Quentin Tarantino Books

If all you know about Bakshi is his rotoscope pictures, you're in for a surprise. Ralph is one of the most innovative and wildly creative geniuses of recent times. His influence on animation is immense. On the back cover, Frank Frazetta is quoted as saying, 'Ralph Bakshi is one of the finest artists I've ever met.' He isn't exaggerating a bit.

If you are an artist working in animation, whether you know it or not, Ralph Bakshi is the reason you're here. Don't believe me? Throw your mind back to 1970. Look at what the animation business had turned into... Disney was cranking out Robin Hood, a film without a single new idea. On TV, Filmation was lowering the bar so Hanna Barbera could play 'quality limbo' with them. Animation was dying, animators were choosing retirement over flogging the dead carcass of the art form they loved, and it looked like it the situation would never get any better.

Enter Bakshi. With his first three films, he turned animation upside down. He showed that it wasn't just a medium for big bears with Phil Harris's voice and crappy sitcom characters in outer space. His films shocked and terrified people... they were crass and sloppy. They were made on a shoestring, and sometimes it showed. But they had something honest to say, and that got noticed. Ralph showed that animation- the most collaborative art form ever- could be an intensely personal medium.

Ralph's first three films- Fritz the Cat, Heavy Traffic, and Coonskin- came totally out of the blue. They are the animation equivalent of Louis Armstrong's Hot Fives. Great old time animators like Irv Spence, Ambi Paliwoda and Virgil Ross were offered the opportunity to cut loose and make films that weren't just cats chasing mice and dogs chasing cats. These films dealt with what it meant to be an artist, the battle of the sexes, race relations, and the unsenimentalized realities of urban life. They were improvisational and had no rules.

These three films, made in the darkest of the dark ages of animation, offered a glint of hope for what animation could become. If all you've seen of Ralph's work is Lord of the Rings and Fire and Ice you don't know what I'm talking about here. All of the adult targeted animation you see in the US today has its roots in Ralph's example in these three films. They stirred up controversy and caused riots at screenings back in the day, but now they seem to us like they could have been made yesterday, not three decades ago- except for the fact that today's world has trouble accepting brutal honesty when it comes to politically charged topics. Ralph has never been one to pull punches.

In the 1980s, Ralph did for television animation what he did for theatrical features, blowing the lid off of CBS's Saturday morning schedule with Mighty Mouse: The New Adventures. Ralph took a chance on the ideas of a kid named John Kricfalusi, and set up the studio after the unit structure model used at Warners. Artists were cut loose to create cartoons. Without Mighty Mouse, there never would have been Ren & Stimpy or The Simpsons. The artists who worked on Mighty Mouse have gone on to lead the TV animation industry. Ralph is an absolute genius when it comes to spotting raw talent. He can take a kid straight out of school and turn him into a pro faster than anyone else. Every film had its 'graduating class' of kids. Those kids now populate the animation business on every level, from the top Producer at Disney feature to the creative sparks at Warners. I know of Bakshi alumni who are top dogs at Dreamworks and the CGI companies too.

As a filmmaker, Ralph is one-of-a-kind. He doesn't make films for executives... he doesn't even make films for a specific audience. He makes them for himself. You can count the number of animators capable of using this unweildy medium for personal expression on one hand and still have fingers left. Ralph is one of them. But Ralph is not only the greatest living animation artist. He is the catylist that has more than once pulled the industry out of a hole so deep people had just about given up on cartoons. For that alone, he deserves the respect of any and all animators, whether they like his work or not.

If the animation business needs anything right now, it's another go round with Bakshi. The era of shi-shi 'distressed' animation desks complete with faux wormholes, and middle management producers driving Jaguars paid for by their bonus checks is over. That was great for the people lucky enough to hook up to the gravy train while it lasted. But times have changed. The people left standing will be the ones who REALLY CARE about the medium of animation.

