| Title | The golden age of horror: Martyrs (2008) |
| Author | Chris Hornbostel and Bill Cunningham |
| Posted in | Features |
| When | October 18, 2014 |
Chris: You're standing in line to ride an infamously crazy rollercoaster, apprehension building with each little bit you shuffle forward..
Read the full articleInteresting discussion. I pretty much draw the line at French New Extremity films. I saw Irreversible and decided that there wasn't a sufficient payoff to warrant sitting through these things. I think at one point earlier in life I might have been more receptive to it (maybe) but that time is not now. I mentally file these films with terrorist beheading videos.
I can understand being sensitive to graphic violence in films, but comparing Martyrs to a real life beheading video? The aforementioned Passion of the Christ contains even more graphic violence than Martyrs. Heck, Schindler's List has a few scenes that can make you wince. Would you make the same claim against them?
I'm not sure I'd go that far. I'd say that I admired the art of Martyrs, even if I don't think I want to watch it again for a while. For one thing: it's a movie, and a beheading video is not. I think being able to make that distinction is rather important, no?
Not to speak for Bruce, but he did not say that he was particularly sensitive to violence. He said that the payoff was not enough.
The way I would put it is that the violence is meaningless. It is violence for the sake of violence, or for sensation that one gets from violence, and nothing more. It claims to be about transcendence, but obviously there is no transcendence to be found. Ditto for terrorist beheading videos, ditto for Passion of the Christ, and, perhaps to a somewhat lesser extent, ditto for Schindler's List. To the extent that any of these things actually do touch on deeper things, they fight against their meaning by soaking it in extreme sensation. Martyrs is about finding meaning, or transcendence, through extreme sensation. It doesn't work. The martyrs (the real ones) did not achieve meaning through sensation. They found meaning that transcends sensation first, and were then willing, often happily, to suffer extreme sensations and death in order to keep it.
A foolish person chases more and more extreme sensations, no matter how meaningless they are. Less foolish people are willing to endure extreme sensations if they have to, but only for the sake of something meaningful.
One might add that most of us start out foolish, but hopefully we learn something from our experiences and do not stay that way forever.
My criticism of the New French Extremity genre is that it create the movies for the sake of the violence. In that sense it's very much like a beheading video. Schindler's List, while it does have some uncomfortable scenes, does not insert them gratuitously, and in fact given the subject matter could have been much, much more violent. It's not just the violence, it's the degradation. I felt sorry for the actors in Irreversible, in fact. There is not even redemption in despair.
Don't get me started on The Passion of the Christ. Talk about a movie created for the sake of the violence.
The reason for violence in a beheading video is to terrorize the enemy. Martyrs is a movie. It's not a tool of war. Context, context, context.
It looks like I was writing my response at the same time you were. I absolutely agree with you.
I didn't particularly enjoy Passion of the Christ, but it certainly wasn't violence for the sake of violence.
My horror fiction and horror movie picking are going to get slimmer if we're taking violence for the sake of violence off the board. Take that, Cthulhu.
Comparing it to a beheading video is really an illogical, bad argument. I couldn't agree with you more.
While watching The Walking Dead last night, I was reminded what a weird time it is. That show has far more explicit violence..and it's on tv. I guess it just comes down to a person's personal formula for justifying the use of extreme imagery to support the telling of a story. If the story is good enough (which I feel is the case with Martyrs), I think it's acceptable. It's also a Catch 22 in that those discussing it in a dismissive tone haven't actually seen it by their own admission. And their personal prejudice against the film based on its inclusion in a school of film known for extreme violence probably means they never will.
This is the facile way of trying to refute analogies. Analogies always fail the strictest logical test, because they're analogies and not equivalencies. The point of an analogy is not to say that something is something else, because it of course is not. A book is not an egg, because it is not an item of food. But it can help elucidate similarities. And I would argue that the reason for violence in beheading videos is not necessarily to terrorize, but to impress and attract like-minded individuals. Which is very much what the directors of French New Extremity are doing.
I don't enjoy violence or degradation for the sake of violence or degradation. Our world does, however, contain a lot of violence and degradation, and because art is about communicating or enlightening experience, it would be dishonest to the human experience to omit it. But the more extreme the violence, the more I expect it to be necessary for the philosophical payoff, or experiential benefit, or what have you. In the (admittedly few, because I have stopped) films of this genre I have seen, there is no payoff - the situations are constructed specifically to present the violence as is, for its own sake. It is a way of wallowing in it. That is my personal opinion.
People watch horror movies to get scared, not as a research tool. And certainly not as something we admire in the way you're trying to make it sound. Perhaps some do...but those people are usually known as sociopaths.
Look, I know you believe you're having an intellectual discussion on the state of violence in film, but all your doing is trying to dictate the terms of what's right and what's wrong in the commission of art or entertainment. It's the furthest thing from intellectual discourse possible. It sounds more like a call for censorship. Which is especially disturbing when you keep admitting you haven't actually watched the subject we're discussing. But even if you did watch the film, and still felt the way you did, you're still just expressing an opinion based on your personal prejudices and trying to pass it off as having more weight.
And finally, I truly hope you weren't aware of the insinuation you're making, but you do make it sound like those who enjoyed this film also find enjoyment in watching terrorist beheading films. That's probably why my reply is a bit testy. I think most people are able to see a difference between The Evil Dead trilogy and war crimes.
I thought I made it pretty clear that this was all my personal opinion, and that I personally draw the line at violence of the level in French New Extremity, and that everything I'm saying is my personal opinion, which is why it is expressed as an Internet comment and not a federal statute. I did not mean for it to appear as a call for censorship, or to dictate anything to anybody. I specifically labeled it as personal opinion. How am I trying to "pass it off as having more weight" than anything? I honestly don't understand what you mean by that phrase.
I didn't mean to imply that people who watch these movies are watching terrorist beheading videos. And I don't think anyone is confusing Evil Dead 2 (my favorite one of those) with jihadists. But I never mentioned Bruce Campbell films - I specifically said my issue was with French New Extremity, hence my post in the Martyrs comments. I don't know why you are drawing all horror into it.
Anyway, enough of this. It was just meant as a discussion of film, not a personal criticism of anyone.
Your attempt to try and associate support of this film with those who enjoy real scenes of murder went a little too far. But we'll agree to disagree and move on, I guess.
It did come across as such on more than one occasion. If that was unintentional on your part, then no harm done. We'll agree to disagree and move on. ;)
Fair enough. Sorry for the bother.
