New movie 'The Killer Inside Me' causes controversy.

Ever since the cinema began there seems to have been controversy about how violent movies can be. The 1960s saw a wave of uproar hit 'Bonnie and Clyde' for it's strong bloody violence. In the 1970s, 'A Clockwork Orange' was banned in the UK for 20 years because of the 'ultra-violent' behaviour of it's young protagonist. The 1980s gave us the birth of video-nasties which caused the media in the UK to go into a frenzy because of the excessive blood and gore. The 1990s had walk-outs at the first screenings of 'Funny Games' at Cannes because of it's hard-hitting, blunt look at the torture of a middle-class family. In the 2000s, there were calls for 'Anti-Christ' to be banned because of it's intense and graphic sexual violence. Now, we're only 3 months into the 2010s and there has already been controversy over Michael Winterbottom's upcoming release 'The Killer Inside Me'.

The film sees Casey Affleck as Lou Ford, a psychotic an corrupt deputy sheriff who abuses women. The violence is allegedly brutal, shocking and utterly disturbing. So much so that a woman at the it's premiere remarked: "I don't understand how you could make this movie. How dare you?" The director responded by saying that the film was intended to shock audiences and he made it as brutal as he could to portray how awful violence really is.

This raises interesting questions as to whether shocking and brutal violence in cinema is immoral if it's done tastefully. If you're going to make a film about violence against women, should the violence be shocking so that it shows the effect it has on people? Or should it not show it to make sure nobody is influenced by it? If you tone it down though, does it just become gratuitous?

I would agree with Michael Winterbottom. In my mind, a film like 'Watchmen' is far more controversial than 'The Killer Inside Me'. While the latter is brutal and attempts to show, realistically, what violent against women is like, 'Watchmen' depicts dismemberment, broken bones, and arcs of blood to a thumping 80s soundtrack, in slow motion and with silly sound effects. This, to me, is far more of an issue than the violence in 'The Killer Inside Me'. The Winterbottom neo-noir takes no pleasure in it's violence while 'Watchmen' seems to use it as something that will 'wow' it's viewers.

The aforementioned 'Funny Games' saw the same kind of uproar as 'The Killer Inside Me' when it showed at Cannes. And, again, I disagree with the controversy. The film contains a 7-minute still shot of a woman crying after her son has been murdered before her eyes. Yes, this is shocking and deeply upsetting. But it also shows just how much of an effect the torturers actions have on the family and puts you in their shoes. Surely, anyone who watches such an unsettling scene wouldn't be attracted to violent behaviour. That, in turn, is the point of Funny Games; to expose that violence has consequences and effects in a way that few other films have done.

I have to echo the wonderful French director Jacques Audiard to conclude this post. Empire Magazine asked him, when referring to a knife scene in 'A Prophet', whether he thought it was too violent. He responded by saying that violence should always be disturbing, because, after all, that's what it is.

By Daniel Sarath with No comments