You can take my word for the fact that no one loves cartoons more than Ralph. Read this book and hear him talk about Jim Tyer. (Ralph was Tyer's assistant...) Listen to what he has to say about Spence or Maltese or any of the other old timers he brought in to work on his films. Ralph lives and breathes animation. His drawings are imbued with the whole history of the medium. He announces his retirement every once in a while, and swears off cartoons forever, but it's in his blood. Just count the days till the bellowing voice out of the blue hollers 'BAKSHI'S BACK, YOU BASTUHDS!' over the studio intercom again.

It's time for Ralph to rent a warehouse, fill it full of kids with big dreams, raw talent and lots of ideas and crank out a film. It doesn't even matter if it turns out crappy. It'll be a shot in the arm to the whole business, and it just might lead to something even better. I know I'd love to be a part of it.

UNFILTERED: The Complete Ralph Bakshi isn't one of those 'art books' with postage stamp sized pictures floating in oceans of tasteful white space and huge text blocks of scholarly blather that crowds out the images. It's just pictures, pictures and more pictures... along with just enough text to put them in context. Artwork by Frank Frazetta, John Kricfalusi, Barry Jackson, Louise Zingarelli, Michael Ploog, Ian Miller, Irv Spence, Robert Dranko, Mark Kausler and Ambi Paliwoda. The book is organized to show Ralph's career from his earliest days at Terry-Toons, to his groundbreaking features, to his revolutionary TV work, to his most recent fine art paintings. BUY THIS BOOK!

Stephen Worth
ASIFA-Hollywood Animation Archive

Unfiltered: The Complete Ralph Bakshi is one of the best animator/animation books I have read in the last 10 yrs. It is not only full of information on Ralph Bakshi, but also with tons and tons of his artwork. This ranges from cells to ink drawings to roughs and at the end they have put a bunch of his paintings. This book has really inspired me and is an easy read.
Before reading this book I had only seen Fritz the Cat and some of the Mighty Mouse series. I knew I liked Ralph Bakshi, but after this book I have such a stronger love of his work, and how he changed the Animation industry. His films were real, and based on his experience growing up in New York. They might be vulgar and push the line of decency, but his works reflect who he is and how he grew up. They were vulgar for a reason, not just to be vulgar for vulgar's sake. The movies reflect the man.

I've been an animation fan my entire life. Yet, there has always been a wierd thing about Ralph Bakshi I could not understand. The rotoscoping, the crazy backgrounds and somewhat unfinished quality to the work. After reading this book I understand clearly now who the man is behind the work and I appreciate his work even more so. This isn't a book about animation, this a book about a man's soul thrown onto the silverscreen and dares you to watch with an open mind. I sat and read this book straight through without stopping. A very awesome and unique book!

Very pleased to report that my copy of Bakshi's new book "Unfiltered" arrived yesterday via Amazon.com. The pre-order price was $25 which was a amazing for a $40 list hardcover book from Amazon.

The book is insane! Everything you could ask for about his life, history, artistic phases from early cartooning straight through Harlem Shuffle and Spicy City. So pleased to have my Bakshi fix in one "huge" book!

Mostly enjoyed understanding his life and the doodles and art that is sprinkled throughout. Also enjoyed the dedicated sections tied to his movies. Heavy Traffic and American Pop are my favs here.

If you don't have it...get it. What a blessing...

This book took you behind the scenes to Bakshi's creative & imaginative mind while featuring some great, colorful pictures of his "ahead-of-the-curve" animation. I personally liked how each of his feature films had a section of their own summarizing Bakshi's story-line and how his direction to the artists resulted in some excellent art. I loved the last section of the book showing how Bakshi changed from animator to serious painter. Art lovers and film lovers will enjoy viewing throughout this book.

Tarantino's "Reservoir Dogs" is a MUST teaching tool for film schools. This is precisely what we want to tell students how they can make great films with bare minimum resources and lots of creativity. The entire film was shot in a funeral home warehouse (cheap rent)which was used for shooting most scenes and for turning an upstairs room into Mr Orange's flat. There was no big budget for grand sets,costumes, pretty girls and handsome faces but the right mix of creativity, talents, a fine script, the strong performance of the right cast and crew delivers miracles!!

