Film Violence, Sexuality, and War in the 1970’s
In the 1970’s the art of filmmaking had went through a major change from the classical Hollywood style to the new Hollywood style. There were many different factors that caused this change. After the sixties while the economy was on the brink of a recession the new corporate heads of the film industry had discovered the youth markets love for auteurism because of the success films such as “Straw Dogs” and “Easy Rider”. Auteurism is when a filmmaker films based on their own personal vision. Films of the seventies were a transitional style that incorporated the new age views of the younger generation. After the transition from the old Hollywood filmmaking to the new Hollywood style of violence is exaggerated in great detail and shows an increased amount of nudity. This in turn expresses the views of that generations filmmakers and how they rebelled against the then set standards of living and also showed their disapproval of the Vietnam War. Horror films went through some very major changes because of the new audiences views on violence. The horror genre was impacted the most because it shows how the directors used the new forms of expressing deaths and the viewers “wants” in a movie which was the exaggerated blood, gore, and nudity. Many films such as “Halloween”, “The exorcist”, and “Dawn of the Dead” show these changes.
Violence in Classical Hollywood would often cut out or show minute amounts of blood in the scene in which someone was injured or killed. In the 1970’s however this had all changed, a great example of this change would be the film Halloween by John Carpenter. In this film the character Michael Myers is a killer who will stop at nothing to find his long lost sister. This film was considered a slasher film and is now thought of as one of the greatest horror films of all time. A “Slasher film” is often considered to be a film, which has a psychopathic male killer who stalks down his victims and then graphically murders them in the scene. Michael Myers was this psychopathic killer who set the stage for
This Scene from Halloween Shows Michael standing next to one of his victim’s bodies. In this scene Michael waits for the character to open the door he is behind and then begins to brutally strangle and stab the victim. This scene is a perfect example of how directors such as Carpenter exploited the violence by adding tons of blood and using Michael’s knife to hold his body helplessly hanging on the wall while he bleeds to death and eventually dies. While Michael is just standing there viewing the victim allows the audience to soak in what just happened and therefore feel like their actually taking part in the film. The victims in the films often had a sort of delirious mind setting in which they walk right into the violence slowly and are then surprised by the killer and then eventually are killed.
David Cook state’s “for whatever reason, there was a significant boom in slasher-style horror between 1979 and 1981.” (Cook 237) Halloween was another low budget film costing the producers a mere 400,000 dollars. Much to their surprise this film grossed over 50 million dollars. This film set the standard for slasher films in the future by presenting a killer who stalks sexually active teenage girls and their boyfriends. The girls were often killed right after sex, which added to the nudity of the film, which also helped to attract the younger generations. The use a makeup artists and splatter artists gave this film its great gore and realistic feeling. Carpenter also used handheld tracking shots to give the viewer the attacker or Michael’s point of view so the audience could get a sense of his transgressive psychotic behavior. (Cook 235) This film shows how the teenage audiences were attracted to the low-budget films with exaggerated blood and gore filled films.
According to Stuart Kaminsky “ violence taken out of context, or elevated to become the main consideration of an analysis, is thus served up to moral condemnation…” Many of the critics in the seventies criticized these films because of the nudity and gore that didn’t appear in films from classical Hollywood. The younger generations of the seventies had other views on how much blood and gore was in the films. The new generation of the seventies felt that films should not hide the violence but rather show it in its full potential for what it really is. Even though these films are often criticized for what they contain they often incorporate the hidden views of the filmmaker. For example in Halloween Carpenter could potentially be showing how he views the younger generations will become or could be using the violence as a way to use Michael Myers as a symbol for the U.S. attacking other weak nations such as Vietnam who would be the weak female characters. D George A. Romero's “Dawn of the Dead” also exhibits an excessive amount of blood and gore which is a perfect example of the new views on violence from independent filmmakers in the 1970’s.
This scene is a perfect example of the overuse of blood and gore to give the younger audiences a reason to flock to the theaters to see the film. This scene from Dawn of the Dead exhibits the “zombies” consuming the body parts of their helpless victims. Dawn of the Dead also included the splatter effects, which were the use of excessive blood and graphic violence to exploit the human bodies vulnerability, that the viewers loved so much in the seventies but also added the audience’s realization of the situations presented in the film. “Dawn of the Dead” occurs in a small steel town, mainly in the city mall. The main characters fight their mindless attackers to save their own lives. Romero depicts a perfect example of the new Hollywood horror films that cause audiences to flood to the theaters.
During the seventies many of the producers found it hard to even get the audiences to come to the theaters. Many of them had film degrees and great experience with past hits in the old Hollywood generation but still could not find a title that would catch the eyes of the new audiences after the war. The technological advances of the era offered the new Hollywood directors a chance at bringing up the box office receipts once again. There were other movies besides the horror genre that used the new “special effects” to draw the audience back into the box office.
“Dirty Harry” was premiered in 1971 and was one of the first major new Hollywood cop movies to be a hit that is still at the top of movie lovers lists today. Clint Eastwood plays the star role in this action packed film as he chases after the deadly “Scorpio” who is a psychotic sniper. This film features fantastic gun battles and car chases to keep the viewers at the edge of their seat. Eastwood left the audience thinking about what was going to happen next after he was forced to let the killer free after the courts found the lack of evidence not enough to keep him under arrest. Of Course Eastwood couldn’t just let this happen so he sets out after Scorpio on his own to fulfill his need to catch this killer he hated so much. He will forever be remembered by his one line in the movie “Do I feel lucky, well do ya punk!” This film captures the perfect portrayal of good versus evil which could be Finks comparison to the Vietnam War and how he portrays the to countries on either side.
