“Do you like hurting people?”: Understanding Film Violence Michael Piantini ABSTRACT Depictions of violence in contemporary cinema face a misunderstanding in their usage. There is a lack of regarding violence as anything more than an expression rather than an artistic tool by filmmakers to articulate the inexplicable mannerisms violence can mean. This essay aims to survey how a film’s violent aesthetics can be a tool for meaningful discourse. Building on the existing work of the aesthetics of violence, it asks: What are the applications that informed violence can mean to articulate a certain theme within a film? In this context, informed violence is defined as a distinguished style of violence that can be understood as having a particular meaning in relation to the film’s intent and the audience. Based on the ideas and definitions used by Margaret Bruder, Devin McKinney, and psychiatrist Fredric Wertham, four different modes of violence are examined to determine how their violence is used. In each case, there is an iteration on a dialogue concerning violence and pleasure, exploitation, empathy, as well as indexical reflection. This indicates that violence is an artistic tool capable of countless applications of use. The philosophical question hinted at, if consumers of violent media then enjoy violence, is a question that requires further research beyond the medium of film.

immoral and gross and should be censored to keep our minds pure. Even now, most violence produced in a film is deemed as a gratuitous spectacle. And although that sentiment is not wrong, it subdues any potential conversation regarding the nuances of a filmmaker’s use of Figure 1 Ichi the Killer: "Kakihara (Tadanobu Asano) looking at the leftovers. (Ichi the violence. There is a lot of grey area to Killer, 2001) be explored! Within recent memory, the This essay aims to understand concept of violence in film has gone film violence as a tool to express (or through significant change in regard keep distance from) some type of to style and content. Historically, meaningful discussion. In some cases, filmic violence was understood as the films start a dialogue with the

Screen Studies Quarterly 19 Piantini viewer to acknowledge the desire to metaphor centers the nature of indulge in screen violence to begin certain film directors in how they with, while others are sincere approach violence as a tool to further testaments to the craft of filmmaking. the technique of filmmaking, pointing These films, with their different towards the apparatus. Well-known modes of violence, will be explored in cinephile Quentin Tarantino has this essay by examining their made a whole career on stylizing relationship with the spectator. Using violence; this type of violence is the films Kill Bill: Volume 1 (Quentin clearest in Kill Bill: Volume 1 (2003). Tarantino), Ichi the Killer (Takashi For instance, the film utilizes “weak” Miike), Funny Games (Michael violence in the iconic scene near the Haneke), and Nightcrawler (Dan end. There are the “Crazy 88s” Gilroy), I will discuss the aesthetics of fighting the Bride (Uma Thurman) in a violence portrayed, its implication on restaurant with glass floors and a the meaning of the film, and the effect grand staircase, all making for a it may have on the spectator. spectacular battlefield. The hench- men swing their swords in useless abandon as the Bride slays them all SPECTACULAR VIOLENCE effortlessly. Weak violence does not To begin understanding our hold significant affective qualities. perception of violence, it is important McKinney continues, “the violence of to note the different modes of its these pictures simply doesn’t last; it depiction on screen. In his essay aptly gets left on the floor with the candy called, “Violence: The Strong and the wrappers.”2 Every swing of the Bride’s Weak,” culture writer Devin McKinney sword is accompanied with a swift describes two types of violence. “The swoosh as though she is cutting paradoxes of strong violence are rich through air. The cinematography, like and maze like. But weak violence the Hattori Hanzo blade she holds, is thrives on a sterile contradiction: it masterful in its craft to produce reduces bloodshed to its barest bloodshed. Kill Bill is a success in components, then inflates them with making the spectacle of violence a 1 hot, stylized air. McKinney’s celebration of the process of

1 Devin McKinney, “Violence: The Strong and 2 McKinney, “Violence.” the Weak.” Film Quarterly, vol. 46, no. 4, 1993, pp. 16–22.

