In the history of world cinema, which films’ values ??have caused huge social controversy?

Category 1: Erotica

"Last Tango in Paris", "Sensory World", "Half-cooked Boy", "Deep Throat", "Midnight Cowboy", etc.

“Sex” is always the most controversial topic and arouses public outcry. At the same time, it is often the angle that filmmakers are most willing to choose to break the constraints.

The 1971 film "Deep Throat" is almost useless from the perspective of film art. However, because the film's bold subject matter coincided with the sexual liberation trend in the United States in the 1970s, it became a controversial film. work.

The film is equivalent to showing a hard-core pornographic film in theaters. As a result, it was banned in 23 states in the United States, and 5 related companies and 12 actors and actresses were sued in court. However, some people who support sexual liberation and advocate artistic freedom chose to support this film. The judge stated: "The throat of this film should be cut." On the same day, the World Theater where the film was screened put up a slogan: The judge cut the throat, the whole world is sad.

Ironically, one official, Charles Keating, commented on the film: "The filth has swallowed up the brains, hearts and souls of the United States like a flood! This is an unprecedented disaster!" As a result, this person Officials were later charged with corruption. Another official, Roy Cohn, vowed to send Raines to prison, but Cohn soon died of AIDS - it turned out that he had always been gay.

In the end, the male lead in the film was jailed for five years, and the female lead later stated that "there was a gun pointed at my head" during filming.

The 1972 "Last Tango in Paris" is a classic case of the dispute between erotica and art because it was directed by the famous director Bertolucci. Because of the film's sexual depictions, the Rome High Court found Bertolucci and the male and female protagonists guilty of "obscenity." Bertolucci was sentenced to two months in prison, deprived of his civil rights for ten years, and ordered to destroy the film footage! Some European countries also banned the film.

Oshima Nagisa’s masterpiece "The World of the Senses" was also turned into a French film because of its bold and direct description of sex, and it was sent to France for post-production and editing - because France had just lifted its ban on pornography at the time. Film restrictions. The film was banned in Japan.

In recent years, movies that boldly express eroticism, such as "The Kid", "Antichrist" and "Nymphomaniac", have become commonplace, but the social repercussions they arouse are far less intense than they were 40 years ago. .

Category 2: Religion

"The Passion of the Christ", "The Last Temptation of Christ", "The Exorcist", "Eternal Star", etc.

Religion has always been a sensitive topic, especially in countries with strong religious traditions such as the United States, Italy, Spain, and the United Kingdom. Many filmmakers dare to shoot bold social themes and even break through sexual taboos, but they are extremely cautious about religious content.

When Martin Scorsese was filming "The Last Temptation of Christ", his old partner Robert De Niro finally gave up the role. Because the film depicts Christ as a mortal who even decided to marry and have children with the prostitute Mary Magdalene at one point, it aroused strong dissatisfaction from some church institutions. Some congregants even went to protest outside the theater where the film was shown. Prevent spectators from entering. A religious group even wanted to spend $6.5 million to buy copies of the film from Universal and destroy them! Many countries have also banned it.

Similar to this are the classic horror film "The Exorcist" and the spoof "Jesus Christ". In the former film, a cross is inserted into a girl's lower body. The latter tells the story of an ordinary man, Brian, who was regarded as the savior due to various mistakes and was eventually crucified. It is an extremely satirical and exaggerated spoof. As you can imagine, both films encountered strong resistance from church organizations - "The Exorcist" was once banned in the UK, and the video tape was not even allowed to be released.

The 2004 "The Passion of the Christ" directed by the famous actor Mel Gibson is a counterexample - in addition to the extremely direct violent and bloody scenes of the film, more importantly, its religious tendencies and anti-Semitic tendencies have caused widespread controversy dispute.

But this time, it was the sect that supported the film.

"The Passion of the Christ" gives a detailed and realistic presentation of Jesus' final journey to the cross, showing the difficulties he suffered and the contradictory pain in his heart. After its release, the film was approved by the Pope, and a large number of Christian groups organized a group viewing when Easter came (this kind of group organization to watch movies is considered rare in North America). As a result, the film received an astonishing box office of 370 million US dollars in North America (" "Man of Steel" currently has a box office of only US$250 million in North America) and a global box office of US$610 million. This is an astonishing number that many commercial blockbusters find difficult to achieve!

The New Yorker and other left-wing magazines satirized and criticized it in the form of cartoons and reviews. They believed that the film had nothing new in promoting religious spirit and was tantamount to flattering the church. On the Rotten Tomatoes website, the film’s freshness rating is only 49! Critics were mostly negative about the film. What's more serious is that the film vaguely shows the Jewish attitude of blame for the death of Christ - in 1965, the Holy See had officially pardoned the "crime" of the Jews, stating that they would no longer have to bear it. The heavy crime of "killing Jesus". The film brought up old stories again, and it was set in Hollywood, where Jews dominate, so it naturally caused an uproar. (Both Gibson and his father later made anti-Semitic remarks)

After the arrival of the new millennium, various denominations such as Christianity and Catholicism are also undergoing reforms, trying to show a new look in the new era. After all, the harsh and terrifying Middle Ages have long since become a thing of the past. When "The Da Vinci Code", which also dealt with religious issues, was released, the church was already very tolerant of it and stopped making irresponsible remarks. They probably also understood that it was just a commercial film using religion as a gimmick.

