Enhanced descriptions from Syndetics:

Graphic cinematic violence is a magnet for controversy. From passionate defenses to outraged protests, theories abound concerning this defining feature of modern film: Is it art or exploitation, dangerous or liberating?

Screening Violence provides an even-handed examination of the history, merits, and effects of cinematic "ultraviolence." Movie reviewers, cinematographers, film scholars, psychologists, and sociologists all contribute essays exploring topics such as:

· the origins and innovations of film violence and attempts to regulate it

(from Hollywood's Production Code to the evolution of the ratings system)

· the explosion of screen violence following the 1967 releases of Bonnie and Clyde and The Dirty Dozen, and the lasting effects of those landmark films

· the aesthetics of increasingly graphic screen violence

· the implications of our growing desensitization to murder and mayhem, from The Wild Bunch to The Terminator

Table of contents provided by Syndetics

• Graphic Violence in the Cinema: Origins, Aesthetic Design, and Social Effects (p. 1)
• The Historical Context of Ultraviolence
• The Thin Red Line (p. 47)
• Movies to Kill People By (p. 51)
• Another Smash at Violence (p. 54)
• Crowther's 'Bonnie'-Brook: Rap at Violence Stirs Brouhaha (p. 57)
• Statement by Jack Valenti, MPAA President, before the National Commission on the Causes and Prevention of Violence (p. 62)
• The Aesthetics of Ultraviolence
• Bang Bang Bang Bang, Ad Naseum (p. 79)
• Death and Its Details (p. 86)
• Violence: The Strong and the Weak (p. 99)
• The Violent Dance: A Personal Memoir of Death in the Movies (p. 110)
• Her Body, Himself: Gender in the Slasher Film (p. 125)
• The Aesthetic of Slow-Motion Violence in the Films of Sam Peckinpah (p. 175)
• The Effects of Ultraviolence
• Some Effects of Thoughts on Anti- and Prosocial Influences of Media Events: A Cognitive-Neoassociation Analysis (p. 205)
• Mass Media Effects on Violent Behavior (p. 237)
• Contributors (p. 267)
• Index (p. 269)

Reviews provided by Syndetics

CHOICE Review

This welcome collection on cinematic "ultra violence" comprises 14 readable contributions, most by film critics, film scholars, and social scientists. The weakest of the book's three sections is the first, on historical context, because its focus on Bonnie and Clyde (1967), The Wild Bunch (1969), and other films of the late 1960s is narrow and because scholars with a historical bent (such as Richard Slotkin, author of Gunfighter Nation: The Myth of the Frontier in Twentieth-Century America, CH, May'93) are not represented. Even so, readers will enjoy Bosley Crowther's elitist angst and Jack Valenti's convoluted testimony before the National Commission on the Causes and Prevention of Violence. Highlights of the second section, on aesthetics, include Carol J. Clover's deservedly well known reading of gender issues in slasher films (from Men, Women, and Chain Saws: Gender in the Modern Horror Film, CH, Sep'92) and the editor's intriguing and judgmental analysis of director Sam Peckinpah's balletic slow motion. Two overviews of the scholarship on the impact of media violence present different perspectives, though Prince (communication studies at Virginia Tech and author of Savage Cinema: Sam Peckinpah and the Rise of Ultraviolent Movies, CH, Mar'99) clearly favors Leonard Berkowitz's view that media violence has social consequences. Suitable for upper-division undergraduate and graduate courses. W. Graebner; SUNY College at Fredonia