Death in Cinema

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[death] in cinema

description

this is the progression of the desensitization of societytowards death and violence, showing the reduction of cinema cencorship through history,1920 onward.

Transcript of Death in Cinema

Page 1: Death in Cinema

[ d e at h ] i n c i n e m a

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this is the progression of the desensitization of societytowards death and violence, showing the reduction of cinema cencorship

through history,1920 onward.e n j oy .

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In the scene, the rat-like vampire Count Orlok (Max Schreck) approached the bedroom of possessed, awaiting female victim Ellen Hutter (Greta Schröder) who had read in his book that

Deliverance is possible by no other means but that an innocent maiden maketh the vampire heed not the first crowing of the cock - this done by the sacrifice of her own bloode.

The vampire’s shadowy approach came up the stairs and his elongated hand reached out to her bedroom door and toward his stalking subject. She clutched at her left breast in fear and collapsed back onto her bed, as the shadow of Orlok’s hand covered her heart when he entered the room. He then began to suck blood from her neck.

He was tricked by her into overstaying his welcome when a rooster crowed, signaling dawn and the beginning of daylight. He was exposed to the sun and died in front of her window, grasping his chest, and disappearing in a small wisp of smoke.

Nosferatu _1922, Ger ( Eine Symphonie Des Grauens)

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S n o w W h i t e A n d T h e S e v e n D wa r fs _ 1 9 3 7

Snow White ‘died’ after eating the poisoned apple, in the animated classic fairy-tale. She fell to the floor, the image of her hand extended as the bitten apple rolled on the floor.

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This was one of the most traumatic death scenes (off-screen) ever filmed.

Bambi’s mother sensed a human presence -- and warned her young doe: “Bambi. Quick! The thicket!” There were gunshots as they both raced away. She encouraged: “Faster! Faster, Bambi! Don’t look back. Keep running! Keep running!” Bambi ran and ducked behind a snowbank - and made it to the protective thicket, but there was a fateful gunshot.

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In a tense, 7-minute firing squad scene, drums monotonously sounded in the background as three prisoners were marched between lines of soldiers to an open area near the chateau, where three stakes were set up. The upright execution stakes grew larger and larger as the men and the camera approached. The three were scapegoated, blameless French soldiers: Corporal Paris (Ralph Meeker), Arnaud (Joe Turkel), and Private Ferol (Timothy Carey).

(Arnaud was carried unconscious and tied on a stretcher.) Inconsol-able, Ferol whined, sobbed, moaned, clutched his rosary, and hung on to the priest, asking: “What do I have to die for, Father?...I’m scared, I’m scared.”

The men were tied to the stakes, and Lieutenant Roget (Wayne Mor-ris) offered them blindfolds. Caskets waited in an open cart to the side. The words of the indictment and official execution were nervously read by Major Saint-Auban (Richard Anderson). Generals George Broulard (Adolphe Menjou) and Mireau (George Macready) stood nearby, as did other dignitaries to witness the final judgment.

The firing squad raised its weapons (the ominous drum roll stops), readied, aimed (with the commands: “Ready, Aim”) - birds twittered - and then fired at the command to “Fire” - filmed subjectively from behind the firing squad. In the grim scene, the victims momentarily twitched and then collapsed dead.

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m o r eg o r e

a c h a n g e i n c e n c o rs h i p . . .

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In Hitchcock’s horror film about unexplained lethal attacks from birds, Mitch’s (Rod Taylor) mother Lydia Brenner (Jessica Tandy) drove off in a Ford pickup truck toward neighbor Dan Fawcett’s farm, to discuss their problems with chickens. She drove up to the farm where hired farm hand George (Bill Quinn) welcomed her in the yard and encour-aged her to find Dan Fawcett inside. After Lydia entered alone into the unlocked kitchen door where there was no answer, she called out: “Dan, are you home?” Again, a row of neatly-broken teacups dangling from hooks under the kitchen cabinet caught her shocked attention.

