| Author | Message | ||
     Frank (Frank) Username: Frank Registered: 09-2008 Posted From: 85.222.86.21 |
http://uk.movies.yahoo.com/blog/article/198682/gruesome-film-banned-from-the-uk. html | ||
| John Llewellyn Probert (John_l_probert) Username: John_l_probert Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 86.153.11.198 |
We're already shedding tears at Probert Towers  | ||
| Frank (Frank) Username: Frank Registered: 09-2008 Posted From: 85.222.86.21 |
Nah, just go abroad, John. A day trip with your lovely to Paris, swing by a specialist cinema. Though knowing the French you won't have to hunt it down, it's probably being shown in kindergarten just before break time...as Woody Allen says, "Thank God for the French (: That's not me being xenophobic, it's a compliment to the French for not having a bug up their ass, no pun intended, about censorship. Perhaps they do, and I just have no clue about it...but you get the picture. | ||
| Zed (Gary_mc) Username: Gary_mc Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 81.96.253.77 |
Personally, I'm glad it's been banned. At least now I won't have to sit through the pile of shit (because no matter how bad a horror film is, I'll still watch it). | ||
| Mick Curtis (Mick) Username: Mick Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 86.181.83.109 |
You'll get hold of it somehow, Gary. Or I will, and send you a copy. You'll not get off that lightly! | ||
| Frank (Frank) Username: Frank Registered: 09-2008 Posted From: 85.222.86.21 |
I never watched the first movie, and have no intention of ever watching it. Ditto for the second. I watch bad horror movies, but not intentionally, or at least that's what I tell myself. | ||
| Frank (Frank) Username: Frank Registered: 09-2008 Posted From: 85.222.86.21 |
Friday night the breadth and width of Britain, the Human Centipede can be found in a many a town centre two o'clock in the morning (: | ||
| Zed (Gary_mc) Username: Gary_mc Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 81.96.253.77 |
Damn you, Curtis!!!!  | ||
| Mbfg (Mbfg) Username: Mbfg Registered: 09-2010 Posted From: 82.6.90.22 |
I won't be hunting it down because, well, the first one left me cold and unmoved so I don't want to feel even colder and stiller. I mean how much longer can you watch a bunch of people shuffle around on their hands and knees, nose to backside etc? Yeah, it was a clever and original concept, but... Am I missing something here? Cheers Tel | ||
| Zed (Gary_mc) Username: Gary_mc Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 81.96.253.77 |
Nope, you're not missing anything. The first one was incredibly dull - not at all shocking. Just boring. | ||
| Allybird (Allybird) Username: Allybird Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 49.227.191.216 |
Saw some of the first one on the telly. Didn't interest me at all and I found it repulsive. | ||
| Joel (Joel) Username: Joel Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 2.24.28.85 |
Sounds like it would have been great if the centipede formation had been purely voluntary, with no coercion and no surgery involved. Horror isn't always more fun than plain depravity. | ||
| Mark West (Mark_west) Username: Mark_west Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 81.147.115.216 |
From the write-up on the Empire site and the Guardian, it doesn't seem as if it has much to offer - and I didn't even see the first one. Having said that, banning something just makes it all the more attractive. | ||
| Weber (Weber_gregston) Username: Weber_gregston Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 86.144.33.42 |
Didn't Hitchcock's Psycho hit barriers with the BBFC where half the panel said they'd seen nudity etc and the other half said no. he put it back through the system, uncut, telling the censors he'd made the changes, and the panel pretty much reversed their views. Those who said they'd seen the objectionable content being satisied, and the others suddenly thinking it was there? Or is that an urban myth fueled by my alcohol intake? | ||
| Frank (Frank) Username: Frank Registered: 09-2008 Posted From: 85.222.86.21 |
Weber - I think I heard a similar story about another director, just can't think who. Hitchcock is surrounded by a whole welter of myths, which just goes to make him all that more interesting. I wish somebody would make a 3 hr biography about him. | ||
| Mark West (Mark_west) Username: Mark_west Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 217.39.177.173 |
Apparently the Hitchcock story is true (Rebello recounts it in his making-of and Evan Hunter also makes reference to it). Apparently, he put it to the MPAA (or their equivalent of the day) and some said they'd seen a nipple, or the knife going in (and there is a still that appears to show this), some said they didn't. Hitch apparently took it away, touched nothing and re-showed it and, as Weber said, people's opinions changed. Frank - if you like Hitchcock, the Spoto biography is terrific, as is Stephen Rebello's Making Of Psycho. And, of course, the Three Investigator books! | ||