The Tarantino phenomenon begins with "Reservoir Dogs", the film written and directed by Quentin Tarantino which won him worldwide acclaim and gave him his first break.

Eight to eighty years old are fascinated by the riveting story and moved by the unlikely friendship developed between Tim Roth/Mr Orange (the undercover cop) and Harvey Keitel/Mr White (the veteran criminal who unknowingly took Mr Orange under his wing, cared for him while he was badly wounded and got himself mortally wounded protecting Mr Orange in a shootout which saw him killing his longtime criminal friends Joe Cabot and Nice Guy Eddie for the sake of Mr Orange in a scene made famous by Mr White's line:"Kill that man, you die next.") In the end, because of honour and friendship, Mr Orange told Mr White the truth and was executed point blank by a sobbing Mr White who was in turn brought down by a shower of bullets of the arriving police.

The stunned audience will forever carry the powerful image of Cop and Criminal embraced in Death.

It is not just the plot that captivates our imagination, it is Tarantino's ability to make us captive audience witnessing scenes of violence and suspense while he eases our tensions with the light-hearted K-Billy's Supersounds of the Seventies(think the ear-hacking torture scene of Marvin Nash, the cop tied to a chair by Mr Blonde). Well, who can ever forget the violent ear-hacking scene accompanied by Stealers Wheel's delightful "Stuck In the Middle With You". Ingenious! Brilliant!!

It is great that the Reservoir Dogs Screenplay has this watershed,climactic scene of Tim Roth/Mr Orange shooting Mr Blonde as its cover. Think the horror and helplessness of the audience when the psychopathic Mr Blonde hacked off the ear of the cop tied to a chair to the tune of "Stuck in the Middle with You" and doused him in petrol and Mr Orange delivered the surprise fatal rounds of shots to save the poor cop just in time, much to our relief. It was only then that we discovered the undercover role of Mr Orange.

For Reservoir Dogs fans, this has to be one of the most coveted and treasured items. The screenplay not only provides the entire script with all the dialogue of the movie, hence "Dogs" fans can recite the lines along with their heroes or even before they deliver the lines at movie-screenings, the introductory article "The Miscegenated Cinema of Quentin Tarantino" by Stanley Crouch also makes interesting reading. This screenplay is well produced with plenty of still photos from the movie and more.

Tarantino has picked up a metaphorical batton where Scorcese left, and used stimulating dialogue and complex storyline, with a feel good vibe at the end with a post sex 'Wow! That was great'. Tarantino's obsession with making crime more stimulating through black culture and drugs helped move this moveie along. Keitel was great, Roth was good. Not as great as Pulp Fiction, but you can see the stems of his talent in this movie, better than in True Romance.

Ah yes...Tarantino's first script entitled True Romance which he sold for 30,000 dollars is a genius effort of great proportion and the writing, you will notice in subsequent films and scripts,is common for him. Certain terms will show up later on in other movies. And as for Reservoir Dogs,his second greatest film ever,he used the money from True Romance's script to make this ingenius mob classic complete with terms used in his other films including one or two from True Romance.

This maximum script by Oscar-winning writer Quentin Tarantino offers a vivid portrait of the finished film, even if you haven't seen it! This is a brilliant scenario, with an informal introduction to boot, but it Tarantino's style of writing and his management of characters that makes it click. Enjoy.

"Reservoir Dogs" is one of my favorite movies. Just the acting, the writing, the mood, the setting, the characters....just everything about it I loved! After reading the screenplay for "Pulp Fiction," I decided to pick this up. "Reservoir Dogs: The Screenplay" is a must-have for any "Reservoir" fan.