20 Spring 2020 Vol 1.1 “Do you like hurting people?” filmmaking. Film scholar Margaret psychologically traumatizing games. Bruder describes this “formal Eventually, the wife (Naomi Watts) reflexivity, this calling attention to the kills one of the abductors, enraging possibilities available only to the Paul (Michael Pitt) to find the cinematic mechanism, [as] often television remote and rewind to combined with an unmotivated de- moments earlier attempting to stop gree of intertextuality.”3 There is a her violent acts. Haneke uses his celebration of the apparatus and characters to disrupt and address the craft, not the content itself, because audience directly in the service of what Tarantino does capture is subversion. The film is only under the analogous to watching an Olympic guise of a domestic-hostage thriller. gymnast: very impressive. And just In classical fashion there would be like the Olympics, what the spectator violence and death, but the is positioned to do is passively watch protagonist will win in the end. and enjoy. Subverting that cliché, the film Such inconsequential violence actively uses its own apparatus (linear exists to satisfy fantasies. However, if editing and fourth wall breaking) to films like Kill Bill are made to gratify work against the protagonists, and a bloodlust, then Michael Haneke’s happy ending becomes uncertain. Funny Games (2007) is made to Haneke’s violence provides confront the desire for bloodlust. gravity to bloodshed; after all it is Funny Games uses a deliberate expected, right? There is a focus on “strong” violence to reevaluate provoking the spectator to feel a Western audiences’ expectations of disruption in the tropes of filmed violence. It is a violence that “comm- violence, what is expected to happen unicates intensely the sense a person most of the time. Funny Games (and who in one moment is fully alive has the 1997 iteration) swerves from a been reduced to God’s garbage.”4 In conversation on the nature of the film, a husband, wife, and son go violence, more so asking if those who to the country for vacation, but not-so are watching the film enjoy seeing friendly strangers force them to play people get hurt. Further asking if the

3 Bruder, Margaret Ervin. “Aestheticizing 4 McKinney, “Violence.” violence, or how to do things with style.” Diss. Indiana University, 2003.

Screen Studies Quarterly 21 Piantini lineage of violent cinema is one that however, Ichi shows some restraint is not passive, but participatory. compared to Kakihara who shows However, it is important to note, almost no remorse for his actions. Haneke’s film(s) is neither subtle nor Kakihara’s morbid dedication is on the first of its kind; many have display when he horizontally sus- criticized the overtly moralizing pends a man with multiple hooks and nature of his work. But it is in the has needles jammed in his face. metanarrative of violence where one Initially read as deeply disturbing (yet finds a nuanced thesis in his film. perhaps not in relation to the rest of What if there was an inverse of any the film), the scene embodies the nuance with a pure uncompromising pleasure for spectacular pain. Bruder vision? wrestles with film violence: Yet to avoid the problematic VIOLENCE AS IRONIC involved in asserting any ontology of MEDITATION the film image, it might be safer to simply acknowledge that film Two words come to mind when violence, as a number of film critics thinking about Takashi Miike’s films: ranging from David Thomson to Linda textured and intense. His films like Williams have noted, has its own Audition (1999), Gozu (2003), and 13 special form of beauty. In that violent Assassins (2010) all feature brutal images encourage us to take pleasure images that are more akin to a in the spectacular representation of pornographic murder than most other people's pain, our fascination action films. More importantly, his with them may be difficult to justify. films share a distinguished quality of However, if recent movie attendance making physical pain formally serves as evidence, it seems that we understood. Miike’s Ichi the Killer do manage in one way or another to (2001) is about a violent yakuza, get around our moral qualms, not just Kakihara (Tadanobu Asano), going on in the United States, in that "most a violent killing spree to find his violent of Western societies," but in kidnapped boss from the semi- the rest of the world as well superhero Ichi (Nao Omori). Both Ichi (Hammerman 79).5 and Kakihara are set up to be equally as destructive in their ability;

