Preppy,
Understood.
Ever read any of the E.C. Comics of the 1950s (Tales From the Crypt, The Vault of Horror, The Haunt of Fear, Shock SuspenStories, Weird Science, etc.)? Reprints have been in regular circulation for the past 35 or so years. The brand of poetic justice exacted in TCTTHW&HL is similar to that which was prevalent in E.C. Comics. For me, TCTTHW&HL is high art and low art butting heads, much like the genteel Michael at one end of Georgina, and the vulgar Albert Spica on the other. The film's execution couldn't be more appropriate to its subject matter and point of view.
Two films I often like to compare (I even did a presentation in a Woman and Film class in college on the two) are I Spit On Your Grave and Irreversible. Both films feature just about the most brutal depictions of female degradation and rape you could ever hope (or hope not) to find on film. Both are also, essentially, rape-revenge films. One of these is a vile, artless, trashy, morally confused exploitation movie. The other is a thoughtful, challenging work that unfolds in reverse chronology (a la Memento), allowing the revenge to precede the rape, and the rape to precede sweet moments between the victim and her lover before their innocence is forever taken by the acts of rape and revenge that are perpetrated later in the day. In this manner, as Roger Ebert has pointed out, the revenge is not a "payoff" we eagerly anticipate. It opens the film as a stand-alone act of horrific violence. The rape victim, we learn (after we see the rape), makes some unwise choices that make her vulnerable prey. But we only learn the motivations/reasons behind the horrors we're witnessing AFTER the fact, prohibiting us from cheering on the avenger, or from rationalizing the victim's rape with "Well, she was asking for it" or "It's own her foolishness that allowed this to happen to her." This film, of course, is Irreversible, and its violence and abuse is unflinching. Does this, or any other film, *not* have a right to present such imagery? No. It's somewhat arbitrary, of course. I Spit On Your Grave has plenty of scholarly defenders, and likewise, Irreversible has countless detractors. But the film has something important to say, and consequently, I don't think that something could have been said without the explicit brutality it displays. If it were structured in linear chronology, it would probably have been merely a repulsive grindhouse-type movie, but it's not, and its point is powerfully made.
In film and any other art, anything goes, so long as it falls within legal bounds.
reply
share
preppy-3
15 years ago
I have all the EC comic reprints. I love them:) Yes they're gory and all but they're comic books--that keeps them away at a safe distance for me. In "The Cook..." the thief deserved what he got but it was next to impossible to watch.
I saw both "Irreversible" and "I Spit..." (believe it or not). "Irreversible" was just brutal. I saw it in a theatre and there was almost a total audience walkout during the rape. I admit I was crying my eyes out and seriously considered leaving but I braced myself. You're right--in that case the film had to be graphic to make its point. What horrified me even more is that the wrong man was killed for it! I'm of two minds with "I Spit..." It IS a revolting exploitation film which seems to take a kind of sick pleasure from seeing a woman raped and beaten repeatedly. However she becomes a strong woman because of it and gives her attackers just what they deserve. Don't get me wrong--I'm not saying that rape is a GOOD thing--it's a disgusting act of violence. I think the makers of "I Spit" THOUGHT they were n making a revenge film...but they go too fat by having that poor woman raped again and again and again. "Last House on the Left" is somewhat like that. Two teenage girls are raped and tortured to death and killed in turn by two of the girls parents. People defend that film too but I think it's pretty sick and pointless.
OK--I concede that you're partially right. Graphic violence is SOMETIMES needed to make a point. In "The Cook..." it went too far for me.
reply
share