As she walked down the empty, deathly silent, narrow and tunneling corridor to a bedroom, she discovered a dead seagull impaled in a bro-ken window and an upturned, bric-a-brac plastic bird sculpture. From another angle, there were more signs of chaotic damage in the room - bird feathers, two more dead birds, and a disordered bed. On the floor were two bloodied, bare feet sticking out from a pair of shredded pa-jama pants. In three jump shots that zoomed forward to his face, Lydia witnessed Dan Fawcett’s lifeless body propped in the corner of the room. Both of his bloody, darkened eye sockets were empty - plucked out during the bird attack.

Her reaction to the mutilation of his eyes - coupled with the film’s theme of seeing - was beautifully realized. She turned and fled down the hallway with her hands in the air and her mouth gaping open. Wide-eyed and gasping for air, she was unable to verbalize the unspeakable horror to the bewildered farm hand. Her truck backfired - ‘screaming’ in its own way - and its path churned up dust as she roared back at top speed to the Brenner home.

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In the opening of Hitchcock's thriller, his only R-rated film, ex-Mrs. Brenda Margaret Blaney (Barbara Leigh-Hunt) was confronted by charming ladies man Mr. Bob Rusk (Barry Foster): "You're the one I wanted to see....I like you. You're my type of woman." She suffered a long and intense necktie rape-strangulation death scene (a montage composed of a flurry of brief shots). When she begged for her life, he tore off her dress and bra (exposing one breast), screamed at her: "Love me!...Women - they're all the same", and then revealed that he was the notorious Necktie Killer. After a lengthy struggle, she was left dead with her twisted tongue hanging out.

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The most violent scene in the film was the spectac-ular ambush and machine gun assassination at the tollbooths located at Point Lookout on the Jones Beach Causeway.

After the toll-taker in the causeway ducked below the toll-booth window, Sonny Corleone (James Caan) was ambushed and massacred by gangsters with machine guns hiding in the toll-booth, deliv-ering a merciless fusillade of bullets. He tried to escape from his car by crawling out the passenger side door, but was caught in the middle of more in-tense gunfire. His body was propelled back against the car before he dropped to the pavement. Son-ny’s assassins unnecessarily kicked his corpse after he’d been shot and killed.

It was a grisly, bullet-riddled death (with 147 explo-sive squibs).Weak-willed Carlo Rizzi (Gianni Rus-so), sister Connie’s abusive husband, had betrayed Sonny and set him up for a “hit” by rival Mafia chief Emilio Barzini (Richard Conte).

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In this exploitative, low-budget X-rated notorious gang rape/vigilante splatter-horror film, trauma-tized victim Jennifer Hills (Camille Keaton) took vengeance against four local attackers, who had subjected her to a brutal, lengthy, humiliating beat-ing and multiple rapes.

The most dramatic of her four counter-attacks against the rapists was reserved for gas station manager and family man Johnny (Eron Tabor).

She enticingly invited him back to her rented sum-mer house, promising: “Come on, I’ll give you a hot bath.” Naked in the warm bathtub with him, she manually stimulated him as he closed his eyes and relaxed (“You’ve got great hands - God bless your hands. Oh yeah, that’s fantastic”).

She conducted a lethal bloodletting castration - a literal bloodbath with a conveniently-placed carving knife (his first reaction: “That’s so sweet, it’s painful”), causing him to bleed to death in the locked bathroom (“What have you done to me? Oh, God! Oh, s--t!...I can’t stop the bleeding...It won’t stop bleeding!”).

In the living room, she calmly sat in a rocker and listened to a Puccini opera on the phonograph as he screamed in the background and died. She burned his clothes in the fireplace, cleaned up the blood-splattered bathroom, and dumped his body on the basement stairs.

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A nightmarish, end-of-the world cataclysmic dream of death (occurring in late August 1997 in the future) was envisaged by Sarah Connor (Linda Hamilton).

She experienced the fiery effects of a nuclear holocaust on a children's playground and herself. White light ignited everything like match heads as she saw her dream self burst into flames and her skin burned away.

Los Angeles landmarks were pulverized as the shockwave of the blast hit the downtown area. The howling wind blasted apart the once-human figures of bone and ash.

Sarah's own figure exploded down to skeletal remains.

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The scenes were visceral, horrific to watch, and brutal, although artfully portrayed with gorgeous cinematography and slow-motion in part. When Jesus' spirit perished, a single magnified drop of rain fell from the sky, causing an earthquake that destroyed the Temple.

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