Tarantino's writing is so clever and realistic. These people talk like real people! If you see movies about criminals, they're always talking about the heist, how big and bad they are, and what they would do if the cops would try to take them down. Have you ever heard a criminal trying to explain the orgin of Madonna's "Like a Virgin?" Have you heard a criminal explain why he doesn't believe in tipping? Or, have you ever seen a criminal dance to the song "Stuck in the Middle with You?" just before brutally torturing a cop? Of course not! That's why the material works and is so original. We actually believe these characters created out of fiction are real. And that's what's so great about it.

Here's a quick description of the story: Things go horribly wrong when perfect strangers plan to pull off the perfect caper. As it turns out, they were set up...but by who? Now, they must uncover the rat in the house before the cops are able to get them. In a crime/noir where no one is safe and everyone fears each other, ANYTHING is possible.

The book includes photos from the movie, as well as things that were either cut out from the movie or added in later. Pretty cool, if you ask me. That way, it's like you're experiencing it for the very first time.

Tarantino is a master when it comes to writing and directing. If you loved the movie, then you are bound to enjoy "Reservoir Dogs: The Screenplay," filled with humor, suprises, and a shocking conclusion.

This is a well written and interesting read. A must for all Tarantino fans and an excellent addition and reference for your DVD collection. Not to be missed.

This is a must have book for Tarantino fans. It is very easy to read and does not patronise the reader like some other film books do. Buy it now!

Well - I enjoyed it!!!... as an admirer of Tarantino, although not a fanatic, I found it an easy, sensible, informed read and it lead me to admire the bloke a lot more after reading this than I did before. I looked at other books recommended by the other 'critic' but they weren't (in my opinion) as smooth to read as this one - which is laid out with interesting little boxed snippets to the pages. Brilliant title by the way (which attracted me in the first place, incidentally)

"Page's book is a quick glance over Tarantino's films from literary studies perspective. A good companion if you want to check out approaches on how to look at the films. Everyone who hasn't read the indispensible trio Bernard-Holm-Smith yet, or everyone who just wants to read a simple, fast and uncomplicated analysis of his films, should ca nit, but the book just is not really more than that." -Sebastian H. (Full review available at www.tarantino.info)

I read this on the way to Seattle and I thought it was okay. I didn't know Tarantino would write something like this. It was very unusual. I didn't care for the movie at all. I really think Robert Rodriguez is a good director and very creative. I just didn't think this one was all that great.

Quentin Taratino's 'Pulp Fiction', 'Jackie Brown, and 'Reservoir Dogs' screenplays were outstanding. But, 'From Dusk till Dawn' is borderline o.k. Robert Rodriguez destroys the film with his pathetic directing so I bought the screenplay to see Tarantino's script, hoping it would be better, but was terribly dissapointed. The script is certainly not Tarantino's best and the plot is really bad when it gets to the monster part. It is a shame Tarantino wasted his brilliant writing on some two-bit monster flick. (there were some cool conections with his other movies though.)

since i saw your movie i said to my self i need a titty twister my dreams have come true titty twister in bangkok,thailand.a go a go bar will open on 31 oct, wish me luck i am going to display all your poster got few from states i need one of yours were can i find one.Tell cheech want to stop by Thanks n regards santos

From Dusk Till Dawn is the best Quentin Tarantino screenplay, besides Pulp Fiction. He combines the story of two criminal brothers and vampires at a Mexican bar.

You'd better hope you don't cross paths with the infamous Gecko brothers Richie and Seth. They're fond of banks robbing them, that is. They're tough. Cool. Notorious. In From Dusk Till Dawn, we follow them as they tear a path through the heartland of America on their way to the border. It is there, near El Paso, that they will meet up with their Mexican partners-in-crime to divvy up the loot they've acquired.

Along the way, though, an innocent family will enter their lives an ex-Baptist preacher, his teenage son, and sexy daugh ter. We watch as Richie and Seth enlist the family's help in get ting them safely across the border in the family's Winnebago. When they arrive at their dreamed-about world south of the border, they are met with a terrifying twist.

Move over Dracula, there is a new vampire king.