| Joel (Joel) Username: Joel Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 217.37.199.45 |
Did Hitchcock write the Three Investigators books? I thought he just commssioned them. I have a 'Hitchcock' book of short stories where, inside in small print, you can discover 'Stories written by Henry Slesar'. They're good. The escapologist story nearly gave me heart failure. | ||
| John Llewellyn Probert (John_l_probert) Username: John_l_probert Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 213.253.174.81 |
I don't think Hitchcock actually had much to do with the Three Investigators books at all, other than to lend his name to them. As far as I remember the best were written by Robert Arthur | ||
| John Llewellyn Probert (John_l_probert) Username: John_l_probert Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 213.253.174.81 |
Personally, I'm glad it's been banned. The first one was incredibly dull Zed - what's happened to you?  | ||
| Zed (Gary_mc) Username: Gary_mc Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 195.166.117.210 |
Well, it was - one of the most boring films I've ever seen. I watched it fully expecting to be shocked, or at the very least appalled, and it failed on every level. I just sat there scratching my bollocks and eating maltesers, wishing it would hurry up and end so I could watch something engaging. Pah! It was about as shocking as a bag of cold chips.  | ||
| Kate (Kathleen) Username: Kathleen Registered: 09-2009 Posted From: 86.153.11.198 |
Still... BANNED? Nothing should EVER be banned. | ||
| Zed (Gary_mc) Username: Gary_mc Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 195.166.117.210 |
Well, you can't say "nothing". What about child porn or snuff? Or do you mean nothing that's a fictional representation of events or circumstances? (In which case, I agree - my "glad it's banned" comment was meant as a joke.) Not being funny; just want to clarify your stance. | ||
| Stevie Walsh (Stephenw) Username: Stephenw Registered: 03-2009 Posted From: 194.32.31.1 |
I quite agree! Banning something, no matter how rubbish, because it does not fit in with established social mores is the lowest of the low, where critical opinion turns into fascism. | ||
| Zed (Gary_mc) Username: Gary_mc Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 195.166.117.210 |
So...child porn? Snuff? Weber's "jokes"? Clarify, please! | ||
| Stevie Walsh (Stephenw) Username: Stephenw Registered: 03-2009 Posted From: 194.32.31.1 |
Well a work has to be put before the censors before it is banned which kind of implies that it isn't criminal in nature, wouldn't you say? Weber's jokes would have to be taken to a higher court I'm afraid... god help them. | ||
| Zed (Gary_mc) Username: Gary_mc Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 195.166.117.210 |
Yes, I would say that...but this "nothing should ever be banned" statement seems to say something different. Which is why I wanted you to clarify your stance. I've had debates before with idiots who claim that even child porn shouldn't be banned, because it's "only illegal from a modern perspective". | ||
| John Llewellyn Probert (John_l_probert) Username: John_l_probert Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 213.253.174.81 |
Zed - I'm just very surprised you seem to have been so bored by it when I've watched it twice and didn't find it boring at all. I appreciate I'm in the minority here (at least on this board, I think) but I thought it was a splendidly nasty movie, a real throwback to Lionel Atwill mad scientist films of the 1930s, the ones with a gleefully sadistic edge to them, and it was beautifully filmed in a static clinical way that was spot on for the story. I'm still a big fan and yes I'll definitely by hunting out Part II. Should things be banned? Only things that never should have existed in the first place I think, but unfortunately that's always going to be subjective. I think the murder / child porn / snuff thing is a redundant argument because in a sane world no-one wants these things. I do think something like The Human Centipede II at least wears its heart on its sleeve and isn't pretending to be anything other than a particularly unpleasant horror picture (I'll need to see it to make any further judgement & I'll be the first to admit if it's awful) but personally I'd rather see things banned that are far more insidious, like certain types of newspaper reporting, certain television programmes and methods of advertising are far more realistic targets that need a good cleaning up. | ||
| Stevie Walsh (Stephenw) Username: Stephenw Registered: 03-2009 Posted From: 194.32.31.1 |
Anyone who tries to defend child porn, like the idiots you describe, Zed, should be brought to the attention of the police. I actually like the sound of this film and people are always telling me I'd love it. I don't know what that says about me but I'm just glad someone else sane, like JLP, was able to find something enjoyable in the work. | ||