The third category: Politics

"The Birth of a Nation", "Triumph of the Will", "The Secret History of the Qing Palace", "The Biography of Wu Xun", etc.

Political correctness ( PC (abbreviated as PC) is also one of the potential criteria of movies. This standard is often hidden in a deeper level. The "controversy" caused by this is often a matter of life and death for the movie itself and the filmmakers!

The domestic films "The Secret History of the Qing Palace" and "The Legend of Wu Xun" are the best examples. The former tells the story of the era of Guangxu, Concubine Zhen and Cixi. Because the description of the Boxer Rebellion in the film was relatively negative, it hit the target and was widely criticized as a tool to attack Liu Shaoqi. At that time, Hong Kong newspapers reprinted the full text of Qi Benyu's "Patriotism or Traitorism - Comment on Reactionary Movies". The film director Zhu Shilin was very angry after reading it. He had been lying on a canvas chair all day due to illness and got up angrily. He suddenly fell down after taking a few steps. He died after being sent to the hospital! "The Legend of Wu Xun" has been banned for many years, and it is still rare to see it. What the film raises is no longer a dispute over values, but has been raised to the level of a dispute over world outlook, outlook on life and line, and serves to scare the monkeys.

Whether a movie is PC or whether it has values ??issues is not the basic basis for affirming or denying a movie - unless the movie is so insane that it violates the basic limits of human consciousness (for example, for the Nazis) Overturn the verdict or praise the Khmer Rouge). Even the documentary "Triumph of the Will", which Riefenstahl made for Nazi propaganda, and the film "The Birth of a Nation", which glorified the notorious Ku Klux Klan, were not relegated to the cold palace. "The Birth of a Nation" depicts black people as ugly, while all white people are "great and upright". After the film was released in 1915, it encountered nationwide protests in the United States, but in 1993, the film was still It is listed in the National Film Registry and is preserved and protected as an important film cultural material.

Category 4: Violence and Social Norms

"Natural Born Killers", "I Spit on Your Grave", "House", "School", "A Clockwork Orange", "Bonnie" and Clyde" "120 Days of Sodom"

Violence is also something that movies are happy to show. There is reflection and denial in it, but it must also be admitted that violent images can often bring adrenal stimulation to the audience. Produce a sense of thrilling pleasure.

The so-called aesthetics of violence on the screen is to derealize and exaggerate violent scenes, making them as far away from the threat and horror of reality as possible, and transforming them into a sense of beauty and ritual.

However, there are many movies that are unwilling to illusory violence in order to pursue a sense of reality. These movies often present bloody violence and uncomfortable scenes of rape and murder on the screen, forcing the audience to feel and go. Experience, and then think about it (not necessarily all can reach this level).

For example, several B-level movies in the 1970s and 1980s, such as "I Spit on Your Grave", "The Devil's House", and "School", etc., all depict violence and rape in very explicit and realistic ways - the film "The Devil" While filming a rape scene in "House", actress Sandra Peabody felt so hurt that she couldn't control herself and had to leave the set.

"A Clockwork Orange" and "Natural Born Killers" seemed to adopt a neutral attitude towards the protagonists of the films: gangsters, murderers, and violent perpetrators, which resulted in many copycat crimes. Behavior. According to statistics, there have been 12 murders imitating "Natural Born Killers" in North America and overseas. In one case, the victim's family took the director's film company Warner to court.

At that time, "Bonnie and Clyde", which ushered in the new Hollywood era, was considered to glorify criminals and was offensive to morals, triggering the subsequent movie trend of "bad guys as protagonists". "120 Days of Sodom" shows violence, abuse, and eroticism to the extreme! ——In 1977, when a British theater showed the uncut version of the film, it was raided by the police! It was not until 2001 that the British Board of Film Classification allowed theaters to screen a much-truncated version of the film.

We have seen that sex, violence, standard social norms, religion, and politics are the most controversial aspects of movies. These controversial movies have often become less shocking and unacceptable as time has passed. Today's audiences who are accustomed to the heavy taste of cult B-movies may seem a bit unimpactful. Some of these topical movies of the year are not outstanding, but most of them are classics from the perspective of film art, and they are not passed down to this day just because of their controversy. They either have the courage to break taboos and closed boundaries; or boldly touch on sensitive social, religious, or political issues; or break through obsolete moral principles and hypocritical and boring social norms; or dare to depict the reality of bloody violence... But no matter what, movies The uniqueness of a film, its artistic or commercial quality, is where the real value of a film lies.