5 Bruder, “Aestheticizing violence.”

22 Spring 2020 Vol 1.1 “Do you like hurting people?”

Within the narrative, the scene is be described as relatable or realistic. important because the man who is However, the brokenness of his being tortured is under suspicion for characters and their outlets to hiding the missing yakuza boss. On a reconcile with these flaws are quite visual level, there is an anxiety- human. inducing horror in the quality of Miike’s films have an escapist empathy produced by seeing a appeal, similar to anime or person in this situation. The man’s pornography, but they become bleak skin is being stretched to an when the film’s violence is used to unbelievable length where it appears meditate on the suffering of others. about to rip apart. He hollers to plead For example, witnessing a body get for his life, but Kakihara has no dismantled limb by limb brings out indication that he will stop; deep-rooted curiosities surrounding information is incidental to his sadistic what the body is capable of. An fun. examination of feeling pain is applied Miike has noted in interviews that to make Miike’s film induce physical his idea of violence is that it comes reactions from the spectator in out naturally by instinct. In a 2015 creative ways. interview with SHOCK, Miike says, The issue is not whether the film “the goal is never merely to make a makes violence believable or violent film. That is not the point, suggests it be condoned; there is an really. The violence is just a result of obvious tongue-in-cheek playfulness how the characters evolve through in constructing such violence. There 6 the process of filmmaking.” Violence are always graphic depictions of comes out through a character’s violence in Miike’s films, but it is motivations and then is exaggerated consistently notable how painful and for good measure to vividly paint the extreme they are. What can sincerely character’s psyche. Generally, the be taken away from Ichi the Killer is an excessiveness of his films would not appreciation for suffering and a

6 Brown, Phil. “Extreme Cinema King Takashi Miike Talks YAKUZA APOCALYPSE.” SHOCK, 6 Oct 2015. https://www.comingsoon.net /horror/news/747341-interview-extreme- cinema-king-takashi-miike-talks-yakuza- apocalypse.

Screen Studies Quarterly 23 Piantini curiosity about the multiple ways pain violence of Ichi the Killer is not a can be inflicted. It would be a byproduct of humanity making a film, disservice to the craft of production to arriving naturally, but is a deliberate simply say that films like Miike’s are inclusion. Violence is a man-made just a spectacle of violence. Ichi the invention and it is not one that is Killer plays on an increasingly savage natural to our behavior. Wertham wave of attempts to raise the level of continues with three general types of what is depicted in empathetic moviegoers in regard to violence: graphic imagery. those unpleasantly moved, those amused, and those ambivalent. It is an interesting position to hold a INDEXICAL VIOLENCE neutral stance on film violence Violence has a precedent of because it puts a person as neither for being a signal of truth. Blood and nor against violence, but offers that innards spewing, pain and misery; violence is simply a given. “Many these are some of the worst things excuses are offered to justify the any being could ever go through, and proliferation of fictional violence. One they are used as indicators for a kind is that to depict the most gruesome of realism. In his article “IS SO MUCH details is a requirement of realism.”8 VIOLENCE IN FILMS NECESSARY?” With this attitude in consideration, Fredric Wertham, a champion against Dan Gilroy’s Nightcrawler (2014) violence in media, thoroughly goes serves as a heavy anchor to draw through the many avenues to distinction between real and film understand why violence is depicted violence. The film’s main character, and justified in film, with realism Louis “Lou” Bloom (Jake Gyllenhaal), being a key factor. Wertham presents a man willing to do anything to be the case that “human violence is not successful, can be thought of as the inevitable; that it is not a biological embodiment of the ambivalent instinct like sex or the desire for food; filmgoer. He records footage from and that it can be greatly reduced and crime scenes and sells the footage to 7 even eventually abolished.” By a local news station for show the next Wertham’s definition, the absurd day. Lou crosses police lines, finds

7 Wertham, Fredric. “IS SO MUCH VIOLENCE 8 Wertham, “IS SO MUCH.” IN FILMS NECESSARY?” Cinéaste, vol. 2, no. 1 (5), 1968, pp. 4–36.

