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Selective sensationalism?

Some time ago from poking around /b/ I found a video from the Ukraine that was shot by some teenagers as they physically destroyed a living human being with hammers and screwdrivers...easily the most horrible thing I have ever seen... after looking into it more I found out they killed 21 people in a month summer 2007... I thought it was ODD that there was NO news stories about it anywhere in English and why not? Mass media LOVES to sensationalize EVERYTHING so why were they avoiding this? The only organized kinda press place that covered it in English was at boingboing. Immediately when I saw the video I thought of the "torture porn" films such as Saw and Hostel and they various sequels and spinoffs... these kids did exactly what has been portrayed in the films but in real life... What disturbed me about those "torture porn" films when they came out is that I knew that people would copy them... As a filmmaker you have a great responsibility...you need to choose carefully what you portray in your films and how you portray it... Since the Hollywood filmmaking system is only concerned with the $$$ they could give a fuck about actual people and how they multimedia trash affects them but YOU have a choice when you make your films....

About the Ukraine killers...the reason the video of they murder was online was that because they filmed all the murders with a mobile phone camera...

But oh yeh why did I write about this now and not back then when I first saw that video... I stumbled across some movie called "Eden Lake" and flipped though it... Its about a group of teenagers who torture and murder some couple and guess what? They film it all with they mobile phone camera... It came out after the murders...

I could go on and on about this... but all I have to say is that films are not just films... and if you wield the imagery without considering what it might do to men, women and children then you might be in for some surprises later on... When you watch someone being destroyed physically in a film or game...it does something to you... to your mind they are just images and as games and films get more realistic how are the core parts of your brain supposed to know what is real or not? I have some friends that are psychologists and I talk to them about these things now and then... You hear a lot of desensitization... Now if you've watched thousands of graphic murders in films and games your whole life does it make it easier for you to commit such acts in real life? Its interesting in the Ukraine snuff video...they put plastic over they hammer cause thats really the only difference in real life.. you get your hands dirty.... if you can get over that its pretty much the same.

Last year I talked to a woman who worked in marketing at Sony Pictures I think it was... we got to talking about the focus groups she does... ya know test screenings of films... She said they do polls where they ask people what they want to see more of in films... She said that it disturbed her that the biggest request was for more "Torture" Why would people want to see more torture? I think the more desensitized you become the more you desire more and more shocking imagery etc because it gives you a little jolt that makes you feel like your still alive... and when you don't feel it anymore... congratulations you are a psychopath!!! AND since the Hollywood system is only interested in $$$ and not the well being of people..what did you think they did? Well look at your new cinema releases...

What I'm saying is that as a director its your choice what you put in your film...NOT your audiences! NOT a boardroom of executives! NOT FUCKING FOCUS GROUPS! If thats how you decide what is in your films your not a director your just a little batcH and thats all you'll ever be! Are you being the person you know you are? Or are you being a person other people want you to be?

After saying all that... remember that the tagline to my new film is "You will die... inside"

Physical pain eventually subsides but psychological and emotional pain is eternal.

People say they want more torture? They can watch physical torture all day long... but start to torture THEY mind and they run away screaming.

Yes yes your a very attractive human... but I'd rather fuck your mind.

So when speaking about my new film I must quote Combichrist in saying "THis shit will fuck you up"

Comments

  1. jo dude that sounds quite conservative! a filmmaker has to be careful what to show? i don't agree.

    what was wrong with kubrick's a clockwork orange? shouldn't gaspar noƩ have made irreversible and seul contre tous? what about passolini's saolo?

    you kind of think the way censorship thinks: "oh we can't show this people they will go berserk and kill!!!" - "yeah let's censor!"

    in my opinion, the problem does not lie in the producer, it lies in the receiver. if we don't teach our kids to handle media in the right way things like these ukraine murders will happen again and again. and besides: the influence of movies, games and stuff on the human psyche is by no way explored...

    greets

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  2. I'm not saying we should censor anyone... I agree you as a director should be able to do anything YOU want to do... I'm saying you simply shouldn't do something because the audience wants it as shown through focus groups etc...