King Pulp is a reaveling biography of Quentin Tarantino(movie wise). The book tells many interesting facts that even the most hardcore Tarantino followers will hear for the first time. Though the book tells alot about his movies,It should have gone more indepth about the man behind them. There are many very cool photos of him on the job and pictures from his movies. A must read for any Tarantino devotee.

This book chronicles the caeer and succes of the of the most influential filmmakers of the past decade. The book is composed of essays, interviews, articles, and reviews surrounding the works of QT. Any QT fan must have this book. It discusses topics ranging from the Reservoir Dogs torture scene to the contents of the Pulp Fiction "briefcase" to QT's own personal favorites.

"The Tarantinian Ethics" is an interesting book, delving into the psychoanalysis of Tarantino's movies and scripts. The chapters discuss the ideas of professionalism, personality, romance, consumption, and horror as they are represented in Tarantino's works. Though the writing is excellent and the subject matter very intriguing, without being a student of psychoanalysis, a fair amount of the analysis is difficult to understand. Those who are interested in discussions of the meaning of Tarantino's works would enjoy the work but most likely would not completely understand the discussion.

There are people who seem to either enjoy Stone's movie and hate Quentin's screenplay or vice versa. Fact is I enjoyed both. Quentin Tarantino's original screenplay for "Natural Born Killers" is far different from the nightmarish acid trap that it became once Oliver Stone got his hands on it. Stone's film is far more epic and sadistic though Quentin's version isn't exactly a day at Disney World either. Much of Quentin's work is used in the film version though the way the story is told is so completely different than it was clearly conceived. The opening diner sequence is nearly the exact same as presented in the film though this is really the only one of Mickey and Mallory's murder spree sequences that Quentin intended to include (aside from the court room murder which was "deleted" from Stone's cut). Following that, the script takes a much different approach with it being told almost entirely in a documentary style with Wayne Gale (played in the film by Robert Downey) acting as the central character. Jack Scagnetti, who was a sadistic crooked cop in Stone's "NBK", is far less brutal in this one and is not positioned as a longtime rival of the murderous couple but more as a veteran cop being sold into hauling the two killers to the asylum. While the character of Dewight McClusky (played by Tommy Lee Jones in the movie) was a character in this script as well, his role is decreased and most of his action was written for a character named Wurlitzer, who didn't make Stone's version. The majority of the first half of the filmed "Killers" was not a part of the original Tarantino story and most of the social commentary was also absent. If you're a Tarantino fan or someone who would like a different take on the "NBK" story, this is an intruiging read.

A man who has not lived a life cannot tell a real story. Tarentino's films are universally and fundamentally boring for anyone who has ever lived a real life and not just fantasized about having one. His dipictions of violence eminate from his own personal lack of sexual energy. Sadly, teenage males without girlfriends seem to like these slammed together video games that are being called brilliant, and continue to support the trash factory that generates this type of hyper garbage. It's especially sad when a true film afficienado understands the brilliance of all of the original pictures which he doggedly ripped off and claimed the scenes for his own. If one more person calls this sad, pathetic, lack of a man a genious, I will become even more sick of him. Please get a life and buy a real movie.

I've always wondered why people read plays but not movie scripts, and after reading "Natural Born Killers," I wonder that even more.
This is a great script for a movie that could have been excellent if Quentin Tarantino, the script's author, had directed the movie himself. I don't know WHAT Oliver Stone was trying to do.
The script, in case you don't know, is the story of a husband and wife with an insane past that go on a love-fuelled, almost invincible killing rampage across the country. Their crimes are senseless and random, and the media (and the public) LOVES them. It's the bizarre story of their killing sprees, their romance, their capture, and their escape, and...well, I don't want to give too much away.
The script follows an incredibly cool format, of being mostly an hour-long TV special about the two killers, intertwined with the people making the TV special and interviewing the killers themselves, intertwined with flashbacks.
It could have been an amazing movie, but instead we got a weird, cartoonish mess that exudes barely any of the well-developed themes, tight action, and believable characters (individuals and mobs) that Quentin Tarantino actually wrote.
Read the script, and skip the movie--that's what I say. Read the script, and hope that maybe someday Tarantino will remake the movie himself, the right way, the way it should have been.

