Thoughts on the violence in ‘12 Years a Slave’ versus ‘Lacombe Lucien,’ which was co-written by this year’s winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature.
I wanted to write about Louis Malle’s Lacombe Lucien when I saw 12 Years a Slave. The brutality depicted in the latter film bothered me, and it took me back to the question I keep asking whenever I see sex and violence on screen: How much is necessary? If the intent is to inform the audience that a couple has had sex, isn’t it enough to show, say, the couple kissing and then shutting the door and then cutting to them in bed afterwards? What purpose (other than pornography) do shots of the actual act serve? So too with violence. When is it enough to merely suggest violence and when does it become necessary to show whips landing on naked backs with flesh peeling off, as in 12 Years a Slave?
Sometimes, a filmmaker wants us to feel what the slaves felt, and one way of feeling is to flinch on seeing that whip land on that naked back and tear off that flesh – this may be nothing when compared to the flinching of the slave undergoing this torture, but at least we’re left with a physical feeling, 0.01 per cent of what that slave must have felt. (Steve McQueen, the director of 12 Years a Slave, had this to say about his methods: “I love the idea of just being in real time. Being present. Being there. That was the key for me… I wanted the audience to be there. And if you put a cut in there, then it would be [like] taking the air out of a pressure cooker. It was about keeping that tension going…”)
But what bothers me is this: Is it a lesser skill to evoke a reaction in a viewer by showing him things that are guaranteed to disturb him? And if you do this, aren’t you really making a horror movie, which is the only kind of movie that seeks reactions by goosing the viewer? And will a really “evolved” and “sophisticated” filmmaker be more – what’s that word again? – subtle in going about this? These are bigger questions, but when I saw 12 Years a Slave, I was reminded of how relatively “non-violent” Lacombe Lucien is, despite covering a period of similar hellishness (the plight of black slaves under their white masters in 12 Years a Slave; the plight of Jews under the Nazis in Lacombe Lucien).
Lacombe Lucien, in many ways, is the anti-12 Years a Slave – the physical is replaced by the psychological, the explicit by the implicit – and the reason I’m writing about this film now, the reason I’m remembering it now, is that its co-screenwriter Patrick Modiano won this year’s Nobel Prize for Literature. (This seems to be quite the year for cinematic-literary couplings. The just-announced winner of the Booker Prize, Richard Flanagan, co-wrote Baz Luhrmann’s Australia, and directed the film version of his novel The Sound of One Hand Clapping.) A quick Wiki roundup about Modiano: born in a commune in the western suburbs of Paris… parents met in occupied Paris during World War II… father Jewish, refused to wear the star and did not turn himself in when Parisian Jews were rounded up for deportation to Nazi concentration camps… Modiano spent the war doing business on the black market and hanging around with the Gestapo…
With this background, it’s easy to understand why he was sought out by Malle to co-write Lacombe Lucien, the story of a French youth named Lucien Lacombe who joins the German police during World War II and falls in love with a Jewish girl, who’s rather pointedly named France. This is another similarity with 12 Years a Slave; there, a plantation owner couldn’t help being attracted to one of his slaves. At one level, it’s not fair – or even very useful – comparing the two films. 12 Years a Slave is a more commercial, more Hollywoody kind of film – it’s more direct. Lacombe Lucien is made with a distinctly European sensibility – it’s classic art-house fare. 12 Years a Slave, though the story of one man, the slave referred to in the title, is also a chronicle of the times – it’s a more sprawling narrative. Lacombe Lucien is more intimate. Its actions are more confined.
But the primary point of interest is that both films depict exceedingly violent times in completely different ways. The violence in 12 Years a Slave is in your face, while Lacombe Lucien depicts violent acts without making a centre-stage spectacle out of them. When German sympathisers are killed, we see their corpses but not the actual killing. The whiplashes are more metaphorical, as in the scene where Lucien takes France to a party at the Gestapo headquarters and she’s called a “filthy Jewess.” (France later sobs, “I’m fed up of being Jewish.”) And yet, that’s enough to make us feel, even if we don’t flinch. When Lucien’s mother comes to visit him, she shows him what her boss gave her, a miniature coffin with Lucien’s name on it. Again, we feel for Lucien because he’s just a baby-faced boy who happens to have aligned himself with the wrong people, and at the same time, we hate him because he’s with those people. Perhaps the most violent shot in Lacombe Lucien is the one at the end. Over an idyllic image of the protagonist lying on the grass, staring at the sky, we get these lines: “Lucien Lacombe was arrested on October 12, 1944. Tried by a Resistance military court, he was sentenced to death and shot.” Visuals and words have rarely been in greater conflict.
