Movie Violence: What's The Point?

A few years ago I was at my parents' house extolling the virtues of The Thin Red Line at length and probably to the mild irritation of my family, who were trapped in the living room with me and unable to escape. After a couple of minutes of waxing pedestrian about the film, my gran (old school, academic, intellectually intimidating) asked me why I would want to watch a film that depicted scenes of war. The question gave me pause for thought. In a hundred years of accumulated filmmaking, violence remains one of cinema's key methods of expression and a timeless device for heightening drama.

I think my gran's question was grounded in a belief that films are, in general, entertainment rather than art, and therefore depictions of violence are morally dubious on the grounds that they are created for entertainment's sake. I would disagree with that argument; there are plenty of movies that I have found edifying and artistically valid, partly through the application of onscreen violence, whether shockingly realistic or stylised. But I also have to admit that I have enjoyed shallow movie violence as pure entertainment without any moral reservations. So I thought I'd have a think about the purpose of cinematic violence and its best and worst exponents.

In the most basic sense, violence is possibly the simplest method of heightening drama and giving urgency to a plot. In war movies like Saving Private Ryan or Platoon, the main antagonist isn't German or Viet Cong soldiers, it's the constant spectre of violence. It's the death-rattle of machine guns; the doom-hum of tanks rolling down the road or warplanes screeching across the sky. When we see medics desperately patching up their ruined comrades on the beaches of Normandy as the rounds continue to thump down around them, when we see Platoon's Sgt. Elias desperately clinging on to life despite being left behind to rot in the jungle, the lump in our throat doesn't rise through hatred of their human adversaries. The real enemy is the loss of humanity, intelligent beings reduced to meat in an instant. The physical and psychological wastage.

Violence in war movies is usually directed at putting across this soul rot in as unflinching and brutal a manner as possible. But in other genres, violence is a potent force to drive plot and character motivation. Revenge movies usually start with a despicable act of violence in order to aim the protagonist at his/her foes. Kinji Fukasaku's Battle Royale, a gore-soaked pulp tale of Japanese schoolchildren trapped on an island and forced to kill each other off as part of a murderous government youth cull, explores the fractures between the values of two Japanese generations through the application of appalling violence. It's violence as the purest representation of a power struggle.

Some movies use onscreen brutality as a reflection on violence as a concept. David Cronenberg's A History of Violence meticulously charts the metamorphosis of main character Tom Stall, a reformed mobster who slowly re-engages his violent impulses after killing two robbers in his small town diner. Tom's mannerisms begin to shift; his relationship and sex life with his wife is affected; even his teenage son begins to assert himself violently at school. In A History of Violence, the ability to inflict pain on others is studied as a destructive, long-term condition that's incompatible with civilised life, as well as a Darwinian defence mechanism that prioritises asserting one's right to survive at all costs. Other filmmakers that have explored the idea of violence through its onscreen application include Sam Peckinpah (Straw Dogs), the Coen Brothers (No Country for Old Men) and Clint Eastwood (Unforgiven).

On a different level, I have no problem with admitting to enjoying cinematic violence for the thrill of it, especially when presented in a stylised and unreal manner. There's a world of difference between Luke Skywalker blowing up the Death Star and violence that feels believable and emotionally wearing. It's the reason we laugh rather than retch when the hulking German mechanic gets mashed up in a plane's propeller in Indiana Jones. It's the reason we suspend disbelief when Jet Li and Tony Leung are dancing their combat ballet on the surface of a gleaming lake in Zhang Yimou's Hero.

Similarly, cinematic violence can be beautiful to look at. The awesome spectacle of the battle scenes in 300 is worth revisiting for its brawny audacity, even if the story is worth forgetting. Martial arts movies only exist to impress viewers, whether kung fu enthusiasts or chop socky casuals, with the forms and movement of make-believe fighting. Hell, gruesome violence can even be funny if the tone is right. I don't know many people who didn't guffaw at Shaun and Ed lobbing old records at a couple of oncoming zombies in Shaun of the Dead, or at Team America's blonde badass Lisa blowing an Al-Qaeda puppet through a Paris store window to the immortal line, "Hey terrorist - terrorise THIS!". I find I'm able to enjoy screen violence as entertainment as long as I'm aware of the artifice, like a rollercoaster of guns and explosions.

The only movies that cross my violence line are those that seem to have been made for the sole purpose of enjoying realistic depictions of human suffering. Most of these fall into the horror category, although only an elite few do I avoid on moral grounds. Even pretty extreme horror movies like Alexandre Aja's Switchblade Romance and claustrophobic Spanish infection freakout [REC] have enough going on under the hood that the violence is about sustaining threat rather than revelling in pain.

No, it's the torture porn of the Saw sequels and the Hostel movies that put me off. The films that seem cynically designed to devalue realistic visions of pain and death, that strategically attempt to inspire voyeuristic murder-boners, often by maiming and killing attractive young women to complete the perfect circle of death/masturbation confusion. Cinematically, it makes for lumpen experiences with no sense of restraint or pacing. More importantly, they're the only movies that I wouldn't be able to explain to my gran.