Movie Essays and Reviews

2007-Dec-4 - Violence in Film, Haneke and Kubrick

The other day I was reading an article on Austrian film-maker Michael Haneke. The article was very informative and interesting, and spent a lot of time on what Haneke thinks of the world and of cinema. A lot of what he said excited me, but one thing really stood out to me. In the article, Haneke speaks of Stanley Kubrick's A Clockwork Orange and speaks of how it is a failure. Haneke goes on to say that he respects Kubrick, and is really grateful for his mistakes, as he has learned a lot from them. He doesn't claim to be smarter than Kubrick, just luckier solely because Kubrick came before him. What he is claiming is that A Clockwork Orange is a failure because audiences that liked the film liked it because of the stylized and almost upbeat violence in the film. But should Kubrick be faulted for audiences taking his film the wrong way?
A director knows what he is doing. Especially a director like Kubrick. In defense of his film, many of the violent scenes that feature strangely upbeat music are intentional. This was a time in film-making when directors were putting unfit music to certain scenes simply to say that music shouldn't show you how to feel during a certain scene (something Haneke is also a believer of). Also, the upbeat music was also supposed to represent the joy that the main character Alex felt while committing these acts of violence. The "well calculated violence" and "dance numbers" are done to make the characters seem even more psychotic.

    When spoken of in that terms, it seems understandable that a person would really enjoy A Clockwork Orange, and even think it was "cool." However, thinking more into the film and the acts of violence (and all jokes aside), is cutting the clothes off a woman and raping her while her husband watches and gets beaten really enjoyable? No, not at all. If people truly enjoy it, then that's definitely not the fault of Kubrick.
    So people are missing the point, clearly. This seems to happen with many Kubrick films, and although I don't want to sound like a down-and-out art film critic, it could very well be because the films found mainstream success. Once, when I worked at Best Buy, I had a manager who could recite every line of the drill sergeant's dialogue from Full Metal Jacket with a smile on his face. Its another movie that people enjoy for the wrong reasons. I feel like, again, the sarcasm is lost and people focus more on the humor of it all, when in reality, there was nothing funny about the Vietnam War at all. There's nothing really funny in the movie, period. Sure, the drill sergeant talking down to his troops is amusing, but is it really that funny after he is murdered and disrespected? Joker's quips are amusing, but what of the ending scene, where he remains speechless as he stares at the Vietnam sniper who lays there dying slowly?
    Maybe Haneke's got it all wrong. Maybe everyone does. Maybe Kubrick wanted the scenes to be enjoyable, and in that sense, he wanted people to look at themselves and realize what they were enjoying were things like murder and rape. Although I don't agree with this theory, it's very possible, as the over stylizing of the scenes and the unfit music would really make it obvious in that sense. It may not be as obvious a message as it is in Haneke's own Funny Games, but it certainly is there if that is what one chooses to believe. If this is the case, then the film is much too subtle and audiences are taking it for face value. But then one must wonder- is a film that includes a milk bar and rehab centers where doctors perform dangerous experiments really a film that any audience member should take at face value and not think about? Some people don't spend as much time thinking about film as others do, some just see film as entertainment and nothing else. Though I disagree with that mindset, I can't not acknowledge it's existence. These films aren't failures because some audiences are overlooking the bigger picture. Ultimately, it's the audience that is failing to recognize the many layers of these films, even if they're painfully obvious. Maybe the humor and sarcasm in these films are distracting, but some of the best storytellers use these techniques to deliver their message further.

    However, I do think it is wrong to put the blame entirely on the audience. Film-makers today insult their audience time and time again with their force-fed movies, when in fact the audience is smarter than they think. I also think Haneke is wrong in believing that a good amount enjoy the violence of A Clockwork Orange. To denounce a film because of a certain audience that doesn't get it is just silly.
    The whole thing brings up a good topic, though. Is violence enjoyable? Why? Movies like Saw focus on the violence and the gore factor to excite audiences, and they keep coming back every Halloween for more. One can argue that if violence is maybe very realistic and gruesome, than it serves it's purpose because acts of violence shouldn't look cool and only be added to a movie for entertainment purposes. However, what if a movie bases it's whole existence on gruesome death scenes? A film-maker can do whatever they want to do in a film and it's up to the audience whether they enjoy it or not. It's also true that Saw is supposed to be a horror film, and each and everyone of the deaths are absolutely terrifying. They're definitely not realistic situations, though I suppose if a man's head was smashed between two huge ice blocks, it'd look like that. What Saw does is it drives the audience to want these characters to get out of the situation they're in and not get murdered in these torturous ways because they care for some of the characters, and they also wouldn't want anyone to die like these characters do. It's not meant to look cool (and it certainly doesn't), it's meant to scare you.
    Violence in movies like Sin City isn't realistic, and it's very cartoony. Movies like these and even regular action movies pride themselves on their action which is, of course, rooted in violence. By downplaying the violence and having it occur often and cartoonish, they're doing exactly what Haneke thinks Kubrick did, and it's very intentional. It's hard to knock on those films like Grindhouse and Sin City because they are well-made films and they're more tongue-in-cheek than anything, but maybe the way they present violence isn't a good message to send an audience. Violence shouldn't be "awesome", it should be sad and disturbing and frightening.
    So violence is enjoyable only if the movie sets out to make it enjoyable. But maybe the movies like Grindhouse conditioned a certain audience to enjoy violence no matter what, and because of those kind of movies, others like A Clockwork Orange are taken the wrong way. So maybe it's not Kubrick's fault and it's not the audiences fault, but the way other directors present their movies and thus condition the audience to think a certain way about every movie. Should one think that the "dance numbered violence" in A Clockwork Orange is trying to make a statement if the gorey movie 300 is just trying to be "fun"?
    Movies should try to send some kind of message, otherwise it's a complete waste. There's no reason why a movie can't be enjoyable and somewhat meaningful at the same time. The movies that feel like they don't need to send a message, those action movies, actually are sending a message to the audience. A very detrimental one.

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