We hear constantly about violence in art and the media supposedly influencing real-life violence and crime. I don't know if that's always true, though it must sometimes be. Regardless, one aspect of this, I think, is how each viewer processes screen violence. This week I saw Peter Jackson's early film Braindead (1992), truly one of the goriest I've ever seen. It's a horror comedy, and that second aspect made the violence somewhat easier for me to stomach. Could that be true for audiences overall?
The most violent movie I've ever seen, at least regarding focus and tone, is The Passion of the Christ (2004); I've never been religious in my life, but that left me truly gut-wrenched nonetheless. However, that was of course as dramatic as cinema comes. And maybe it's because I'm a horror (particularly horror comedy) junkie, but I find violence in overtly emotional works like that, particularly when they ask us to empathise with the protagonist, to be more challenging.
Like everything else art-related, its reception is subjective, and that's one of its beauties. It means everybody can have their own reactions to and interpretations of it. What makes your flinch in your seat, or even have to look away? Cartoonish or supernatural violence or the kind more rooted in reality and history?
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