Posted on 07/25/2012 6:41:11 PM PDT by P.O.E.
Peter Bogdanovich is no stranger to violence -- either onscreen or off. In an eerie foreshadowing of the Colorado tragedy, his very first film, 1968's Targets, starring Boris Karloff, ends with a sniper, an angry Vietnam War vet, picking off teenagers at a drive-in movie theater. But while that movie reflected the rising discord of the late '60s, it wasn't until 1980 that Bogdanovich experienced, first-hand, the full impact of violence when his companion, Dorothy Stratten, the Playboy model and actress, was brutally murdered by her estranged husband.
People go to a movie to have a good time, and they get killed. It's a horrible, horrible event. It makes me sick that I made a movie about it.
(snip)
Today, there's a general numbing of the audience. There's too much murder and killing. You make people insensitive by showing it all the time. The body count in pictures is huge. It numbs the audience into thinking it's not so terrible. Back in the '70s, I asked Orson Welles what he thought was happening to pictures, and he said, "We're brutalizing the audience. We're going to end up like the Roman circus, live at the Coliseum." The respect for human life seems to be eroding.
(Excerpt) Read more at hollywoodreporter.com ...
Anyway, this is not news to most of us, just surprising to hear it from one of Hollywood's own.
Life is a problem. It is difficult to adapt to...not pretty...but there it is!
Get a life...and adapt!
I don’t think he really cares. He just doesn’t want to be sued.
We mustn’t dare say that! They’ll accuse us of wanting censorship. I would call it common sense. Movies to affect people, especially young people. I can remember acting out movies as kids. But I haven’t seen any of the Batman movies (though I used to love the TV show), so I can’t comment on them.
Peter Bogdanovich as Captain Obvious. Yes, I thought of “Targets” hearing of this recent incident. In the film the perp shoots into the audience from behind the screen at a drive-in theater, a highly symbolic and deeply thoughtful from the point of view of film history, scene.
At the same time, he takes the standard potshots at guns and the NRA.
IBDOEVHT - (In Before Defenders OF Entertainment Vehicle Product Hollywood Trash!)
I haven't seen the movies, either, but if they don't have Mayor Linseed and Governor Stonefellow, I don't see how they could be any good.
In other words: What if Water really is Wet??
As a fan of movies, heavy metal music and a video gamer since the Atari 2600 days, it seems obvious that what we view/play will effect our views/perceptions. In today’s culture where actions are free from consequense, it’s also unsurprising that people feel free to act on impuls in a morality free way.
So what changed and why didn’t kids from the 40s-80s go psycho every week after all the ultraviolent gangster movies, loony tunes cartoons etc?
Well, first and foremost, PARENTS taught the concept of right and wrong...and they weren’t arrested or recipients of CPS ‘love’ for doing so. Kids went to church. Kids could act out their fantasies playing cops and robbers/cowboys and indians/army et all, without CPS and a team of teachers, psychologists-psychiatrists and the rest ‘reeducating’ them for simply playing childhood games.
Why are kids in front of the TV watching R movies and playing M rated games all day? Could it be that every time they go outside they have to navigate a PC world they have no clue of understanding (as it changes by the second), the EPA and ‘safety’ groups outlawed anything resembling ‘fun’ on public lands...
EVERY BIT of this issue is 100% the responsibility of liberalism. ALL OF IT. It all goes back to the same source.
I think we all realize that ‘whatever a man sows, that he also reaps.’ Or what goes around, comes around.
The year after Bambi came out hunting licenses dropped by 60% across America. (If my memory recall is accurate.) Movies do make an impact. It is ‘nice’ to know that some acknowledge that.
it’s about time
Karloff’s last picture was “Plan Nine from Outer Space” by Ed Wood. He died before it was completed.
“The year after Bambi came out...”
At first reading I thought you were referring to Bambi coming out as the first gay President.
It killed him!
I believe you are thinking of Bela Lugosi. Karloff was not in Plan Nine at all.
Towards the end he goes on, uninformedly, about gun control. But given the world he inhabits, he probably never hears otherwise.
It didn't kill 'im. He wasn't in it.
That was Bela Lugosi.
I stand corrected. Thank you.
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