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Legendary Director Peter Bogdanovich: What If Movies Are Part of the Problem?
Hollywood Reporter ^ | 07-24-12 | Gregg Kilday

Posted on 07/25/2012 6:41:11 PM PDT by P.O.E.

Peter Bogdanovich is no stranger to violence -- either onscreen or off. In an eerie foreshadowing of the Colorado tragedy, his very first film, 1968's Targets, starring Boris Karloff, ends with a sniper, an angry Vietnam War vet, picking off teenagers at a drive-in movie theater. But while that movie reflected the rising discord of the late '60s, it wasn't until 1980 that Bogdanovich experienced, first-hand, the full impact of violence when his companion, Dorothy Stratten, the Playboy model and actress, was brutally murdered by her estranged husband.

People go to a movie to have a good time, and they get killed. It's a horrible, horrible event. It makes me sick that I made a movie about it.

(snip)

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.

(Excerpt) Read more at hollywoodreporter.com ...


TOPICS: Culture/Society; Editorial
KEYWORDS: 2ndamendment; aurorashootings; cultureofcorrution; culturewar; culturewars; fastandfurious; hollywood; mentaldisorder; peterbogdanovich; targets
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If I'm not mistaken, Targets was Karloff's last US picture.

Anyway, this is not news to most of us, just surprising to hear it from one of Hollywood's own.

1 posted on 07/25/2012 6:41:17 PM PDT by P.O.E.
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To: P.O.E.
Of course movies are a problem...reality itself is a problem.

Life is a problem. It is difficult to adapt to...not pretty...but there it is!

Get a life...and adapt!

2 posted on 07/25/2012 6:46:54 PM PDT by RoosterRedux (Obama: "If you've got a business -- you didn't build that. Somebody else made that happen.")
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To: P.O.E.

I don’t think he really cares. He just doesn’t want to be sued.


3 posted on 07/25/2012 6:49:56 PM PDT by freekitty (Give me back my conservative vote; then find me a real conservative to vote for)
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To: P.O.E.

We mustn’t dare say that! They’ll accuse us of wanting censorship. I would call it common sense. Movies to affect people, especially young people. I can remember acting out movies as kids. But I haven’t seen any of the Batman movies (though I used to love the TV show), so I can’t comment on them.


4 posted on 07/25/2012 6:50:13 PM PDT by ilovesarah2012
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To: P.O.E.

Peter Bogdanovich as Captain Obvious. Yes, I thought of “Targets” hearing of this recent incident. In the film the perp shoots into the audience from behind the screen at a drive-in theater, a highly symbolic and deeply thoughtful from the point of view of film history, scene.


5 posted on 07/25/2012 6:50:58 PM PDT by Revolting cat! (Bad things are wrong!)
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To: P.O.E.

At the same time, he takes the standard potshots at guns and the NRA.


6 posted on 07/25/2012 6:53:01 PM PDT by M1903A1 ("We shed all that is good and virtuous for that which is shoddy and sleazy... and call it progress")
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To: P.O.E.

IBDOEVHT - (In Before Defenders OF Entertainment Vehicle Product Hollywood Trash!)


7 posted on 07/25/2012 6:53:10 PM PDT by Revolting cat! (Bad things are wrong!)
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To: ilovesarah2012
But I haven’t seen any of the Batman movies (though I used to love the TV show), so I can’t comment on them.

I haven't seen the movies, either, but if they don't have Mayor Linseed and Governor Stonefellow, I don't see how they could be any good.

8 posted on 07/25/2012 6:53:46 PM PDT by aposiopetic
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To: P.O.E.

In other words: What if Water really is Wet??


9 posted on 07/25/2012 6:56:24 PM PDT by eyeamok
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To: P.O.E.

As a fan of movies, heavy metal music and a video gamer since the Atari 2600 days, it seems obvious that what we view/play will effect our views/perceptions. In today’s culture where actions are free from consequense, it’s also unsurprising that people feel free to act on impuls in a morality free way.

So what changed and why didn’t kids from the 40s-80s go psycho every week after all the ultraviolent gangster movies, loony tunes cartoons etc?

Well, first and foremost, PARENTS taught the concept of right and wrong...and they weren’t arrested or recipients of CPS ‘love’ for doing so. Kids went to church. Kids could act out their fantasies playing cops and robbers/cowboys and indians/army et all, without CPS and a team of teachers, psychologists-psychiatrists and the rest ‘reeducating’ them for simply playing childhood games.

Why are kids in front of the TV watching R movies and playing M rated games all day? Could it be that every time they go outside they have to navigate a PC world they have no clue of understanding (as it changes by the second), the EPA and ‘safety’ groups outlawed anything resembling ‘fun’ on public lands...

EVERY BIT of this issue is 100% the responsibility of liberalism. ALL OF IT. It all goes back to the same source.


10 posted on 07/25/2012 6:57:09 PM PDT by Norm Lenhart
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To: P.O.E.

I think we all realize that ‘whatever a man sows, that he also reaps.’ Or what goes around, comes around.
The year after Bambi came out hunting licenses dropped by 60% across America. (If my memory recall is accurate.) Movies do make an impact. It is ‘nice’ to know that some acknowledge that.


11 posted on 07/25/2012 6:58:51 PM PDT by PastorJimCM (truth matters)
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To: P.O.E.

it’s about time


12 posted on 07/25/2012 6:59:50 PM PDT by yldstrk ( My heroes have always been cowboys)
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To: P.O.E.

Karloff’s last picture was “Plan Nine from Outer Space” by Ed Wood. He died before it was completed.


13 posted on 07/25/2012 7:00:31 PM PDT by Lurker (Violence is rarely the answer. But when it is, it is the only answer.)
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To: PastorJimCM

“The year after Bambi came out...”

At first reading I thought you were referring to Bambi coming out as the first gay President.


14 posted on 07/25/2012 7:01:43 PM PDT by Magic Fingers (Political correctness mutates in order to remain virulent.)
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To: Lurker
Karloff’s last picture was “Plan Nine from Outer Space” by Ed Wood.

It killed him!

15 posted on 07/25/2012 7:02:25 PM PDT by Revolting cat! (Bad things are wrong!)
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To: Lurker

I believe you are thinking of Bela Lugosi. Karloff was not in Plan Nine at all.


16 posted on 07/25/2012 7:03:14 PM PDT by BelegStrongbow (St. Joseph, patron of fathers, pray for us!)
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To: M1903A1

Towards the end he goes on, uninformedly, about gun control. But given the world he inhabits, he probably never hears otherwise.


17 posted on 07/25/2012 7:04:49 PM PDT by P.O.E. (Pray for America)
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To: Lurker
Karloff’s last picture was “Plan Nine from Outer Space” by Ed Wood.

It didn't kill 'im. He wasn't in it.

18 posted on 07/25/2012 7:05:39 PM PDT by Revolting cat! (Bad things are wrong!)
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To: Lurker
Karloff’s last picture was “Plan Nine from Outer Space” by Ed Wood. He died before it was completed.

That was Bela Lugosi.

19 posted on 07/25/2012 7:06:06 PM PDT by Focault's Pendulum (If Obama was any more thin skinned, he'd have a receptacle end: Dennis Miller)
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To: Focault's Pendulum

I stand corrected. Thank you.


20 posted on 07/25/2012 7:13:48 PM PDT by Lurker (Violence is rarely the answer. But when it is, it is the only answer.)
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