The fact that these tentpole movies are all violent comic book movies doesn't speak well for our society.
Obviously, there is violence in the world, and you have to deal with it. But there are other ways to do it without showing people getting blown up. One of the most horrible movies ever made was Fritz Lang's M, about a child murderer. But he didn't show the murder of the child. The child is playing with a rubber ball and a balloon. When the killer takes her behind the bushes, we see the ball roll out from the bushes. And then he cuts to the balloon flying up into the sky. Everybody who sees it feels a different kind of chill up their back, a horrible feeling. So this argument that you have to have violence shown in gory details is not true. It's much more artistic to show it in a different way.
Today, there's a general numbing of the audience. There's too much murder and killing. You make people insensitive by showing it all the time. The body count in pictures is huge. It numbs the audience into thinking it's not so terrible. Back in the '70s, I asked Orson Welles what he thought was happening to pictures, and he said, "We're brutalizing the audience. We're going to end up like the Roman circus, live at the Coliseum." The respect for human life seems to be eroding.
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The other point I would make: Even with all the murders in the United States since the Kennedys were killed, very few people have experienced murder directly. Generally speaking, the average person hasn't experienced it, and the average director hasn't experienced it. I think if they had, they would make their films differently. We had a murder in our family when Dorothy was killed, and I can't begin to describe how horrible it is. It's too easy to show murders in movies now. There are too many of them, and it's too easy. There is a general lack of respect for life, because it's so easy to just kill people.
Nothing's changed in 44 years [since Targets]. Things have gotten worse when it comes to the control of guns. This guy in Colorado legally had an arsenal. What's an AK attack rifle for? What is that for but to kill people? It's not for hunting. Why is it for sale? It boggles the mind.