Peter Bogdanovich: "Violence on the screen has increased tenfold. It's almost pornographic. In fact, it is pornographic."
Legendary Director Peter Bogdanovich: What If Movies Are Part of the Problem?
Caution: Article contains some vulgarity
Today, there’s a general numbing of the audience. There’s too much murder and killing. You make people insensitive by showing it all the time. The body count in pictures is huge. It numbs the audience into thinking it’s not so terrible. Back in the ’70s, I asked Orson Welles what he thought was happening to pictures, and he said, “We’re brutalizing the audience. We’re going to end up like the Roman circus, live at the Coliseum.” The respect for human life seems to be eroding.
The public respect for human life eroded long ago, thank you Mr. Darwin and Roe v. Wade. I remember reading an article by a college English teacher who was disturbed by the imagery being handed in by his students, so he ran an experiment. He showed a series of video clips one day in class of people being killed in various ways. Students were largely indifferent, sometimes even laughing at the scenes. That is until someone shooting at a guy with a dog missed the guy and shot the dog. Then the class showed serious concern and even some outrage that something like that could happen.
Why is it that my voice always seems to be loudest when I am saying the dumbest things?
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