Lights, Camera, Conversation… is a weekly dose of cud-chewing over what Satyajit Ray called Our Films Their Films. An edited version of this piece can be found here. Copyright ©2014 The Hindu. This article may not be reproduced in its entirety without permission. A link to this URL, instead, would be appreciated.
Rajesh
October 24, 2014
For Me, Lacombe .. is a level or two above 12 years..
If the intent is to inform the audience that a couple has had sex, isn’t it enough to show, say, the couple kissing and then shutting the door and then cutting to them in bed afterwards? What purpose (other than pornography) do shots of the actual act serve? – Sir, would you still ask this after watching a movie like La vie d’Adele or L’Apollonide…. and those kinds of hundreds of European movies??
I dont have the mastery in literature in explain it. But in many movies they have made me feel why they go deep to those scenes.
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Ram Murali
October 24, 2014
I think the violence that you SHOW on screen works best when it comes out of nowhere, not when you linger on it…the death of Joe Pesci in Goodfellas and a similar sequence in Satya with Manoj Bajpai were examples of showing something pretty brutal but it came with a purpose and had a stunning effect. Whereas a sequence like the “head in a vice” scene in Casino or Nasser’s torture of Arjun or Kamal in Kuruthi Punal never really worked for me…esp. in KP, since I felt that since I already cared for these characters, I didn’t have to be shown so much for me to elicit an “Oh My God” reaction…
Even though it was showy, Myskhin’s sequence in Anjaathey where he just focused on people’s legs was a masterful example of just suggesting something yet getting the audience to react…
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Santa
October 25, 2014
One film in which the implicit violence is orders of magnitude more disturbing than the explicit one is Sholay. The scenes showing the gun fights between Jai/Veeru/Thakur and the dacoits seem cartoonishly funny after several viewings. On the other hand, the chopping of Thakur’s arms or the assassination of his family (neither explicitly shown) still send a chill up my spine.
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burcidibollyreview
October 25, 2014
I saw 12 Years A Slave just the other day. I haven’t seen Lacombe Lucien but I honestly don’t understand why you’ve written this post. I did not find the violence excessive in 12 Years A Slave. The sexuality, yes, but for different reasons.
When such atrocities have truly taken place and in fact were considered so normal at a time, what’s wrong with showing it on screen? Shouldn’t the audience truly understand the extent of the torture? Wouldn’t cutting out those scenes lessen the impact? It would and I have no doubt that the torture that was portrayed on screen took place at that level, if not more gruel in reality.
If the violence had been lessened, than the story would have been less realistic. In the final scene when he finally reunites with his family and tears fall from his eyes, it was so touching. More so, because we intimately knew what he had been through. And the violence was a part of that, it had to be shown. As the audience, we rely on what is shown to us. We can imagine other aspects but we won’t internalize them unless it is shown. Not showing the violence would be like it never happened. Just showing the scars wouldn’t have made us feel the pain of how it was acquired. And I think that this story intended for everyone to go through that pain a little bit. Make it one’s own trauma, so it’s personal and alarming.
If those scenes got to us, I think that’s a good sign. It shows we are human, we have compassion.
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Ravi K
October 25, 2014
Sometimes we need that graphic reality in films. Otherwise those aspects of violence and sexuality just become distant abstractions. Slavery is so distant in America’s past that it’s easy to forget that slavery was a brutal experience.
With regard to sex, the lengthy sex scenes were important to “Blue Is the Warmest Color.” The entire movie is a detailed exploration of the girls’ relationship. Just as the film is detailed about how it portrays their conversations and developing feelings, it is detailed about their first sexual encounter. The sex is an extension of their conversations, and it wouldn’t have made sense if the film skipped it by using some coy cloaking device like a door closing and then cutting to the lovers in bed the next morning.
