Whenever some awful event of a violent nature occurs, it seems like a movie is blamed. My liberal side (the more dominant side) feels like this is a tired cliche since Charles Manson was influnced by The Beatles' "White Album" and (ironically) the man who killed John Lennon read J.D. Salinger's "A Catcher in the Rye" countless times. But, police in Minnesota did find a dvd of Gus van Sant's brilliant, but very disturbing film "Elephant," a fictional recreation of Columbine, when searching the home of a teenager who effectively copied that same heinous crime in his own school.
Now, there are questions about the Korean film "OldBoy," a cutting edge film by director Park Chawook which won the Grand Prix Prize at the 2004 Cannes Film Festival.
Stephen Hunter of "The Washington Post" said in a widely publicized article that there are some striking similarities between the title character Dae Su in "OldBoy," a film which I have seen, and the campus shooter
Hunter said a narcissist with a pesecution complex would identify with the film's plot. The title character is simply snatched off the streets and he is made to endure 20 years in a cell without an explanation. When he comes out, he seeks revenge. He goes to perform great spurts of violence exerted by a hammer.
The pose that the campus killer made with a hammer in a video manisfesto, which Roanoke's NBC affiliate Channel 10 refused to air, has been used as 'exhibit A' in this argument.
But, Hunter goes on to say that the influence of the film can be disputed because "OldBoy" is not a gun picture, and it is in many ways as much of an art film as an action movie as the violence in the film, though frequent, is never glamorous.
Hunter also mentioned the possible influence of Hong Kong action films, like "The Killer" on the demented individual who claimed 32 lives.
There has been much criticism of Hunter's piece among movie bloggers. Phil Nugent, who posts entries, on my friend Bilge Ebiri's movie blog, said Hunter's article was just another effort by the media to pointlessly say that movies are to blame for America's social ills.
A blogger for "The New York Times" added similar frustrations: "Hunter is a self-professed gun nut and a Woo fan himself, so he is not ignorant," but the blogger added that the movie ciritic of the "Post" had still laid out a hollow argument.
I think one observation that I did not find on the web is the question as to why no one in South Korea, where many more people have seen the film, has done anything as awful as what the campus shooter did in Blacksburg on Monday. Similarly, many of our violent films are shown overseas, but nothing of this magnitude ever occurs in Europe, Asia or elsewhere. Still, those of us from southwest Virginia want to try to objectively figure out why this happened as virtually all of us have been profoundly affected by it. But, in a society as divided as our's that is obviously not going to be easy for any of us.
Links:
http://www.washingtonpost.com
I am planning four more blog entries regarding the shootings. Among my hopes are to post stories about a vigil at BYU, the role my alma mater Radford University, the closest school to Virginia Tech, has played in comforting those in Blacksburg, and why I was not pleased to see the Rev. Franklin Graham coming to campus in the aftermath of 4/16/07. There are many other things I want to discuss, including Cindy Sheehan's visit to Greensboro today, but when an airplane lands in your backyard it is simply impossible to ignore it.
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