often emulate in some way what they obsess on it allows them to continue their obsession. So the question really becomes was this a case of a violent nutburger who obsessed on a movie that “expressed” (at leats to him) whatever lame excuses he was cooking up for his rampage, or did he watch this movie too many times and it turned him into a violent nutburger? Well the history of these things shows it’s the former. Sure these guys all tend to obsess on something, often a movie, but there are millions of these people that watch these movies, probably dozens or even hundreds who watch them just as many times as the psycho, but they don’t go on to kill.
And often these killers have a blatant mis-interpretation of the movie that “inspires” them. Look at Columbine, those jerks were obsessed with Natural Born Killers, a movie they (and others) thought glorified two psycho killers. In fact the point of the movie is a criticism of how the media glorifies psycho killers, in the movie the killers are just nuts and kind of stupid, but the media blows them up to counter culture heroic perportions. And of course if you look at how NBC is handling the package from Cho right now the movie would appear to be right.
Cho probably got some of his style from the movie, but the movie didn’t make him do it. He was a nutburger looking for a time and a method, nobody knows yet why he picked the time but apparently he picked the method from this movie. Without this movie he would have picked his style from a different movie, or maybe he would have actually been original and picked his own style. But one way or the other he was going to kill people, he spent way too long planning this for anything but him to be the true source.
<< Look at Columbine, those jerks were obsessed with Natural Born Killers, a movie they (and others) thought glorified two psycho killers. In fact the point of the movie is a criticism of how the media glorifies psycho killers >>
I think you raise a good point here. Often a great acting performance by a charismatic actor can draw the sympathy of many viewers to that character, even though that is not what the screenplay writer intended.
I think one example of that is “A Few Good Men.” If one were to just read the screenplay, it’s pretty clear that Sorkin intended to glorify civil rights lawyers and denigrate and caricature career line officers. Yet Nicholson’s performance as Col. Jessup was so compelling that Sorkin must have been surprised that so many would identify with Nicholson’s Jessup when he tells off Cruise’s lawyer character for not picking up a weapon and standing a post.
And in Tarantino’s movies, with the slick cinematography, clever dialogue, sophisticated styles and charismatic acting performances many viewers overlook the message of nihilism which underlies his works.