The war was obviously a major factor of the rebelliousness seen in the independent filmmakers films. The seventies were comprised of many films that would have been seen as and unimaginable disaster in the old Hollywood filmsetting. Many of these films like “Easy Rider”, “Straw Dogs”, and “Sweet Sweetbacks Baadddasss Song” are perfect examples of how the filmmakers were rebelling against the industry. The movies “M.A.S.H.” and “Little Big Men” depict this form of concern and rebelliousness against the war. These are political films which were made by the producers to demystify the belief that the war was just and are a perfect example of how producers of the younger generation developed films in the the form of auteurism. The films of this era were often made to express the actual happenings in the U.S. at the time to show the realities the GI’s faced and the realities the average American citizen faced every day. This is unlike classical Hollywood where in movies such as “Catch 22” (WWII film) where the soldiers were made out to be happy to be at war now with the Vietnam War they are made to be unhappy and unwilling to fight on for their country.
“M.A.S.H.” a Robert Altman film was a film set in a mobile surgical unit during the Korean War, which entails no war scenes but a more in depth approach to the soldiers views on how a war actually affects them as a person not a soldier. Even though there are no war scenes there are plenty of with war wounded soldiers and bloody deaths which even then shows the seventies violent film style. This movie is different however because the U.S. is not shown as the hero in this film but as the enemy. This was the popular U.S. view on the Vietnam War so that is how the army was depicted in this film. The film uses the scene in which the M.A.S.H. unit plays is the football game scene in which they win only by using trickery and deceit to win the game. This scene depicts a paradigm for the United State’s territorial aggression and expansion. “Little Big Men” also uses another war to depict the hate for the war and want for it to be over.
“Little Big Men’s” screenwriter Calder Willingham and director Arthur Penn used the genocidal American Indian War as a metaphor compared to the Vietnam War. Caldwell makes heroes of the Indians who were implied to be the Vietnamese, and makes General Custer out to be the villain or the implied U.S. presence. The depiction of the events that happened in the Vietnam war right down to the bombings and brutal violence towards the Vietnamese was put right into the the film by using the Indian’s in their place. This film goes along with the horror movies of the generation by incorporating tons of blood, gore, and brutal violence against the Vietnamese. These films signify the directors and people’s view of the Vietnam War and why we were fighting there.
Many films also used nudity in many of their scenes throughout the film. These films depict the director’s use of the female body to draw in audiences of all ages during the seventies. One great example of this would be “The Rocky Horror Picture Show”. This film first of all has its main characters fall into the mansion that houses a group of transvestites who practice some odd routines. This example sets the example of how the directors went along with the outspoken free-spirited youth of the time period. Throughout the movie Brad and Janet face Dr. Frankenfurter and his sexual shows of rebellion and experimentation and his sexual acts he performed throughout the movie. Janet and Brad are just a normal couple bound to get married until they face seduction and forced stripping to their underwear for the whole film where they are transformed by Dr. Frankenfurter’s schemes and actions by the other characters throughout the film, Rocky Horror still plays at many theaters and captures the eye of viewers young and old which means the director used what the audience wanted which is sexuality and violence. This view is still held in high regards by audiences all over the world today.
This scene displays Janet trying to seduce rocky and capture the audience’s attention by her display. Janet in this scene shows how the director used nudity or almost nudity to attract the audience. The conformist views of the audience would also bring them to see the film just because of the rebelliousness Dr. Frankenfurter shows throughout the film. This scene also gives the audience a screen capture that cuts off anything below Janet’s waist focusing on her breast, which is another example of how films in the seventies exploited female actors by using their body’s sexuality to draw in the viewers.
During the seventies these filmmakers grasped new technological ways of filming allowing them to use new angles and wardrobe in their films. The seventies and early sixties were part of the transformational era for which the filmmaking style switched from classical Hollywood style to the new Hollywood style. This style was based on the use of abstract and excessive use of violence and makeup, which enhanced the blood and gore. They used this to attract the new audiences of the time period and also used the sexuality of the actors and the rebellious explicit scenes to attract them as well. They also used methods of advertisement for which the film was shown in hundreds of theaters at its debut date and increase the price to bring the crowds in because of their wonder for this movies specialty. The Films of the sixties and seventies also were made to be personalized by the director’s own views on the film he’s filming. The films depicting the Vietnam War’s unpopularity among the people in the United States showed this by their optimistic views and making fun of the U.S. in their plots.
Bibliography
Bernardoni, James. The New Hollywood. North Carolina: Mcfarland & Company,1985
Bobker, Lee. Elements of Film. New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1977
Bookbinder, Robert. The Films of the Seventies. New York: Carol Publishing, 1982
Cagin, Seth, and Dray, Phillip. Hollywood Films of the Seventies. New York: Harper & Row, 1984
Cook, David A. Lost Illusions. New York: C. Shribner, 2002
Kaminsky, Stuart M. American Film Genres. Chicago: Nelson Hall, 1985
Slocum, David. Violence and American Cinema. New York: 1980
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