‘Cannibal Holocaust’, Directed by Ruggero Deodato is an Italian Cannibal Exploitation film that originated from American Grindhouse Cinema that emerged in the 1960’s and 1970’s. Grindhouse Cinema was a term coined by the Americans, largely screened exploitation films. The term itself is symbolic of the large amount of cheap, low budget productions of these types of films that were being made during this time, as if to be churned and grinded out like mincemeat, hence the term Grindhouse. However, the eventual rising costs of American productions led to a much greater dependence on cheaper European imports, particularly from Italy. This led to an emergence of several Italian grindhouse sub-genres, including ‘Cannibal Films’, thus the creation of ‘Cannibal Holocaust’. These ‘Cannibal films’ along with the other various sub-genres often mimic the …show more content…
subject matter and style of other particular film genres. However, they thematically drew influence from other exploitation media, such as soft porn and the earlier Italian Giallo films of the 1960’s and 1970’s. In ‘Cannibal Holocaust’, the film depicts the story of a New York University Professor who leads a rescue mission deep into the Amazon rainforest in search of a missing documentary film crew, who were making a film about the Amazon’s primitive local cannibal tribes.
He returns with only the harrowing footage that was shot and left behind from the perished documentary crew. Upon its theatrical release in February 1980 in Milan, the film divided the opinions of audiences and critics alike; many were shocked and appalled with the films relentless graphic nature, though others argued and cited the film for its realism as a social commentary on the depiction of a civilised vs. uncivilised society. Philosophy Professor and Author Cynthia A. Freeland argues that ‘Cannibal Holocaust’ is ‘realistic horror’ stating ‘Realistic horror requires us to think in new ways about the moral assessment of films precisely because of its realism’. It can be argued that this film is morally coded in a way that has something to say about humanity and the society that we live in, thus creating debate over the moral assessment of this
film. The inevitable strong reactions to ‘Cannibal Holocaust’ can be argued as being down to the themes and imagery that the films director, Ruggero Deodato, touches upon in order to gain such terror responses out of its audience. There are two main theoretical common themes that can be attached to this film as a way of analytically understanding the ‘universal’ terror responses evoked within us from watching such a film. According to Swiss Psychiatrist Carl Young, who detailed in his ‘Archaic’ theory the notion that primordial fears reside in our ‘collective unconscious’. There are a number of ‘Archaic’ themes within ‘Cannibal Holocaust’ to evoke a response to its audience. The film features local indigenous Amazonian cannibal tribes
...dience long after the film reels have stopped turning. The idea of a “scary movie” could be innocuous enough, if it is simply frights and ghoulish images, but Nosferatu raised the bar and discovered how to delve into a collective mindset and produce a truly unsettling product. Germany’s residual shame and concern regarding World War I made Nosferatu a gripping, telling exploration of a nation’s psyche.
Creative works are of use to historians to a large extent. However there is a fraction that is not completely historically accurate but simply made for the enjoyment of the audience. Schindler’s List is a film based on Oskar Schindler’s fight to save Jews during the Holocaust. Whether the film is historically accurate is determined by background information that can confirm how precise this film is. The main factors of this film were the protagonist Oskar Schindler and his transformation from a pro-Nazi to a Jewish sympathiser, Amon Goeth who is a Nazi officer in charge of the camp at Płaszów and his psychopathic routines and attitudes towards the Jews and the horrific mistreatment of the Jewish people and how they were portrayed. These aspects of the film show just how useful creative works can be for historians.
Aside from its acting, the other major influence which Mean Streets had upon American film-makers was through it's use of a rock n' roll soundtrack (almost perfectly integrated with the images), and in its depiction of a new kind of screen violence. Unexpected, volatile, explosive and wholly senseless, yet, for all that, undeniably cinematic violence. The way in which Scorsese blends these two - the rock and roll and the violence - shows that he understood instinctively, better than anyone else until then, that cinema (or at least this kind of cinema, the kinetic, visceral kind) and rock n' roll are both expressions of revolutionary instincts, and that they are as inherently destructive as they are creative. This simple device - brutal outbreaks of violence combined with an upbeat soundtrack - has been taken up by both the mainstream cinema at large and by many individual `auteurs', all of whom are in Scorsese's debt - Stone and Tarantino coming at once to mind.
Last semester my documentary production professor told my classmates and I to avoid making films that were too much like Holocaust or civil rights films. This really struck me as an almost cold statement, however this semester in both this class and the film and Holocaust class that I took I began to understand what he meant. After reading much of Aaron Kerner’s book I saw even more, it wasn’t a statement on the subject matter but the filmic techniques that have been overused in the genres. The most burnt out are the tropes within each film; like the crafty jew trope, the jew as a victim, or as a hero, and the usage of naziploitation. These are all found in films revolving around the Holocaust and the film Europa Europa (Agnieska Holland, 1990)
The director of the series, Dan Curtis, actually recreated and rebuilt parts of Auschwitz and filmed in the camp. The series showed the mass executions of prisoners and how they filled trenches with their corpses along with how merciless the SS officers running the concentration camps were. Another site that made for an accurate camp recreation and series was the gas chambers. The prisoners were tricked into thinking they were going to the showers but instead were put into gas chambers. The screams of the prisoners in the film shows no dilution of emotion whatsoever and makes people feel empathetic towards the prisoners. The series almost feels like the audience is in the concentration camps from within the safety of their homes. The series was made honestly which means it has to be shown graphically because in reality it was extremely graphic. This combination of actual location and truthful gore contributed to creating one of the best portrayals of the Holocaust known. People were shocked into believing the truth about the Holocaust which once again, leaving a lasting impact on the
Quentin Tarantino’s 2009 film Inglourious Bastards entails a Jewish revenge fantasy that is told through a counterfactual history of events in World War II. However, this story follows a completely different plot than what we are currently familiar with. Within these circumstances, audiences now question the very ideas and arguments that are often associated with World War II. We believe that Inglourious Basterds is a Jewish revenge fantasy that forces us to rethink our previous understandings by disrupting the viewers sense of content and nature in the history of World War II. Within this thesis, this paper will cover the Jewish lens vs. American lens, counter-plots within the film, ignored social undercurrents, and the idea that nobody wins in war.
