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Brian De Palma on Violence in movies & why he feels the ratings board has affected movies:
"Interviewer: In the past, thought, one might have felt you sported this "Mr. Violence" label as if it were a badge to be worn proudly.
De Palma: It's not a question of proudly or not proudly. Violence is justified in certain movies. The level of violence in something like "Saving Private Ryan" (1998) makes sense because Spielberg is trying to show something about the brutality of what happened.
I think in "Scarface" (1983) the violence was warranted; what I showed on the screen was nothing compared to what's happening on the news every night, where they find people cut up in garbage dumpsters. That's what they did to them: they sawed them up! I felt certain uses of intensity in a movie came out of... truth.
I threw a tremendous amount of it out of "Scarface". But what's there I think is important to keep in the movie. All in all, I think the Ratings Board has affected movies. Deeply. Violence is not even a question anymore. There's a lot of violence in the films you see, but today, "Godfather" (1972) would have an X, or an NC-17. The first movie I ever made, "Greetings" (1968) had an X - - If you take a look at "Greetings," you'll LAUGH at the idea that this movie has an X. So, please!
As you probably know, this is a smoke screen. The real battle is on television. They want the ratings to focus on the movies because it keeps us - - as everything in our culture - - from addressing the real problem, which is your son or your daughter can walk in and turn on hard-core p0rn0gr@phy. But nobody really wants to talk about that."
(Brian De Palma's interview with Henri Béhar, Film Scouts, 1998)
Clip From:
Saving Private Ryan (1998)
Director: Steven Spielberg
English