| Zed (Gary_mc) Username: Gary_mc Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 195.166.117.210 |
personally I'd rather see things banned that are far more insidious, like certain types of newspaper reporting, certain television programmes and methods of advertising are far more realistic targets that need a good cleaning up I couldn't agree more, old chum. | ||
| Zed (Gary_mc) Username: Gary_mc Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 195.166.117.210 |
John - I'll give the film another go, but to me it was a one-joke short extended to the point of tedium. The sequel sounds much more interesting - it's about a man who becomes obsessed by and sexually aroused by a DVD of the original film, and sets out to create his own atrocities. | ||
| Mark West (Mark_west) Username: Mark_west Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 217.39.177.173 |
Just a quick detour - Hitchcock only lent his name to the Three Investigators (I just wanted to get a quick burst of nostalgia in here!). As John said, Robert Arthur wrote the better (early) ones and he also edited the Hitchcock anthos (like Stories My Mother Never Told Me). On the main subject, the problem with banning stuff is that, for some, it becomes much more attractive. Having read the Empire bits on the film, about the penis/barbed wire conjuction, I'd rather not watch but that doesn't mean anybody else should be deprived, if that kind of thing floats their boat. | ||
| John Llewellyn Probert (John_l_probert) Username: John_l_probert Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 213.253.174.81 |
Zed - You are only allowed to watch The Human Centipede with me sitting beside you wearing my Dr Heiter glasses  | ||
| Zed (Gary_mc) Username: Gary_mc Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 195.166.117.210 |
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| Kate (Kathleen) Username: Kathleen Registered: 09-2009 Posted From: 86.153.11.198 |
Sorry, Zed - only just saw your plea for clarification! Yes, my "nothing should be banned" statement was meant to refer to creative endeavours (here I was mostly thinking of the uncut Serbian Film) and not criminal acts. And I didn't honestly think you meant Human Centipede (1 or 2) should be banned. But, like JLP, I was also surprised you hated it so much. Guess I'm one up on you since I loved it.  | ||
| Zed (Gary_mc) Username: Gary_mc Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 81.96.253.77 |
No, I didn't hate it, Kate - I just found it dull. That was the only reaction the film elicited from me. The Human Meh-tipede. | ||
| Joel (Joel) Username: Joel Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 217.37.199.45 |
Two types of material that are candidates for banning are material the making of which entails a real criminal assault (such as porn films based on actual rape or child abuse) and material that directly incites hate crimes – the latter is elusive, of course, but it should be possible to identify extreme cases (rather than borderline cases, which are all around us) and decide they should not be available because they are counter to basic human rights. Freedom of expression is not the only freedom that matters: freedom to live without persecution matters at least as much. So-called 'torture porn' doesn't usually fall into either category, and doesn't seem to me to call for banning. | ||
| Kate (Kathleen) Username: Kathleen Registered: 09-2009 Posted From: 86.153.11.198 |
As usual, Joel, you've said it so much more eloquently than I could. Yeah. Wot he said. | ||
| Weber (Weber_gregston) Username: Weber_gregston Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 86.144.33.42 |
There's also a debate on child pornography. What exactly constitues porn? Is any picture of a nude child automatically something that should be banned? In that case National Geographic would lose a large proportion of it's archive. And what about photographers like Sally Mann, Robert mapplethorpe, Will McBride or Edward Weston? http://www.artnet.com/auctions/Pages/Lots/19163.aspx?lotId=19163&page=1 These pictures by Edward weston taken in 1925 are a case in point. They're certainly not pornographic but there are people who want them banned http://bl-lit-info.blogspot.com/2009/12/will-mcbride-child-porn-is-over-score.ht ml This site makes for some interesting reading. Interestingly, the writer of this states she has no problem with Sally Mann's nude photos of her children, but wants the Weston photos banned... | ||
| Zed (Gary_mc) Username: Gary_mc Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 81.96.253.77 |
Well, let's face it, any photo of a kid with his knob out is going to be used as pornography by some weirdo, isn't it? So I guess it's all potentially pornography, even if the intent behind the photo is the opposite of that. Even art can be used as wank material. | ||
| Weber (Weber_gregston) Username: Weber_gregston Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 86.144.33.42 |