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vadi
October 25, 2014
Cannot say it better than burcidibollyreview. Fully agreed and it culminates in his/her final sentence. BR, I have followed most of your reviews and enjoy them but empathy is not your strongest suit.
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brangan
October 26, 2014
Ram Murali: Yes, I agree. The SHOW works best when it takes you by surprise, and not when when you’re prepped for it.
burcidibollyreview: what’s wrong with showing it on screen?
Absolutely nothing wrong. It’s more like a wondering aloud about the two approaches.
Ravi K: I agree about the distant abstractions part. But I found the sequence where the eponymous slave is left hanging by a noose extraordinary powerful. It was chilling. It was exquisitely directed. It was all more horrifying because of the fact that life goes on around him, as we see the others (whites as well as blacks) go on as if he weren’t there.
This sequence, to me, does a far better job of de-abstracting the distant experience that is slavery than the whipping sequence. This sequence tells me it was hell. The whipping sequence tells me “this is what happens when someone is whipped. It’s not that it isn’t powerful or flinch-inducing. It’s just that there’s a level of pornography here that isn’t there in that other sequence.
Speaking of “Blue…”, should write about it soon. Awesome, awesome movie.
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Rahini David
October 26, 2014
Vadi: What is unempathetic about wondering if subtle scenes that hint at violence sometimes being just as effective as overt in-your-face violence?
If anything, it seems to be the other way around.
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Sam
October 26, 2014
“Speaking of “Blue…”, should write about it soon. Awesome, awesome movie.”
Agreed. One of Akshay’s finest.
(couldn’t resist)
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burcidibollyreview
October 26, 2014
@Vadi– Actually, that was not what I was implying at all. If anything, I assumed that B. Rangan found the violence distasteful because it really got to him. ( I could be wrong). So on the contrary, I read this a B. Rangan being very sympathetic to their pain and finding it overwhelming for this reason. Not the other way around as you have claimed.
Going on a tangent here but “sympathetic” is actually the better word to use as empathy is not entirely normal. Sympathy is understanding another’s situation and feelings, empathy is putting oneself in their place, and is sometimes a symptom of certain psychological disorders. (Remember in Manichitrathazhu when Dr. Sunny says that Ganga’s sympathy turned into empathy [not that I learn my terms from Malayalam psychological thrillers).
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Mohit
October 26, 2014
BR, Have you seen Alain Resnais’ short documentary about the holocaust, “Night and Fog”? Very, very powerful. I haven’t seen the Malle film but whatever you say about it pretty much applies to Night and Fog too, I think.
It struck me when I inevitably ended up comparing Night & Fog and 12YAS, that perhaps this “unflinching” approach coupled with 12YAS’s melodramatic mode doesn’t quite go well together. I don’t mind melodrama per se, but I thought what makes Night And Fog so powerful is the half-detached, poetic but cold tone of the film. Whereas Resnais coolly shows you (with equal unflinchingness) something that is extremely horrific by itself, 12YAS it seemed was a bit patronizing towards its protagonist’s plight with a “Look, how horrific!” tone. Also, the poeticism in Night And Fog seemed more organic to me, but that in 12YAS, at least on first viewing, came across as consciously, self-congratulatorily “artsy”.
And I think melodrama comes in way of the film’s attempt to critique the issue such as slavery. For me, counterpoint to this would be Django Unchained, which takes up a less “direct”/obvious approach to the issue, and, although I find the accusations that it recycles the same old Tarantino tricks justified, it ends up offering a way smarter critique of slavery; something which the, as you rightly put it: Hollywoody, 12 Years A Slave didn’t do for me.
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aandthirtyeights
October 27, 2014
I think “Life is Beautiful” used the technique of not showing the violence very well – the boy in the movie was being shielded from the violence, and the audience was assumed to have that information.
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lnsh12
October 28, 2014
I don’t think there’s ever going to be a definite answer to how much violence and sex is required to be shown on screen for the audience to feel what the characters are feeling. Every filmmaker has a different approach and scenes of relatively the same situation, shot by different directors, while being quite different from each other, may all still be equally effective in involving the audience or making them relate with the situations/characters etc. Also, all members of an audience will definitely never agree on the relatability or effectiveness of a particular scene. It’s all very subjective, won’t you agree, and ultimately depends on the director’s judgement, which he hopes would resonate with the audience (again, no guarantee really, how many of them)? Would it not become very dull if all films had the same amount of violence and sex to portray relatively similar situations or contexts?