Connelly, Marie. "The films of Martin Scorsese: A critical study." Diss. Case Western Reserve University, 1991. Web. 07 Apr 2014.
Director Mark Herman presents a narrative film that attests to the brutal, thought-provoking Nazi regime, in war-torn Europe. It is obvious that with Herman’s relatively clean representation of this era, he felt it was most important to resonate with the audience in a profound and philosophical manner rather than in a ruthlessness infuriating way. Despite scenes that are more graphic than others, the films objective was not to recap on the awful brutality that took place in camps such as the one in the movie. The audience’s focus was meant to be on the experience and life of a fun-loving German boy named Bruno. Surrounding this eight-year-old boy was conspicuous Nazi influences. Bruno is just an example of a young child among many others oblivious of buildings draped in flags, and Jewis...
The link between expressionism and horror quickly became a dominant feature in many films and continues to be prominent in contemporary films mainly due to the German expressionist masterpiece Das Kabinett des Doctor Caligari. Wiene’s 1920 Das Kabinett des Doctor Caligari utilized a distinctive creepiness and the uncanny throughout the film that became one the most distinctive features of externalising inner mental and emotional states of protagonists through various expressionist methods. Its revolutionary and innovative new art was heavily influenced by the German state and its populace in conjunction with their experience of war; Caligari took a clear cue from what was happening in Germany at the time. It was this film that set cinematic conventions that still apply today, heavily influencing the later Hollywood film noir genre as well as the psychological thrillers that has led several film audiences to engage with a film, its character, its plot and anticipate its outcome, only to question whether the entire movie was a dream, a story of a crazy man, or an elaborate role play. This concept of the familiar and the strange, the reality, the illusion and the dream developed in Das Kabinett des Doctor Caligari, is once again present in Scorsese’s 2010 film Shutter Island.
Michelangelo Antonioni initiated a shift in Italian film in the 1950s. He kept some aspects of Italian Neorealism but then moved away into the world of the art film. With Blow-up, which was made possible by a deal MGM for a series of films in English, he takes a meandering, odd storyline and places it in trendy, ?swinging? London (Thompson & Bordwell, 426-7). He further reinforces the distance between the diegetic world of the film and the audience through precisely spacious camera techniques. ?I want to re-create reality in an abstract form. I?m really questioning the nature of reality,? Antonioni has said honestly about the film (Arrowsmith, 112). He has taken the audience-active film to a new and interesting level.
...sjudgment, death of the innocents, and the destruction of human conscience, respectively. Death and destruction are two serious, closely related matters. Both writings essentially, through characters’ behaviour, actions, and environment, depict a reflection of human nature, and emphasise how it can turn into insanity and ruthlessness based on many contributing factors. Lastly, leaving the readers many questions with regards to the psychological and ethical issues dealing with the ‘unnatural deaths’. And perhaps, after plentiful observations on human atrocities, one may still discovers and values the preciousness of life and other positive elements of human nature.
It is no doubt that Martin Scorsese has heavily influenced the emulating of American film making from European influences. He is a prime example of a ‘New Hollywood Cinema’ director, not only from his ethnicity and background, but from his sheer interest in this form
We all have cravings, be it for snacks or sweets, there is always something we desire. We crave horror in the same way. In Stephen King’s essay, “Why We Crave Horror Movies,” he argues that people need to watch horror films in order to release the negative emotions within us. King believes that people feel enjoyment while watching others be terrorized or killed in horror movies. King’s argument has elements that are both agreeable and disagreeable. On one hand he is acceptable when claiming we like the thrill and excitement that comes from watching horror movies; however, his views regarding that the fun comes from seeing others suffer cannot be agreed with because the human condition is not as immoral as he claims it to be.
The holocaust attested that morality is adaptable in severe conditions. Traditional morality stopped to be contained by the barbed wires of the concentration camps. Inside the camps, prisoners were not dealt like humans and thus adapted animal-like behavior needed to survive. The “ordinary moral world” (86) Primo Levi refers in his autobiographical novel Se questo è un uomo (If This Is a Man or Survival in Auschwitz), stops to exist; the meanings and applications of words such as “good,” “evil,” “just,” and “unjust” begin to merge and the differences between these opposites turn vague. Continued existence in Auschwitz demanded abolition of one’s self-respect and human dignity. Vulnerability to unending dehumanization certainly directs one to be dehumanized, thrusting one to resort on mental, physical, and social adaptation to be able to preserve one’s life and personality. It is in this adaptation that the line distinguishing right and wrong starts to deform.
However, all Italian films seem to have one thing in common. In some, this thing wasn’t terribly outrageous, and in some it was anything but subtle. This thing, of course, is sex. With sex in popular media, we typically have two people, usually a man and woman, in order to consummate the act. While there are celebrated divergences from these socially constructed ‘norms...