I got the feeling reading through the second site that if Sally Mann had been a man in more than just name she(he) would have been lambasted just as much as the other serious photographers who occasionally took nekkid pictures of children. The next question is my first question (but spelt right), what exactly constitutes porn? Are the Edward Weston pictures realy good enough reason to start accusing Edward weston of paedophilia50 years after his death? | ||
| Kate (Kathleen) Username: Kathleen Registered: 09-2009 Posted From: 86.153.11.198 |
Nice article in The Independent: http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/films/news/for-their-eyes-only-i nside-the-world-of-the-film-censor-2294349.html | ||
| Hubert (Hubert) Username: Hubert Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 178.118.74.87 |
porn films based on actual rape or child abuse And when the rape or abuse is enacted? Over here they would still throw the book at you and I can't believe it would be much different in England. | ||
| Hubert (Hubert) Username: Hubert Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 178.118.74.87 |
"Plainly, in this third quarter of the twentieth century since Christ, the naked figure is still the object of deepest alarm." Lindsay Anderson, 1969. (Foreword to the screenplay of If . . .) Luckily times have changed since 1969  | ||
| Joel (Joel) Username: Joel Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 2.24.29.205 |
When rape or abuse is enacted in a film, there are clear guidelines – it's certainly not impossible but there are rules about what can and can't happen or be shown. Particularly in scenes of child abuse, protection of actors is a major concern. There's an artistic question lurking behind this: are film-makers getting lazy about having 'the real thing' on camera because acting involves more work for actor, director, film crew and, ultimately, audience? How much do we really need to 'be shown' to feel the emotional impact of an event? This raises another issue that worries me: will actresses in future feel it's professionally necessary to shoot 'real sex' scenes in dramas because audiences are starting to expect it? Will their personal lives be affected by the amount of actual sex they are required to have in the studio, when they are not working in porn but just in mainstream cinema? | ||
| Tony (Tony) Username: Tony Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 81.132.169.240 |
At work the other week this bloke shocked me by saying - offhand - that he thought the girl in Kick Ass was sexy. It shocked me not so much because he said it but because I realised I too thought she was sexy. It threw me into a mental mess all day but then I realised that kids CAN be - it's just a fact. Paedophilia almost has nothing to do with it, or shouldn't have to. We can go in everday life, 'Oh, this woman is pretty' but it doesn't mean we watch women all day wanting to rape them. People look nice full stop, that's it. That said, I do think some photography is deeply dubious. I saw a thing on nudism recently where I found that nudist magazines sell dvds of nudist camp life, and that these things are chock full of nude kids. I think that's deeply iffy and should be stopped, and am surprised and appalled at the mags for selling them. I have a theory about art. I think sometimes the shocks it can create can border on abuse, even though all the actors were unhurt. Some images disturb us so much we feel shaken and disturbed, and to me - honestly - that's bordering on abuse, even if, by seeking the films out, the viewer is doing it to themselves. | ||
| Tony (Tony) Username: Tony Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 81.132.169.240 |
The ban of this film sounds fair enough to me, btw. BTW has anyone seen Intimacy or Brown Bunny? I mean, woo hoo! No wonder Jarvis left Chloe. | ||
| Hubert (Hubert) Username: Hubert Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 178.118.74.87 |
Touchy subject. Most people are so totally irrational about it that I've decided not to discuss it anymore. | ||
| Weber (Weber_gregston) Username: Weber_gregston Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 194.66.23.11 |
"I saw a thing on nudism recently where I found that nudist magazines sell dvds of nudist camp life, and that these things are chock full of nude kids." Chock full of nude adults as well... Part of the whole naturist thing. There was a documentary a while back about how convicted sex offenders find ways to still work with youngsters. While some of the cases were quite shocking (eg the self employed market stall holder who hired kids to help him on the stall and didn't need CRB because he was selff employed) there was a teacher who'd been disbarred (or whatever you call it when you sack a teacher) for taking indecent photos of chldren but who was working as a private tutor. It transpired that he was a naturist, he'd gone on a naturist holiday with family and friends and their families, while he was there he took photos of his friends and their families. Some of these pictures obviously had his friends' children in and because of that he was prosecuted, found guilty and lost his job. And when he tried to make some money doing what he'd trained his whole adult life to do, he got a TV documentary trying to stitch him up and name and shame him as a paedophile... As a wise man once said, if God had meant us to walk round naked, we'd have been born with no clothes on... If a photo is non sexual in context, does it matter if the people in it, adult or child have any clothes on? Is it really a viable thing to criminalise the human body? | ||
