A2 Film Studies FS4

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A2 Film StudiesFS4

• SHOCKING CINEMA

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Shocking History

• For this unit, we will be looking at how the
• medium of film has produced some shocking
  by-products for us throughout cinema history.
• However, in order to fully understand what
  audience shock is, we shall start by looking at
  how other media have also achieved this.

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Before the advent of cinema, we sought
entertainment by other means, most notably,
theatre.As is the case with film, theatre plays
oftenproduced shocking entertainment.The most
notorious of these were by La Théâtre du Grand
Guignol in Paris, France.

• Stage productions would often include horrific
  narratives violence played out using gory
  visual effects, which often appalled the
  audience.
• Can you think of a play that you saw, which
  shocked you?

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• Comics in the 1950s have always been a concern
  with regards to their content.
• EC Comics produced such titles as Crime
  SuspenStories and Tales From The Crypt (that
  became a film tv series) which often included
  murders, bloodshed and strong violence.
• This was one reason why EC Comics became popular
  amongst younger readers, but their parents
  werent pleased with the content!

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Shocking Music

• Music has produced many shock movements
  throughout history from Rock Roll music, to
  Punk, to Gangsta Rap, and beyond.

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Another medium known for producing shocking
texts, is the video computer game. Games such as
Manhunt and the Grand Theft Auto series have
been met with shock in certain circles.
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Shocking Society

• War
• Terrorism
• Murder
• Riots
• Happy Slapping
• Teenage Gun Knife Crime
• Fritzl Austria
• German Cannibal
• Madeline McCann
• Soham Murders
• Serial Killers
• Columbine/Dunblane/
• Hungerford Massacres

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Shocking Radio

• War of the Worlds
• Shock Jocks
• Howard Stern
• Chris Moyles

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Shocking Television

• BBC Ghost Watch
• 9/11
• Jerry Springer
• Live Autopsy
• Live Animal Slaughter
• Big Brother

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Shocking Adverts
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YouTube Clips

• http//www.youtube.com/watch?vAtyJbIOZjS8
• http//www.youtube.com/watch?vPe-XNav5mWUfeature
  related
• http//www.youtube.com/watch?vwpBPi4CjDMQfeature
  related
• http//www.youtube.com/watch?vDnIN5XByxO8

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Shocking Films

• Film, more than any other medium has made more
  impact on what shocks people.
• One of the first films to shock audiences was
  the Lumière Brothers Train Pulling into a
  Station (1895).
• Cinema was such a new medium, that audiences
  were convinced that the train being projected
  onto the screen, was heading right for them, and
  ran for the exits in sheer panic!

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• Other films included The Great Train Robbery
  (1903) which ended with a bandit firing his
  pistol at the audience (something recreated at
  the end of Martin Scorseses Goodfellas
  (1990), and Le Cabinet de Méphistophélès
  (1897), where we see the devils head detach from
  his body and fly around a laboratory.
• Also, footage of an elephant being electrocuted
  and mould growing on a piece of cheese was seen
  as shocking viewing for early film audiences.

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Shocking Video

• QUESTION
• How do you think this basic piece of technology
  caused shock and panic?

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Video Nasties Part I

• The home video recorder was first introduced to
  the British market in the late 1970s, and the
  so-called Video Nasties arrived shortly
  afterwards at the start of the 1980s.
• One of the driving issues behind the impending
  nasty hysteria was simple control. There were
  no laws to say that video films had to be
  certificated.

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Even the video sleeve designs were shocking.
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Video Nasties Part II

• The Copycat Theory
• The James Bulger Case

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Copycat Killing Quotes

• I am holding Oliver Stone personally
  responsible for my injuries, as it is his film,
  and he has misused his powers of influence in
  creating such a horrific and irresponsible film.
• (Hamsher, 1997 229)

His moral values were obliterated by seeing
women degraded in video films. What he saw made
him believe that women were prepared to behave
in a fashion that bore in relation to realityhe
lived out his fantasies.
(KopyKat Killers, Darkside Magazine 26)
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What do YOU find shocking?
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Which image is more shocking?
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Which image is more shocking?
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Which image is more shocking?
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Which image is more shocking?
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Our Study of Shock Cinema

• Pope Paul VI once issued a statement expressing
  his deepening concern about the demonic
  influences at work in the modern world. This was
  made in response to the release of one of the
  films we will study in Shock Cinema.
• He proclaimed
• Evil is not merely a lack of something, but an
  effective agent, a
• living spiritual being, perverted and
  perverting. A terrible reality.
• So we know that this dark and disturbing spirit
  really exists and
• that he still acts with treacherous cunning. He
  is the enemy that
• sows errors and misfortunes in human history.
  The question of the
• Devil, and the influence he can exert on
  individual persons as well
• as communities is a very important chapter of
  Catholic doctrine
• which is given little attention today, though it
  should be studied
• again.
• (Bartholomew, 19749)

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• Which film do you think this was in response to?

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The Exorcist