Conflict and Violence in Film

Conflict, whether it is verbal, physical, or psychological, is an intrinsic element of the human condition and therefore an intrinsic element of the creative arts. Linguistic arts such as poetry and prose portray conflict through words and their devices. Auditory arts such as instrumental and vocal music portray conflict through contrasting and opposing instruments and melodies. The visual arts such as sculpture, painting, and film portray, perhaps in the most direct way of all the arts, the idea of conflict through visual images. In film particularly, there are many different vessels through which filmmakers interpret the idea of conflict. Two of these such vessels are the dramatized, aestheticized, violent confrontations that have come to characterize Quentin Tarantino’s filmmaking style, discussed here in Kill Bill Volume 1 (2003), Inglorious Basterds (2009), and Django Unchained (2012), and the intensely personal moments of extreme violence, characterized by a gritty realism, discussed here in American History X (1998) and 12 Years a Slave (2013). These two different approaches to depicting conflict and violence on screen illicit very different responses from the viewer. Aestheticized violence brings about a desensitized response, and personal, realistic violence disturbs, while both convey the idea that human beings are immensely capable of all that they do not want to be capable of.

            In most of Tarantino’s films, violent conflict is a major theme. Certain scenes in particular exemplify his penchant for dramatization, such as the showdown between The Bride (Uma Thurman) and the Crazy 88 gang in Kill Bill Vol. 1, the cinema massacre finale in Inglorious Basterds, and the Candieland shootout at the end of Django Unchained. These scenes have several things in common: appearing near the end of each film, they all serve as the adrenaline filled climax. The details of the violence itself are strikingly similar in each film as well, as each feature one prominent protagonist battling a much larger group of enemies, with one archetypal antagonist, serving as the protagonist’s final kill. In Kill Bill this enemy is O-Ren, a yakuza boss and old friend, in Basterds it is Hitler himself, and in Django it is Stephen, Mr. Candie’s African American butler. There is a rage and vendetta apparent in all of these rivalries, which serves to bring the viewer to the protagonist’s side by vilifying the enemy. Tarantino’s violence is also characterized by exaggerating levels of gore, including fountains of blood that look like they’ve come from fire hoses, and extreme levels of dismemberment that are bordering unrealistic. Tarantino purposefully shows violence through this exaggerated caricature lens, simultaneously showing the viewer that violent resolution of conflict is something that can be bred only from the most spiteful people, and that they, as the viewer, are completely enthralled with it.

            While Tarantino’s use of violence is borderline glorification, other filmmakers seek to condense the rage and passion that Tarantino expounds upon into short, brutal scenes, filled with a gritty and purely dark realism. Two scenes in particular that exemplify this are from American History X and 12 Years a Slave. These films, one about a Neo-Nazi who is moved to reform when he sees how he is influencing his younger brother, and one about a free American black man kidnapped and sold into slavery in the 1800’s, respectively, are very different from each other. However, with drawn out scenes of disturbingly real violence, they can be compared to one another. A scene from the beginning of Tony Kaye’s American History X shows the anti-hero protagonist, Derek Vinyard, dragging a black man, who is attempting to steal Derek’s car after a prior altercation, to the curb, forcing the man to “bite” it, so that Derek can stomp his face into the pavement. This is overkill, venting the hatred that Derek built up for minorities after the death of his father, a firefighter, in a minority neighborhood, that Derek performs with a smile on his face. It is disgusting, it is disturbing; it is fascinating, it is compelling. Rewind an approximate one hundred years from Derek and the curb, and we, the viewing audience, see the same level of brutality. A scene from Steve McQueen’s 12 Years a Slave shows the protagonist, Solomon Northup, hung from a tree by the neck so that his toes are just scraping the mud beneath him, suspended on the cusp of suffocation by a rope that is purposefully not tight enough to kill him. The other slaves on the plantation go quietly about their lives in the background, to a soundtrack of sputtering breaths, mud being compressed under Solomon’s toes, and quiet cicadas. The scene is grueling – lasting for about 3 minutes – and, as in Derek Vinyard’s case, brings the audience to pity the victim and detest the offender. These scenes are microcosms of the films they occur within, utilizing prolonged exposure to a small amount of time to convey the idea that men are brutal and violent creatures, doubly so when fueled by passion and prejudice.

            No matter how different the violence in these films and the stylistic inflections of their respective directors, they share similar ideas pertaining to the nature of human beings. While Tarantino prefers to stylize his blood and conflicts, other directors, such as Kaye and McQueen, made relatively brief scenes into the most memorable and important scenes, like a poet would condense a universal idea into a few words in a line. No matter what the vessel – aestheticism or realism – these films cause the audience to question just exactly what evils they are capable of as human beings, and whether the notion of human conflict as a whole will ever slip away from the human experience.