| Stevie Walsh (Stephenw) Username: Stephenw Registered: 03-2009 Posted From: 82.4.19.77 |
You should Robert Heinlein on this subject, Weber. He and his wife were lifelong naturists. And he took a lot of stick for it from the loony right Holy Joe brigade... despite being branded a fascist by the dead-on liberals. One of the reasons he wrote 'Stranger In A Strange Land', which went on to become the bible of the whole "free love" hippie movement in the sixties. Aren't human beings terribly complicated... | ||
| John Llewellyn Probert (John_l_probert) Username: John_l_probert Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 86.153.11.198 |
I don't know what that says about me but I'm just glad someone else sane, like JLP, was able to find something enjoyable in the work. Stevie what a very nice thing to say!  The Door into Summer is my favourite Heinlein btw, followed by Orphans of the Sky | ||
| Stevie Walsh (Stephenw) Username: Stephenw Registered: 03-2009 Posted From: 82.4.19.77 |
Thanks, John. I've yet to read either of those but might just go for 'Orphans Of The Sky' next. I've yet to read a Heinlein novel I didn't enjoy. 'Farnham's Freehold' & 'Job' are probably my favourites. He can be an extremely funny writer when he puts his mind to it. This 'Human Centipede' controversy is all a bit silly really, don't you think. | ||
| Ramsey Campbell (Ramsey) Username: Ramsey Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 92.8.27.65 |
"Some images disturb us so much we feel shaken and disturbed, and to me - honestly - that's bordering on abuse, even if, by seeking the films out, the viewer is doing it to themselves." Sorry, but I don't see that at all. For a start, different people are disturbed by different images - sometimes images that almost nobody else would find disturbing. If you mean self-abuse, well, possibly, but as you say, that's a matter of personal choice. I find some images - indeed, whole passages - in David Lynch's films extremely disturbing, almost to the point of unbearable, but I most certainly wouldn't accuse him of even inadvertent abuse. | ||
| Tony (Tony) Username: Tony Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 217.35.255.176 |
Yes, you're right, I think. But I do think some directors aim for that effect (not being able to come up with any examples off the top of my head!). I've seen films that feel to be coercing us into quite a bad reaction or level of agreement we might formerly have not entertained. | ||
| Tony (Tony) Username: Tony Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 217.35.255.176 |
You could say tv commercials are guilty of this. | ||
| Zed (Gary_mc) Username: Gary_mc Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 195.166.117.210 |
That's called manipulation, Tony. TV ads do it more than anything else, I think. And, yes, some films attempt to manipulate viewers in that way - but isn't cinema itself in many ways a grand form of attempted audience manipulation? The whole point of a film is to manipulate us into experiencing that vision. | ||
| Weber (Weber_gregston) Username: Weber_gregston Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 194.66.23.11 |
Books are even more effective. Try reading the Ripley books. Highsmith manipulates you nto agreeing with everything Tom does... | ||
| Hubert (Hubert) Username: Hubert Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 178.118.72.74 |
It depends on your own sensibilities. I remember being truly shocked by certain scenes in Event Horizon, notably when the sentient ship shows the rescuers what happened to the original crew. However, one of my friends found it hilarious, said it reminded him of a Marilyn Manson video. | ||
| Stevie Walsh (Stephenw) Username: Stephenw Registered: 03-2009 Posted From: 194.32.31.1 |
I'm trying to think of any scene from a horror movie that truly disturbed me to the core and keep coming back to the surrealist works of Jan Svankmajer & David Lynch - complete nightmare unreality does it for me, and virtually anything involving stop-motion animation, because of its freaky-jerky presentation of the impossible made real. Mainstream horror has never truly disturbed me, even the video nasty material, as I find it all too entertaining. In literature I agree with Weber. I find myself disturbed by getting inside monstrous characters' minds and made to understand their emotional motivations. Dostoevsky, Greene, Thompson, Highsmith & Ramsey Campbell are the authors I've found most adept at this particularly nasty trick. | ||
| Mbfg (Mbfg) Username: Mbfg Registered: 09-2010 Posted From: 212.219.63.204 |
