Violence In The Big Screen Film Analysis

In the first years of the cinema history, the idea of watching explicit violence in the big screen was unthinkable. The explicitness of violence in cinema has been in crescendo during the whole history; starting from a representative, interpreted and dramatized violence, until becoming an explicit, raw and realistic violence (Ruiz, 2010). When cinema started, people had to get used to watching moving images, as they were not used to that kind of spectacle. The same thing happened with violence, when it started to appear, the audience had to get used to watch this kind of representation. But at first, this representation was not very vividly, and if directors wanted to make it 'explicit ', those images were censored and the movies prohibited in certain countries. The film that is believed to be the first one showing some kind of violence (Ruiz Álvarez, 2000) to a big audience was a western: Attack on a Chinese Mission Station (1900), directed by James Williamson. This movie is set on the current event of those times, the boxer rebellion of China between 1898 and 1901. The main plot is the representation of a group of Christian missionaries under the ambush of the boxers. It is normal for the early years of cinema to represent what was happening, because cinema limited itself to that. But it was

It is undeniable the extreme violence of the film (which is the main topic of it). Also, something that caused a big uproar was that the audience were able to see a graphic rape. Its deeply disturbing images and message made it a célèbre cause around the world. Kubrick eventually withdraw the film from distribution in the United Kingdom due to copycat crimes. In spite of its violent nature, the film was very successful, and most of the people said that it was a clear representation of what the modern world really was at that time (Duncan,