Screening Violence

Graphic cinematic violence is a magnet for controversy.  From passionate defenses to outraged protests, theories abound concerning this defining feature of modern film: Is it art or exploitation, dangerous or liberating?  Screening Violence  provides an even-handed examination of the history, merits, and effects of cinematic “ultraviolence.”  Movie reviewers, cinematographers, film scholars, psychologists, and sociologists all contribute essays exploring topics such as: · the origins and innovations of film violence and attempts to regulate it (from Hollywood’s Production Code to the evolution of the ratings system) · the explosion of screen violence following the 1967 releases of Bonnie and Clyde  and The Dirty Dozen, and the lasting effects of those landmark films · the aesthetics of increasingly graphic screen violence · the implications of our growing desensitization to murder and  mayhem, from The Wild Bunch  to The Terminator