The Business End: Violence in Cinema (2008 Video) User Reviews

Interesting documentary

[Woodyanders · 8/10 · 15 August 2010]

This snappy and compelling, if slightly cursory, 30 minute documentary explores the always controversial topic of the varying levels violence in cinema throughout the decades. Among the folks interviewed are writers Shane Black, John Milius, and Steven E. de Souza, Clint Eastwood, film critic Jay Cocks, directors Peter Hyams, John Lee Hancock, Paul Haggis, and John Badham, actors Hal Holbrook, Reni Santoni, Michael Madison, and Andrew Robinson, scholars John Calley, Neal King, and Emmanuel Levy, and actress Tyne Daly. Naturally, we also get loads of clips from all the "Dirty Harry" pictures, "Little Caesar," "Angels With Dirty Faces," "White Heat," "Gun Crazy," "Gun Crazy," "The Matrix," and "Million Dollar Baby." Among the subjects discussed are how violence addresses our baser impulses, the banning of EC Comic books in the 50's, how violence has been around since the silent era, that life imitates violence (i.e., people copying violence in movies), that realistic depictions of violence vary from decade to decade, how "Bonnie and Clyde" and "The Wild Bunch" pushed the envelope concerning more graphic presentations of violence, film violence as catharsis (Milius dismisses this concept as "bulls**t"!), filmmakers have a responsibility to be truthful to themselves and their material, how "Dirty Harry" was fiercely criticized in its day for allegedly glorifying violence, government censorship doesn't work, and overly stylized depictions of violence as "cool" and "beautiful" cheapen human life. While all the stuff covered within is certainly compelling and provocative in equal measure, alas the too short half hour running time prevents director Gary Leva from exploring said subject matter in greater and more probing depth. That minor criticism aside, this is still overall an admirable attempt at addressing a touchy subject in cinema.

Violence in Cinema

[Michael_Elliott · 14 June 2015]

The Business End: Violence in Cinema (2008)

**** (out of 4)

If you're making your way through the Dirty Harry Collection then you'll run into this documentary once you hit THE ENFORCER. This 30 minute documentary takes a look at violence in cinema and rather or not it's to blame for people committing crimes. Clint Eastwood, John Milus and Andrew Robinson are the ones connected to DIRTY HARRY who speak here but we get other interviews from filmmakers and authors who have written about violence in movies. As you'd expect, we start off talking about the changes that happened in the late 60's with stuff like BONNIE AND CLYDE and THE WILD BUNCH. From here we hear a wide range of opinions dealing with crimes committed after watching movies and rather or not filmmakers have a responsibility to not show certain things. If you're a fan of movies and especially movies with violence then you're really going to enjoy this because it really does do a nice job at looking at the subject and being fair to both sides. At only 30 minutes it obviously can't go into great details on the subject but it's certainly an interesting piece. I recently went through all five movies and it's kind of amazing at how violent they really are and especially if you compare them to the horror movies released at the same time and that were being ripped to shreds by the MPAA and being forced to be cut in order to avoid a X rating.