Recently, filmmaker Mike Birbiglia took to Twitter to bemoan what he saw as an egregious bit of hypocrisy at the hands of the MPAA. Basically, the comedian’s second feature as a director, the excellent “Don’t Think Twice,” was tagged with an R-rating while the much more violent and vulgar “Suicide Squad” got away with a PG-13 pass. This is all the more baffling when you consider that “Suicide Squad” is astonishingly violent, pushing the PG-13 rating to its very limit. Meanwhile, “Don’t Think Twice” contains a smattering of curse words and a handful of scenes wherein the characters get stoned.
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In an instance like this, it really comes down to the way that the violence in “Suicide Squad” is portrayed. Filmmaker David Ayer has done worse in terms of carnage in films like “Sabotage” and “Fury,” and one senses that he was forced to tone down his aggressive sensibility for a big studio project with a great deal at stake. The violence in “Suicide Squad” is certainly bludgeoning, but it’s also mostly bloodless, which means that in spite that dozens and dozens of people get mowed down, that it narrowly manages to avoid an R rating. Surely, as enlightened film lovers in the 21st century, we are all by now familiar with the outmoded and puritanical methods by which the MPAA operates. Sex and drug use? Bad! Violence? Well, as long as there’s no blood…
It’s interesting to consider how different films handle violence, and what that says about both the filmmaker and the audience. Whereas “Suicide Squad” employs violence in much the same manner as a video game, anonymously dispensing with bad guys whilst lingering on slow-mo gunplay that couldn’t be more mistimed given the current political climate, directors like David Cronenberg, Quentin Tarantino and Nicolas Winding Refn have proved that violence is a tool with which artists can engage with and, in some cases, confront their own audiences.
Another filmmaker you might want to add to that list is Shane Black. While Black’s movies lack the go-for-broke viciousness of Tarantino or the body horror of Cronenberg, his films are also quite violent, albeit in a more slapsticky way. Black, to his credit, never glamorizes violence. A punch always seems like it really hurts in one of his films. If anything, Black seems to revel in the awkwardness of violence: look at this year’s riotously enjoyable neo-noir “The Nice Guys,” which beats its gumshoe “heroes” to pulp with the same delirious vigor of a Three Stooges flick.
Black’s matter-of-fact treatment of violence is at the heart of a new video essay from Nerdwriter called “How to Do Movie Violence Right.” There’s some neat insight here as to how violence is handled in personal films directed by real auteurs (and I believe that one could make the case that “The Nice Guys” falls under that category) versus superhero spectacles like “Captain America: Civil War” and “Batman Vs. Superman: Dawn of Justice.” These films are often frenetic and relentless with their action, but the consequences never feel especially pressing, since that we all know most of the heroes are contractually obligated to return for the next round of sequels. The narrator continually returns to Black’s filmography as an example of how to tell a satisfying story in the commercial realm whilst still treating violence in an honest fashion. To do so, he cites everything from Black’s underrated modern noir “Kiss Kiss Bang Bang” to the infamous opening set piece of “The Long Kiss Goodnight.” As the debate about movie violence and what is or is not appropriate continues unabated, videos such as this offer an understanding of how violence can be used as a cinematic tool – and, conversely, how it can be exploited for a cheap thrill.