The Commandment(s) of Films

DaveC426913 said:
Originally, I had only one Commandment of film stories:

Thou shalt not let the bad guys win.

Se7en (Spacey, Freeman, Pitt, 1995) was the first time I recall encountering a film where the bad guy wins. I came away from that movie wishing I had not seen it. I felt complicit in the triumph of evil over good. (I'm not a prude in that way. It's just that's not really what I look for entertainment-wise when I choose a film to watch.) ...
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Hasn't that been going on in mitigated but gradually increasing degrees ever since the shift to the antihero protagonist, in the overall entertainment industry? I mean, as long a (traditionally) despicable character in a lead role makes a few token gestures to the righteous left and indicates he cares about his children (or something), then he's tolerated if not redeemed from all the other barbarity he commits. Like the example of Tony Soprano not being homophobic about Vito Spatafore in contrast to the rest of the mob, and as far as we know never molesting his kids.
 
DaveC426913 said:
A film wherein someone is killed for real. It's illegal. Depraved ghouls watch snuff films for entertainment.
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paddoboy said:
:eek::eek: Shit!!
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Most of them are supposedly fake -- but I only hear that second hand. Since I've yet to surf the Dark Web with a Tor browser, but even if I did I still wouldn't know authentic from ersatz. (The forensic experts can make the distinction via analysis of the blood spatter and so-forth.)
 
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C C said:
Hasn't that been going on in mitigated but gradually increasing degrees ever since the shift to the antihero protagonist, in the overall entertainment industry? I mean, as long a (traditionally) despicable character in a lead role makes a few token gestures to the righteous left and indicates he cares about his children (or something), then he's tolerated if not redeemed from all the other barbarity he commits. Like the example of Tony Soprano not being homophobic about Vito Spatafore in contrast to the rest of the mob, and as far as we know never molesting his kids.
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Antiheros are OK - it's the glorification of the deaths of innocents that trouble me.

In Kingsman, the hero slaughtered innocent churchgoers (OK, they were brainwashed into killing machines), and we watched housewives and children die in a beautiful slow-motion, blood-spouting, head chopping acrobatic dance. It wasn't meant to be horrible; it was meant to be glorious. We were manipulated into appreciating the horrible deaths of these innocents.
 
Unfortunately, sculptor has shot a gaping hole in my idea. A Clockwork Orange - a great classic - definitely glorified the rape and violent assault of innocents.

(Then again, unlike my other examples, they didn't die.)
 
DaveC426913 said:
Unfortunately, sculptor has shot a gaping hole in my idea. A Clockwork Orange - a great classic - definitely glorified the rape and violent assault of innocents.

(Then again, unlike my other examples, they didn't die.)
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I don't exactly recollect Henry Fonda chortling after killing McBain and his three children in the 1968 spaghetti flick Once Upon A Time In The West. But a kind of blank indifference on his part -- as if a collection of annoying bugs had been exterminated -- does seem to have made a mark in my vague memory of it.

But perhaps there was some somber background music counteracting that, rather than an upbeat, celebratory instrumental. Again, can't remember the fine details. No music at all would seem to fall short of a celebratory romp's effect, though still giving the impression of approving the event as satisfactory in some sense.

Well, I suppose just tracking down a video clip of it would settle the matter. Fonda does sort of smile a bit before shooting the last offspring. However, at least one or two of his henchmen border on displaying disturbed facial expressions...

 
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