Heat put me off filmmaking

ugafan said:
saw2.jpg
vs.
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who wins?
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both suck.
 
Heat is one of my favorite movies. Umm...yeah, that's what I got to say about that.

I read about crime all day at my job, (I work for the television show America's Most Wanted.) While I haven't come up with any conclusive theory on why people commit crimes, or do some of the horrible things they do, I can tell you that you don't need to blame popular entertainment for it. Their motives are deeper than that, whether you think so or not.

To imply that it is as simple as copycat behavior based on movie scripts is to oversimplify the matter.
 
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After all, we don't generally take the horrific behavior of religious extremists, as a broad indictment of religion itself, do we?

Same thing; awful behavior by fans of a given work of film or tv entertainment, is not an indictment of film or tv.
 
I am confused how violence in films puts a person off ALL filmmaking. There are other categories and styles of flimmaking; some with zero violence or a face slap at the worse. Excessive violence can certainly be a crutch for poor storytelling but who said you have to make Lethal Weapon 5 or nothing at all?

As far violence in film affecting society, they studied this like crazy in the Eighties and did find some immediate causal effect with children witnessing violence and then re-enacting it. Similar effects were not found in adults. OTOH, there is a direct link between how much TV news a person watches and how "out of wack" their perception of how violent society is. I would imagine watching a lot of violent movies would cause a similar twisted vision of how violent society actually is...or people that think we are an overly violent society watch a lot of violent movies to reinforce that belief. Either way.

Cheers
 
Reading OP's post, I wonder if being illiterate can put one off filmmaking. I can only hope so. There's too much crap out there anyway.

In other words, or word: yes, yes, yes, yes, yes! Please, yes, pretty please with a cherry on top?!
 
To believe that violence in movies does not have an effect on people is ridiculous. Of course it does. And yes the oversaturation of media bends things out of proportion and makes it feel a lot worse than it really is. But we are so desensitized to violence these days because we've basically grown up on a diet of violent cinema, violent TV, and now (where we can probably see the worst stuff - as evidenced by the earlier bjork video) violent internet. This is just reality. I mean go through the numbers, even adjusting for populaton inflation, and compare today to the 50s. We're a much more violent society. Did you know that the government used to REQUIRE in movies, that the bad guy always get caught? Isn't that funny?

But to get back to the post, I agree with the original poster. As a species we're fascinated with killing so we'll watch anything where some guy kills some other guy. We get a high off of it. And I just don't think there's any regulation at all. And movies like Heat (which I admit, I enjoy) and Departed and any mob movie, it just glorifies the act of killing. It makes other people want to experience that high. Whether they go through with it or not (and an overwhelming percentage do not), it's something they've thought about. And even if it never happens, it affects how you live your life, how you view things.

And I don't know why I'm still writing since this thread has probably already been shut down by now.
 
I'm with c.g. eads

If placing a coke can in the foreground for two seconds while DeNiro does his thing helps sell coke, then how do you think a five minute revenge bloodbath in real time with full on special effects and surround-sound is going to affect people?

Movies are magic. They're powerful. When we make one and send it out there, it's going to have an effect. That's the whole point of making it in the first place.

Sermon over. Now, where'd I put that AK47....Hey! You talkin to me?

:kali:
 
You buy Coke because you saw it in a movie?

Shhh....don't tell the marketing people, but that's nonsense unless you've never heard of/had a Coke.

It might be valid for new products: "Gee, I wonder what that's like."

But it's a pretty safe bet that everyone who saw the film had had a Coke at one time or another. They either like it, or they don't, and no amount of product placement in a film is going to change that.

Unless, of course, DeNiro looks into the camera and says "Buy Coke, or I'll come to your house with a machine gun and kill you."
 
GenJerDan, I think he's saying that whatever appears onscreen will influence you. I get the feeling that people are playing both sides here. They're readily admitting that the reason they make films is to have an affect on people, then when it affects people, they say, "Oh! How could that have affected you! You idiot!"

rawrfilms, I don't think your argument makes any sense at all. You're comparing fantasy to reality. You can't pick up a tie-fighter at the local store. But you sure as hell can pick up a gun. Unless that was a joke. I couldn't tell.

And I'm sick of this argument of, "It's just a movie!" It shows a real lack of understanding and is based off of the assumption that everybody thinks exactly like you. Well, sure it's just a movie. You know that. I know that. But are you saying there isn't a huge portion of the population out there that DOESN'T see it like that? Violent people were violent people well before they saw movies like The Matrix. But to assume that movies like the Matrix don't feed their anger is ridiculous.
 
"Unless, of course, DeNiro looks into the camera and says "Buy Coke, or I'll come to your house with a machine gun and kill you."
__________________

Ha, ha... one of the greatest actors to grace the silver screen but these days it's possible he might if he was paid enough!

OK, I understand your point in the context of see it/buy it, although there's a whole big argument about how marketing does and doesn't work, and I'm on the "does" side... but I don't want to turn this discussion into a product placement critique.

I'm just saying that movies are such incredibly powerful formats that we have a responsibility as film makers to stand back every now and then and ask, "How is this going to affect my audience?" . Maybe we've been so bombarded by moving images for so long that we've forgotten how powerful they are, and maybe we need to remember.
 
I think it's unrealistic to ask people to curtail what they put in their movies, books, TV shows or video games simply because an incredibly small portion of the population (most likely w/some sort of mental illness) might hear/read/see something which might make him hurt himself or others in a fashion he might not have done so otherwise.

I think there are more potent root causes for violence that should be addressed, IMO, before we start burning D&D books and re-coding Doom so it's full of fluffy bunnies and rainbows.

Maybe, just maybe, we should look at the socioeconomic problems of the largely minority lower class areas that are the breeding grounds for much of this violence before we bend over backwards worrying about the middle class white kid who saw "The Program", decided it would be cool to lay down in the middle of a busy street, and got himself killed.


-A
 
GenJerDan said:
You buy Coke because you saw it in a movie?
Click to expand...

That's why they put it in there. Generally, if you can identify a product in a Hollywood studio film, it ain't by accident.
 
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