24 Spring 2020 Vol 1.1 “Do you like hurting people?” people in pain, and even tampers in the armed suspects lay bleeding. Rick investigations to conjure the most is then shot multiple times by one of thrilling footage. the barely alive suspects; meanwhile, Gilroy has stated that the film is Lou records it all. This is when the about journalism and sensational “strong” violence is solidified and media. The news media “show brief, recognized for taking a life. The violent images, a breath of narrative gunshots that go off into Rick are loud of fear and drama, a brief interview and shocking. Cinematic technique at with passersby or victims who convey its peak found in Miike or Tarantino is that this violence has somehow found replaced with a didactic style of the them. There is a string of similar real. Much like our real world, incidents and then you go to Nightcrawler has a tone of real world commercial.”9 Nightcrawler can be “crunch.” Sound design makes the read as a behind-the-scenes look at already indexical cinematography of how real-world violence is doc- Los Angeles feel all the more grave umented and used by news when Lou’s breathing is crispy sharp; organizations. Violence is taken into the abrupt silence that follows the car account in the real world and the crash and the echo of gunshots into consequence of said violence is profit Rick remain unresolved. Lack of and television ratings. sound is the key in highlighting the realism of violence in Nightcrawler Lou is made an antihero with his because the metanarrative of the unflinching drive to get the job done. media industry’s empire is built on That drive becomes mechanical to the point of horror in the film’s climax, when Lou and his employee Rick (Riz Ahmed) are following two house burglars after they kill the residents. The duo is filming everything up until a high-speed car chase leads to a big collision. Lou orders Rick to get footage of the wrecked vehicle where Figure 2 Lou (Jake Gyllenhaal) records real- life violence. (Nightcrawler, 2014)

9 Fleming, Mike. “Dan and Tony Gilroy of ‘Nightcrawler’ Talk Media Ugliness In The Digital Age: Q&A.” DEADLINE. 2 Nov 2014.

Screen Studies Quarterly 25 Piantini just that: real violence. Unlike Miike’s it is also important to ask why that attention to the body being explored, aspect is desirable to begin with. Gilroy’s film gives attention to the There are people outside of film body on display for profit. The film utilizing violence in interesting ways makes it clear that it acts with realist unable to be discussed here. In 2012, aesthetics, which are quite familiar to Hotline Miami was released. Hotline the audience. Coupled with a Miami is a game with a type of narrative about real violence being positive sensory violence however, it broadcasted by mass media is contextualized. The player is tasked companies, the filmic representation to perform brutal violence on every of strong violence enables the level and is then interrogated by what audience's personal lives to play an could only be described as the active role. player's psyche. In one of these sessions, one of these interrogating CONCLUSION figures asks, “Do you like hurting people?” Due to the player character While too brief to be exhaustive, being mute, it is likely this question is this essay underscores the various addressed to the player directly. The methods in which violence is utilized question of violence being a given by filmmakers. To speak in analogy, if objective in most video games must a director is a puppet master, the film mean that the player must enjoy is their strings, and the viewer is the hurting people, digital or otherwise. puppet, seeing how the strings attach While I have shown in this essay that to the audience gives insight to the violence is more meaningful than director’s desires for their film. superficial, it is important to ask if this Understanding this intent can give violence is based on a desire to cause more ground in the realm of violence pain or to bear witness to it. as a tool of art. In part with understanding violence and its usage,

BIO Michael Piantini is a graduate student of Screen Studies at Feirstein Graduate School of Cinema. His work focuses on film aesthetics and the cultural context media lives in to understand their thematic relevance. His current favorite pastime is watching the Smite Pro League, rooting for Spacestation Gaming.

26 Spring 2020 Vol 1.1