Violent films which imply audience is complicit?

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Violent films which imply audience is complicit? - 9/3/2013 11:43:22 PM

Padraic Coffey

Posts: 15
Joined: 7/1/2006

I was trying to think of films that deliberately confront their audiences and imply they are complicit in the violence taking place on screen. Two obvious examples are John McNaughton's Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer (1986) and Michael Haneke's Funny Games (1997).

In Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer, the two main characters watch a videotape of themselves murdering a family. We see most of the scene from their POV, observing the television, so that we too are simply watching this footage of murder.

In Funny Games, confrontational messages are made to the audience many times on why they are still watching the terrorism of a family by two men. At one point, one of the men turns and winks at the camera.

Can anyone suggest other examples of this phenomenon?

< Message edited by elab49 -- 9/3/2013 11:49:27 PM >

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RE: Violent films which imply audience is complicit? - 9/3/2013 11:50:55 PM

elab49

Posts: 52031
Joined: 1/10/2005

Sorry for the edit. I'm afraid Empire operates rules wrt which images can be shown on the site. There is a certificate limit eg but it's often left if's an innocuous shot from, say, an 18 or a poster image.

The rules on images can be found in the rule thread in the Empire Online sub-forum.

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RE: Violent films which imply audience is complicit? - 11/3/2013 12:25:27 PM

Discodez

Posts: 777
Joined: 2/9/2010

The other bit in Funny Games is where after "betting" the family they won't survive until morning, he turns to the camera and says "you want them to survive, don't you?".

Still sends shills down my spine thinking about it.

I don't know that there are many films like that in that sense that so directly ask the audience about their complicity in what's happening on screen in that way, most of those breaking the 4th wall moments usually happen in comedies to share a joke with the audience rather than to ask them "what the fuck are you watching this for?" it's not a popular trick to pull on the audience in anything other than comedy.

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Kick-Ass? - 20/3/2013 8:22:43 PM

Evolved As One

Posts: 42
Joined: 9/3/2013
From: Essex

The reference to Sunset Boulevard at the climax of Kick-Ass? Quirky, but still dark.

< Message edited by Evolved As One -- 20/3/2013 8:23:03 PM >

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