Steve. There is a really nightmarish stop-motion/real life black and white version of "Alice in Wonderland". You can see parts of it on You Tube. I'll try to find it for you. Regards Terry | ||
| Mbfg (Mbfg) Username: Mbfg Registered: 09-2010 Posted From: 212.219.63.204 |
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aezgBUPgrOc And it's not b/w, I just rememebr it that way. | ||
| Seanmcd (Seanmcd) Username: Seanmcd Registered: 03-2009 Posted From: 81.159.123.64 |
Terry, that was the first full length Jan Svankmajer film i ever watched. Late night, Channel 4, early eighties. Couldn't take my eyes off it. Couldn't sleep that night either... | ||
| Stevie Walsh (Stephenw) Username: Stephenw Registered: 03-2009 Posted From: 194.32.31.1 |
I saw it on the big screen in the QFT, during a week long season of his works, a few years back, and had freaky dreams for weeks after. Now that's the kind of thing that disturbs me on some gut instinctive level. But you should see what he did with 'Faust'... shudder. | ||
| Ramsey Campbell (Ramsey) Username: Ramsey Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 92.8.16.24 |
For those who can take it (and believe me, it takes some taking) THC 2 is now available uncut on DVD from amazon.com. | ||
| Christopher Overend (Chris_overend) Username: Chris_overend Registered: 03-2012 Posted From: 78.148.200.234 |
Talking of outrageous movies: "In the latter stakes, The Human Centipede is up against it. Only this year, Srdjan Spasojevic's A Serbian Film has shown a newborn baby being raped to death while still attached umbilically to its mother." http://www.guardian.co.uk/film/filmblog/2010/aug/23/human-centipede-most-horrifi c-film?INTCMP=ILCNETTXT3487 | ||
| Ramsey Campbell (Ramsey) Username: Ramsey Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 92.8.25.173 |
A Serbian Film is apparently about to have an uncut American DVD release. I've seen it uncut and feel it should be viewed that way if you want to see it at all. | ||
| Stevie Walsh (Stephenw) Username: Stephenw Registered: 03-2009 Posted From: 194.32.31.1 |
Where do we draw the line, though, Ramsey? People having their eyes gouged out with erect penises seems pretty extreme to me. Especially when shown full frontal without any recourse to humourous intent. Satire has to be funny before it can lay claim to that particular defence, imo. | ||
| Ramsey Campbell (Ramsey) Username: Ramsey Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 92.8.25.173 |
I don't know, Stevie. Would you say "A Modest Proposal" was overtly humorous? Again, isn't de Sade always the model for extreme transgressive imagery that's inextricable from political or philosophical comment? Depending on one's reading it's possible to find dark humour there. | ||
| Stevie Walsh (Stephenw) Username: Stephenw Registered: 03-2009 Posted From: 194.32.31.1 |
"A Modest Proposal" was infused with righteous rage by an Irishman within the English establishment who was disgusted and horrified at what his supposedly civilized readers were allowing to happen upon their own doorstep to their nearest neighbours. It was not so much a work of satire as a work of outraged humanity. Can the same be said of 'A Serbian Film'? As for De Sade... he was a loveable rogue cocking a snoop at the sexual hypocrisy of his time and doing it with ineffable style. Have you seen Svankmajer's satirical horror masterpiece, 'Lunacy'? No tittilation just artistry and anger. In all honesty, does 'A Serbian Film' pass these same criteria? | ||
| Ramsey Campbell (Ramsey) Username: Ramsey Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 92.8.27.69 |
I honestly think reading Juliette or 120 Days of Sodom all the way through is a pretty harrowing experience (as is watching the Pasolini film, though not Xhonneux's Marquis). | ||
| Ramsey Campbell (Ramsey) Username: Ramsey Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 92.8.27.69 |
Sorry - posted before I'd finished my point. I'd say reading the Sade novels is comparable to watching A Serbian Film in the sense that the excesses often threaten to overwhelm the subtext. | ||
| Stevie Walsh (Stephenw) Username: Stephenw Registered: 03-2009 Posted From: 194.32.31.1 |
Agreed, Ramsey. De Sade has only become "acceptable" with the benefit of distance and hindsight. But read now his books are hypnotic in their oddness, for me. | ||
| Seanmcd (Seanmcd) Username: Seanmcd Registered: 03-2009 Posted From: 193.113.57.161 |
Just the thought of those scenes in A Serbian Film turns me. I musn't be the horror fan i once was. Some of the horror films i would have lapped up as a younger man i now find mildly repulsive. I may find that i enjoy them again when i'm an old git. | ||
| Stevie Walsh (Stephenw) Username: Stephenw Registered: 03-2009 Posted From: 194.32.31.1 |
Go see 'The Cabin In The Woods', Sean, and have your faith in intelligent horror cinema renewed. Even if they are right royally taking the piss - they do it magnificently. And this is a Hollywood movie!! Who said the age of miracles was dead? |