Transgressions of Cinema
Blog by James Oliver on February 3rd, 2010
It’s a repeated refrain of this column that the past decade has been a golden age for movie lovers. It’s never been easier to get hold of films – and not just recognised masterpieces: films which once seemed to exist only as entries in Halliwell’s film guide are now readily available on DVD, looking as good as they did on first release.
Do junior cineastes realise how lucky they are not to have to scour the TV schedules for obscurities or freeze their bits off on provincial station platforms after a rare screening (talk about suffering for your art)?
If you want another tangible reminder of how much has changed over the past ten years, check out MovieMail’s typically fine sale of controversial films from the last issue (prices valid till 25th Feb!). Back when it was all fields around here, many of these titles were either denied video certificates or banned outright.
There were ways around this, of course: I sometimes wonder if an enterprising DVD producer has thought of including a tenth generation VHS dupe for a special edition of A Clockwork Orange, so the nostalgically inclined amongst us can recall the first time we watched it.
But here’s the thing. Having welcomed the easing of the censorship restrictions (and yes, I know A Clockwork Orange wasn’t technically ‘censored’ but thanks for your concern), I now wonder if I’m turning into Mary Whitehouse.
The early years of this century have been characterised by extreme cinema, a reaction (no doubt) to the dark times in which we live. The big trend in horror has been the ‘torture porn’ sub-genre (Hostel, Saw, Martyrs); it’s a trend that’s entered the art houses: the American remake of Funny Games is no more comfortable than the Euro original while Antichrist, Lars Von Trier’s wave of mutilation, sent the normally unflappable Cannes audience into a proper tizzy.
Extreme cinema has been with us for a long time of course – at least since 1929, when Bunuel and Dali slashed an eye in Un chien andalou. They, of course, were out to rattle the cages of the middle classes – épater le bourgeois, as the poets had it.
It’s hard not to think that many ‘extreme’ filmmakers are still trying to do the same thing, with ever decreasing results, to a modern bourgeois far more tolerant and less easily outraged than their predecessors. Are they really worthy of any artist’s contemptuous provocation?
No, censorship is not the answer. It never is. There are many fine and worthwhile films that push the boundaries. Man Bites Dog is a powerful study of the relationship between media and violence (and much funnier than Michael Haneke’s meditations on the same theme); The Texas Chainsaw Massacre has a wit and intelligence that belies the sensational title. Best of all is Salo, Pasolini’s nihilistic shriek of disgust: an alarming but necessary exploration of our darkest impulses.
But hanging over this new wave of extreme cinema is an uncomfortable feeling that modern filmmakers are engaged in a sort of arms race. As it’s become harder to shock audiences, so the provocateurs have had to become more provocative to gain a reaction. Now that Antichrist has raised the bar, no doubt someone will try and top it. But how? What fresh atrocities can we look forward to?
I think I’m getting older.
