With Oscar nominations coming out in just 4 days, I have to wonder how the Academy will handle the gore of this year's films, such as Alejandro Gonzales Iñárritu's "The Revenant" and Quentin Tarantino's "The Hateful Eight". Both feature intense violence and blood, and neither are for the faint of heart.
I am a Quentin Tarantino fanatic, and when I walked into The Hateful Eight, I was expecting his classic Western/crime story with explicit material and an explosive ending. But he really spared no one this time, and I think it was his most explicit film yet. There was physical violence, torture, gunshots, nudity, and profanity (the film featured about 20 F-bombs, which compared to some of his early work, is nothing). Brains and guts literally exploded out of bodies (and while this was cartoonish- though not as cartoonish as From Dusk Till Dawn- it was still shocking)! The intensity of violence in this movie makes me wonder how well it will do at this year's Academy Awards.
A valid speculation can be made that movies have become more profane over the years. In the early ages of cinema, even mild profanity was considered vulgar. This relates to APUSH because of the rise of explicit material in mainstream media over time. The article I found quotes film historian Leonard Maltin: "The older members of the Academy will accept a certain amount of violence if the balance of the film pleases them." I really hope they can do that this year.
http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/revenant-hateful-eight-how-blood-844748?cnn=yes
I think that violence and profanity has increased in more modern day films because people are more tolerant to it than in past generations.
ReplyDeleteI personally do not really enjoy movies that feature a lot a violence, but I believe that the Oscars are really based on production and execution, and if executing a movie well means including a lot of gore, that should not hinder a movie's chances in the upcoming awards season.
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