I rented the movie directed by Oliver Stone due to the fact that Quentin Tarantino's name was on the story credits and I knew that Oliver Stone among others had messed with his script and Tarantino had removed his name from the screenwriting credits but I wanted to see it anyways.I thought the movie sucked,I hated it.So I bought the original script to see how the movie could've been and this is a great script.There's no mention of how the cinematography should look.There's no sexually abusive sitcom father,nor indian guy.This is how the film should have been.The movie is virtually just a big TV special by Wayne Gale who was played in the movie by Robert Downey Jr. The story is amazingly different.The opening scene is the same though.The story is basically Mickey and Mallory Knox in jail while Mickey is being interviewed by Wayne Gale.That's it.Buy this script.Burn the movie.Enjoy

This is, quite frankly, one of the most boring scripts I have ever read. The only reason I finished it was that I was such a huge fan of the movie. It is vastly inferior to Oliver Stone's version of the film, and far from portraying the charatcters as "monsters," it portrays them as two-dimensional cartoons. There is no development for any of these characters, and there is no reason given that Mickey and Mallory would even care about each other. Their relationship isn't even really hinted at. One of the truly great things about Stone's film was the way that Mickey and Mallory were portrayed in the middle, from when they actually were married to when they were finally arrested, especially in the scene with the Indian. Tarantino's script lacks any subtlety, contrary to what another reviewer stated. What Oliver Stone created from this script was a mesmerizing film about thhe allure and addiction to violence in our culture. What Tarantino envisioned was a juvenile mishmash of unappealing characters without even a reason to exist. (What the Hell was the point of Wayne Gale's assistant having no tongue?) Anyway, I hope that Tarantino continues to move on from this very amateur script, and never tries to make his own version, as I'm sure he won't. I hope he at least realizes that this script was NOT that good.

A lot can be said for this book, but I'll try to keep it short.

First, the cons. This book can be a bit dry. It takes a genre (i.e. Law and Order for police movies), then it will choose several films from this genre and discuss what the movie was about, why critics either hated it or liked it. Some movies even get a section on any particularly famous, gory scenes within. Another thing that I didn't particularly care for was that it included several horror films that weren't particularly violent. Psycho, which has a relatively low body count when compared with Friday the 13th, etc. Of course, Psycho was included because it was directed by the master Alfred Hitchcock, but doesn't seem ultra-violent.

The best thing about this book is that it shows how violence has progressed in movies, starting with Bonnie and Clyde, all the way through RoboCop (one of the bloodiest action movies ever made in my opinion). Many well known movies are discussed (Dirty Harry, Clockwork Orange), as well as some smaller, lesser-known movies (Walking Tall).

The pros far outwiegh the cons. For any one who lies their movies full of Desert Eagle handguns, this book is for you.

Violence has been an integral part of art in all its forms ever since man invented art. It has been, and probably always will be, a part of life, no matter how civilized we become. Civilization itself is not only created and molded by violence, but sustained, perpetuated, and developed by its application or the threat of it.

Violence is disturbing but it can also be cathartic, and art presents both of these in an unsettling synthesis that is bound to get as many people upset as it will get to delight in it. Going back to Sumerian myths, Greek tragedies, Chinese folk tales, Elizabethan drama, and more recent literary examples reveals a long and cherished tradition of reveling in violent excess to the great entertainment of audiences as varied as one can imagine. Pictorial art tries to outdo the written word with cruel displays of bloodletting, and even when ostensibly depicting religious events the artists tend to go for the shocking, sensational, and sublimely disturbing.

It is little wonder then that films, just another art form, would seize on this long tradition, integrate it into its own canons, and fully participate in it, expanding it and adapting it according to the requirements and possibilities of the medium.

