Views to a kill

Reports of the death of cinema have been greatly exaggerated. You might think that with the growth of personal handheld smart devices that can download everything from interactive multiplayer games to reality/banality voyeuristic programming that movies as a form of entertainment might be on the way out. If you did think that though, you would be wrong. Statistics tell us that despite an enormous pre-existing infiltration the cinema market continues to grow. In 2011, global box office takings came in at US$32.6 billion, which was a three per cent increase on the previous year and a 35 per cent increase on five years ago. Even a small market like Australia takes in US$1.1 billion annually at the box office and the number of cinema screens around the world is still increasing, coincidentally at that same rate of growth for box office (three per cent). So despite the advent of new and seductive technologies the magic of the movies remains, probably because, despite the dross that can be produced, film is still the avenue for combined story-telling and artistic expression without peer.

So film continues to thrive. What is interesting though is the evolution of the medium, and part of that seems to be an increase in violent content. Now, a new study has offered an explanation as to why you, enlightened soul though you might be, can still be attracted to film violence.

In a recent news item, we reported research which had revealed that in Dr No, the first James Bond film back in 1963, there were 109 acts of violence while in Quantum of Solace the number of violent acts had escalated to 250 and there three times as many acts of “severe violence” in the later film. Clearly, filmmakers must believe the public wants to see violence, and the reason for this was the subject of the new study.

For the research, a cross-cultural group of subjects from Germany and the United States aged 18-82 were gathered. The subjects watched film trailers featuring different levels of violence and “meaningfulness”. After watching each trailer, the participants were asked how likely they were to watch the full movie, and also what their perception was of the film. In terms of perception, the subjects were asked how gory, meaningful, thought-provoking or suspenseful the film might be.

In earlier research, it has emerged that people are not drawn to the violence itself but to the suspense that it generates. This study, however, found that violence in films attracts people because it promises to offer truth by providing insight into a genuine aspect of the human condition. The researchers believe that violent acts may allow viewers to experience empathy, admire the courage of people facing the violence, aspire to the “moral Beauty” of people facing violence or even self-reflect as to their own violent impulses.

This all sounds very noble but you have to wonder what role violence portrayed in films does play in desensitising the viewer. Additionally, could all of the positive effects mentioned above not come without graphic violent depiction? Would the menace of Nazi occupation in the film classic Casablanca have been heightened if a death squad had massacred all the visitors to Rick’s “Café Americain” in one horrific violent scene?

There are legitimate reasons for filmic acknowledgement of violence in the world, but surely that violence does not have to be explicit and graphic. Art, after all, is not simply a reflection of the world, but an insightful interpretation of it. As Aristotle said, long before the first reel of celluloid ever rolled, “The aim of art is not to represent the outward appearance of things, but their inward significance.”