On Violence in Movies

Last year, as his "Inglourious Basterds" was setting itself up for at least one Oscar win for the following March, Quentin Tarantino was asked to discuss his favorite twenty films since 1992 (the year in which his first film, "Reservoir Dogs," was released). The films varied from Korean drama/thrillers like Park Chan-wook's "Joint Security Area" to Paul Thomas Anderson's brilliant "Boogie Nights" to Trey Parker and Matt Stone's masterpiece "Team America: World Police." His favorite film was the 2000 Japanese film "Battle Royale," directed by Kinji Fukasaku. It was a movie Tarantino wished he had made.

The movie, based on a novel by Koshun Takami, takes place in a future Japan in which violence and rebellious youths have provoked the government to make laws requiring students to be gathered up and sent to an island in which they will participate in a competition to eliminate one another until there is only one left. The last survivor wins the game; the losers are dead. Both the book and the movie have generated a fair share of criticism for their violent content.

Fukasaku's film is epic and operatic, horrifying and yet beautiful, as these Japanese students struggle for survival to. What I appreciated the most in this film was the symbolism. Having difficulty attempting to figure out the allegories behind the film, I discovered one through a review (though I have not been able to find it again to give it proper citation) from a viewer who teaches in Japan. He discussed the unfortunate reality that Japanese youths face enormous pressure to succeed, especially in their education, and this is what sometimes inspires cheating at worst and uncreative teaching at best. Having spent close to a year teaching in South Korea, in which I have become acutely aware of this Asian youth competition and the strict and at times unethical expectations of students, I deeply appreciated Fukasaku's film and its allegory. I will concede though that Korean and Japanese students are different in some aspects. Scott Aubrey's essay on the two groups discusses the differences: Korean students tend to speak English in class regardless of grammar mistakes in an effort to communicate their ideas, while Japanese students tend to avoid speaking English unless they are perfectly confident they will deliver a perfect sentence. Aubrey also describes the level of patriotism between the two, as Koreans are incredibly proud of their enormous accomplishments in the face of so much tragedy, whereas Japan, after centuries of being the "aggressor," has now embraced pacifism and its students lack the nationalism of their Korean counterparts. This is a bit of digression, isn't it? Regardless, the metaphor found by this viewer was profound to me and elevated my experience of the film.

I couldn't help but notice, though, that Tarantino probably did not have the same reaction. For a man who has crafted his films with dialogue as witty and quick as Ben Hecht's, with a style and tone as entertaining as Sergio Leone's, and influences such as blaxploitation and Martin Scorsese, Tarantino has never seemed interested with societal themes. His other films on his list included ultra-violet movies like Japan's "Audition" and Korea's "Oldboy," and so it can be concluded that what attracted Tarantino to "Battle Royale" was its story, characters, and especially its violence.

Many find Tarantino to be obsessed with violence. His "Kill Bill," influenced by Japanese cinema, was criticized for being too violent. "Kill Bill" is a bit difficult to defend (I didn't care for it anyway, so defend I shall not), but his finer films like "Reservoir Dogs," "Pulp Fiction," and "Jackie Brown" have notably not shied away from violent characters or situations, but have been Greek-like in their portrayal of violence. The infamous ear scene in "Reservoir Dogs," for example, was not seen, as Tarantino's camera shifted to the left, away from the imagery. Not too dissimilar from "Oedipus," no?

The violence of "Battle Royale," though, is one aspect of the film I found difficult to forgive. Martin Scorsese defended violence in his films in an interview with NPR in 2002 for his movie "Gangs of New York." Scorsese claimed that violence is justified in films if it is honest. The violence of "Battle Royale" is, similar to countless Japanese films, hyperbolic. What is unusual, however, is that the violence is directed towards children. Gene Siskel said in his review of "Aliens" that one of the cheapest effects employed in films is to show a child in peril. Siskel would be absolutely disgusted by this film, because the violence is practically exclusive to teenagers, and unlike many Hollywood films in which older, adult actors play teenagers, these are genuine fifteen-year-olds playing these characters. Violence against children, in movies or not, has never been attractive to me, and these teenage characters are frightened, confused, and the vast, vast majority of them are killed in a terrible way. The first two executions in particular are such awful images and if they deserve some defense, it cannot be found from this reviewer. Tarantino will forever be more of an authority figure on motion pictures, and so it would be interesting to hear his thoughts on this.

Until then, it strikes the question of whether or not violence is always necessary in films, or if the world's filmmakers, like Tarantino, are obsessed with images of violence. If Scorsese is right that violence is necessary in movies if it is honest, then both American and Japanese filmmakers do not always fall in line with that, especially the makers of "Battle Royale."