Films that depict violence have always been subject to the ferocious attacks from various corners, depending on what the movie portrays. What do the film-makers do or say in their defense? This is the subject matter of Bouzereau's book. It is not as much about what violence is, what role it plays in society, and how it is reflected in the arts, as it is about the various responses to its presence in films. The author traces how critics, the public, the law, the industry, and finally, the directors themselves view the presence of violence in these films.

The book is divided into eight chapters that cover everything from the films of Sam Peckinpah to those of Clive Barker. While the book does not dwell on horror films apart from some brief look at slasher, fantasy, and zombie movies, it does present a rather extensive catalogue of the most famous violent movies made in the U.S. This should be made quite clear: the book is only about American films despite featuring a Belgian B&W feature and making references to reactions in Britain and France to some of the films in the study.

This is a shortcoming, and a very serious one, because it deprives us of the comparative look at violent films that might shed some light on the role of violence in life and art, and thereby provide a much better justification for its use in films. Some cultures are even more tolerant to violence than America (e.g. Japan) and their arts inevitably reflect that as well. Omitting serious cinema from around the world handicaps the argument by forcing a distinctly American frame of reference on a globally shared phenomenon.

Ultimately, the book does not offer much insight. It is really a collection of film synopses, woven around anecdotes, interviews with directors, and cursory look at the controversies surrounding some of the films. Even this becomes fragmented in the second part of the book, with the chapters getting shorter, as if the author was in a hurry writing them, and the discussion being less and less attentive to the social implications of the subject matter. By the end of the book, the author simply recites brief summaries of the films and sometimes does not even include much of the reaction to them at all.

It is as if The Wild Bunch, Clockwork Orange, and Natural Born Killers are somehow worthier than Night of the Living Dead, Scream, or Man Bites Dog. Again, the ugly and entirely artificial distinction between art haute and the low-brow, low-budget horror flick rears its ugly head. Even in this marginalized genre hierarchy is imposed by critics who seek to redeem the images of death by uncovering some social commentary in the films.

The premise, however, appears flawed to me. It assumes that these films are in need of defending. Indeed, the book (and the directors) spend a lot of time trying to justify the violence in these films. Most of them center around the "life is full of violence, we're just showing it they way it is" variety. But this defense misses an essential point. If movies were simply photographs of reality, they would make great 8 o'clock news, but art they will not make.

It is naive to claim that art is just a mirror of reality. The film-makers do that for obvious reasons: they want to protect their creations from the depredations of the multidinous censors. Yet art's purpose is to evoke emotions. Showing violence does that. But so do romance, horror, bravery, depression, you name it. If it's well done, the audience would respond. And that is the purpose of art, to get a response. A lot of times we might be surprised at our own reactions, we might even be disgusted by them. Maybe the veneer of civilization is not as thin as many would have us believe and maybe, just maybe, our rational selves would be able to recognize and suppress these traits that we deem unworthy of perpetuating.

Civilization has routinely glorified violence and for good reason. We always have to fight for our gains, we always have to protect our freedoms. Liberty dies as soon as we are unable to kill to keep it.

Violence is destructive, it is ugly, and it is life. There is no existence apart from violence. We may not like it, we may deplore it, but it will never be further than inches away from even the most docile among us. Violence can also be a way of expressing ourselves and thus moving others. There can be no heroes without violence. Being a hero means overcoming fear and the only fear worth overcoming is that of untimely violent death. Getting rid of violence in the arts would simultaneously rid us of our heroes.

And anytime an author can make gore an exciting and interesting element, then he's done his job. DEATH WISH, WALKING TALL, TAXI DRIVER, A CLOCKWORK ORANGE, and more. Buy it and be disgusted [...] and just enjoy!

The author summarizes the plots of about a dozen violent movies, then he summarizes the critics' reaction to those movies. That's about it. The interview with Oliver Stone is pointless. If you want to read a really good book on this subject, try The Blood Poets by Jake Horsley.