    So what I'm saying is that if you want to fuck with your audience in whatever way... it should be your choice and decision...not some executives..not focus groups and not your audience.

    BUT being careful has nothing to do with being conservative... it just means that you have thought things through rather than making choices based on shock value etc. If you understand how PTSD works you realize a person doesn't have to physically have an experience to be affected and traumatized by it for life... I mean most filmmakers probably don't care about this shit but I do because its my life.

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  3. Every time I want more torture I go online and check on my 401k plan. And if I'm really needed torture, I'll watch the news. :)

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  4. I can't say I completley agree with you Winston.

    Although I do think we need to teach are kids how to handle stuff but at the same time eould they even have to be learning that if there wasn't media that could be harmful?

    I think(And this is just my opinion)
    that directors have just as much response ability as the audiance if not more.

    I mean look at Sexuality and the media.Hollywood keeps dishing out they're movies with sexual content cause they know it sells.They know that people will go for that so they Exploit it for profit!

    Then you've got guys who expect they're women to(Begin Quote)look perfect like the girls on they're video screens(end quote)

    They get high exspectations and thoise exspectations arn't good ones to begin with.

    Then you have the ladys who think they're not good anough,that the arn't thin anough,not cute anough,the list goes on.

    Now days you have kids getting pregnant at younger age, you have familys splitting up because of a fight or cause the guy fell in to lust for another women and all kinds of terrible stuff.

    I'm not saying it's all the directors falt.It's the audiance who makes the poor dicesions

    but it's usually the media that plants the idea in the first place.


    Same with violance.You glorfy it anough and people may/have put it in to practice in real life.

    Violance has it's place just like everything does. people just don't set limits anymore AKA they don't care about the outcome.They just care about the profits..

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  5. sorry that I wrote such a long comment though.It's just being on my mind latly

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  6. Its a difficult thing to get the right balance, almost certainly it should be down to you what you actually show, rather than what focus groups tells you. But I do think audiences, I have read some work on it, aren't so passive in their watching - y'know they choose how they relate to the text, the problem with mass media being that the treat audiences as homogenous masses.

    But with Eden Lake, I see it more as reflecting the times it was made in - at least in Britain (where the film is set), there is growing fear of young people and the media's reporting of them using mobile phones for crimes - showing the problem in British culture.

    Unlike Saw which pratically wants you to jerk off to Danny Glover sawing his leg off.

    Eden Lake though...what did you think? I thought the film was meh at best, but Jack O'Connel's performance (the leader of the kids) was stunning...that last scene...the things that kid can do with his eyebrows...>.>

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  7. the thing is that i strongly believe that the audience has the power over the producer (at least in mainstream cinema). i thing mdot will agree with me.

    moving imagery is everywhere around us. everywhere. film is the most powerful and popular art around. that's why i think it's a shame we (the society, the government) don't teach the audiences (basically everybody) on that subject more.

    give people a deeper understanding on cinema and their choices on what to watch may become better, yet almost certainly they will understand better to handle difficult content (as graphic violence). if we have a more demanding and "wiser" audience, the producers (who want to reach these audiences) will have to readjust their products. hence, the quality of the movies change.

    as to your sexuality example, drainage64: this is exactly the point we are arguing here. teach the kids: "movies are like this. they glorify sexuality. the reality is different." and they will stop modeling their bodies and sex lifes after the ones of the movie stars.

    so long,
    winston

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  8. Yes I agree that the audience does have power over the producers...if people stop going to certain types of films they won't get made anymore... unfortunately most people buy into the Hollywood hype machine and they go to the theaters in droves to see whatever film has the biggest P & A budget... as as long as people keep doing that nothing will change in that system.

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