Hey, writers. I watch a lot of action movies. I see a lot of violence. I think I’m used to seeing people get blown up and shot at and stabbed. Having said that, I recently saw a movie with a lot more violence and nudity than I expected.

Having said that, I recently saw Red Sparrow (starring Jennifer Lawrence). Don’t take your kids to see that movie. I’ve seen all kinds of violence and blood as a kid, and seriously, don’t take your kids to that movie.

Alright, writers, hit the jump and let’s talk about violence in our stories.

First things first. I saw the trailer for Red Sparrow and I was instantly curious as to what it was about. It seemed very spy-y (yes, I’m sure that’s a word), and it had Jennifer Lawrence in it. Yo, sign me up, am I right?

But once I got a bit into the movie I could tell that it wasn’t quite what I expected. The slow parts were slow and the parts that weren’t were quite jarring. (I’m sure that was the point, but I wasn’t really having fun for some of it.)

I can’t unsee that

So, without spoiling anything for Red Sparrow I want to talk about another movie from a long time ago. In Pan’s Labyrinth there are parts in which one person shoots another person–in the face.

Let’s talk about a typical movie, writers. Person A has a gun. Person B is about to be shot (this is assumed given the dialogue and the actions). Person C is watching this unfold. Person A holds the gun up and points it at B. Then maybe we get a close up of the index finger pulling the trigger ever so slightly. Then we cut to person C and we HEAR the bang and person C flinches.

Despite the obvious amount of violence happening in this scene, I consider this a low (to moderate) level of violence.

There is literally zero violence happening on screen. All we really see is the flinching of Person C. The sound is actually the cue of what is happening.

Quick aside, Disney’s Tarzan plays with this concept to a great effect. Tarzan manages to get a shotgun, and he holds the shotgun with the weapon pointed at Clayton’s face. Given the events that had transpired to that point, it was very clear that Tarzan was about to shoot Clayton in the face. Or at least that’s how it seemed.

We get a camera angle of Clayton’s face and he fears the worst. I mean seriously, there’s a man pointing a gun at this face. Clayton is smug that he won’t get shot.

Then BANG. There’s a really loud sound. Clayton winces.  For a brief moment, the audience is left wondering if the main character of a Disney movie just shot someone in the face. And…no, of course that didn’t happen. Tarzan was good at imitating noises and perfectly mimicked the sound of a gun firing.

Writers, the reason why I mentioned that is to show how uncommon it is for one character to shoot another in the face. In Pan’s Labyrinth, in an attempt to show how violent that world is, there’s a scene or two of someone getting shot in the face.

And the camera never cuts away.

Gun comes up, person’s face is right there, and BLAM. Blood is flying everywhere. It is a shocking moment, to say the least.

In Red Sparrow, no spoilers, you see everything. And, by everything, I mean everything. Writers, I grew up watching R-rated movies and there are many R-rated movies that I would share with children. (What I’m saying is that the rating is silly.  I am not “pro” traumatizing children.)

Having said that, I would say that the rating for Red Sparrow was just wrong. It was gratuitous enough that it should have been NC-17. By the way, I’ve seen movies rated NC-17 and I thought they should have been rated R. So, again, it’s a rating I found unreliable.

Either way, children seeing Red Sparrow? No. Just no.

Left, left, left right left

I’ve seen other movies with jarring content. In one particular movie, it starts out boring and has incredibly boring parts. In between those boring parts, the main character gets abused. Each one of these abuses are the kinds of things that could scar someone for life.

So we go from boring, to boring, and even more boring, then TRAUMATIC AND DISTURBING scene, and then back to boring. Rinse and repeat.

Or, in AlohaAlvin terms, we go from I don’t want to watch this, to I don’t want to watch this, to I don’t want to watch this, to I REALLY don’t want to watch this.

By the way, this movie won an Oscar and a Golden Globe and a Grammy and was nominated for many other awards. Meanwhile, I hated it. Just saying.

So the question now is, why are stories written this way?

And I take the high road

I’ve read in multiple places the idea of pacing. When you want a high, you also want a low preceding it. It makes the high more…interesting.

So, if you have a loud scene, you’d want a quiet scene preceding it. For instance, in Logan when Xavier is lying in bed, and he says “I don’t deserve [this beautiful night]” the scene that followed was ultra action-packed with a lot of violence. The Xavier scene was beautiful and  I enjoyed all the action in Logan. See, that’s writing done well in my book.

In theory, unfortunately, that means if you want to do a disturbing scene, then you want to do a boring scene first. The audience gets used to the boredom then ‘surprised’ by the disturbing stuff.

Done wrong, it just makes for a mess.

Done right, it’s good pacing. Red Sparrow does it well. Jennifer Lawrence can hold a screen all by her lonesome. Having said that, the disturbing stuff can be pretty disturbing.

I think that (chunks) could have been avoided if the marketing presented the movie differently. But that’s another issue entirely.

High-Low Mixup

Alright, writers, for the stories that you do that involve violence, the question becomes “How much violence should you have you in your story?”

I think super dark violence paints you into a corner. Super dark violence requires super slow scenes. It’s hard to do correctly. Having said that, Red Sparrow does it right.

So how about moderate and low levels of violence? (Keep in mind here that I am referring to frequency as well as shock-value.)

Well, there’s a movie that came out a long time ago. I don’t remember who was in it, or what it was called, but there was a scene that really stood out to me.

The main character is on live television and says into the camera commentary on their fictional world. Everything was being censored and blurred and it was difficult to find anything of substance in their world. He tells them that everything is fake or something like that. Then he pulls out a gun…and commits suicide.

For the record, I don’t think we actually see the event. There isn’t any brain matter or blood flying. Having said that though, imagine that world. Everything is ‘cleaned’ before it’s on TV and things are bland. Then boom, you see something so dark on live television. Live meaning they can’t “pre-cleanse” it.

In this case there isn’t violence on TV 25/7 and that one act, therefore, is extra shocking. There’s “less” violence in this case, but it is done for a reason. Clap clap clap.  Very nice.

The violence serves a purpose. It stands out and fits into the story. I would say that if you want to have a large amount of violence, that this is still important.

For disturbing violence we must ensure that we avoid the boring-boring-boring-TRAUMATIZING formula.

Likewise, for the common action scene, we must ensure that we avoid the cacophony of noise that is so common in so many action movies.

Eenie Meenie Minie Moe

So writers, how much violence do you inject into your stories and why? Sound off in the comments below!

Aloha,
Alvin