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Aran
October 28, 2014
Just saw this post so coming to this discussion a little late, but here goes:
I think the issue that you’re talking about is the degree of sex and violence shown. And I wonder why the question is not about the degree of anything else. Every movie seeks to do what you claim sex and violence do, i.e., “evoke a reaction in a viewer.” In that sense, a good film-maker would show something only because he/she is after a particular reaction in the viewer.
And no, horror movies are not the only movies that ‘goose’ the viewer; I think every movie does, in different directions (and sometimes pleasant directions). For example, comparing in-your-face slapstick comedy vs. a more subtle comedic wordplay or situational comedy is the same question that you’re asking here in terms of sex and violence. Or say, comparison between the movies of an early Karan Johar (much melodrama) vs. an early Imtiaz Ali (more subtle), but both movies are romantic movies. So the distance between the emotional to the cerebral between a KKHH to a Jab We Met to a Saawariya is, imo, the same issue. I think the question we might be asking here, therefore, would be of a emotional (give the visual or depiction to the viewer on screen in order to engage their senses) vs. a cerebral one (let the viewer imagine in his/her head and engage their thoughts).
(So why is it that sex and violence can be gratuitous whereas other emotions or depictions cannot? I would think gratuitous comedy or even romance should be a greater sin. 🙂 )
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Anuja
October 30, 2014
Come on BR! Perhaps it was not your intention but you did seem to be pronouncing a judgement on those who get carried away trying to make the audience “feel” by wondering if “evolved” and “sophisticated” film makers would not have gone for subtler methods.
Personally, I feel an artiste has every right to go as far as he/she feels is justified without getting pulled up on outright pornography or torture porn charges (although, admittedly it was my belief that films like Caligula or Ilsa, She Wolf of the SS would have had more artistic merit had they been made as honest – t0 – goodness porno flicks), especially since these things are subject to the extreme vagaries of personal taste.
Tarantino has named, Thriller: A Cruel Picture as one of his favorite films and Kill Bill’s Elle pays tribute to the protagonist. Thriller is not for the faint of heart as it involves eye – ball gouging among other things but it packs such a wallop, even if it is awfully close to unpalatable.
Have you watched Pier Paolo Passolini’s Salo? Regarding the artistic integrity of one of the most controversial films made, it is a hung jury if there ever was one but I think Passolini has to be one of the bravest auteurs in the history of filmdom! Just saying that it would not have been the case had he shied away from graphic violence. full – frontal nudity, torture, and coprophagia. There were so many attempts to ban the film and it took the likes of Martin Scorcese and Alec Baldwin to confer on it the status of high art and restore it somewhat precariously to a degree of respectability.
Irrespective of content, these bans and demands for cuts imposed by the squeamish annoy the hell out of me. Which is why I find it somewhat surprising that this article casts its vote in favour of a laidback approach to violence over an in – your – face one! I object, your honour!
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Shashank
October 31, 2014
The violence in 12 years a slave gets numbing after a while.And I think that was the desired effect.A lot of critics do write up 12 years a slave as a horror movie .And why be subtle about it? I don’t think subtle needs to be linked with evolved and sophisticated.And being a slave under those circumstances must have been nothing short of being in a slasher movie.Soloman north up and all these slaves ,who is going to survive by the end ,who do you trust? And what action is going to tick off the master and be your doom.It also plays as a thriller and you are on the edge of your seat wincing throughout the movie.Steve McQueen is a very visceral filmmaker and he goes for a more direct approach.
PS: This article ,plus the one about paperboy which you liked but did so rather queasily,I feel like you are resisting admiring these films due to ‘taste’ and ‘decency’ . But I think if it works it works and placing such rigid restrictions on films isn’t good.
For example ,this is the review I think you wanted to write about that movie,but were resisting .
http://www.hitfix.com/in-contention/review-the-paperboy-straddles-the-line-between-trash-and-treat
And I also remember an article where you say that you always find an actor immersing into the role more than an actor acting a la Meryl Streep.But even there I think some movies like August Osage beg for an over the top actorly performances.To say one method is better or evolved is handicapping yourself.Critical consensus changes ever so often and methods we may revile may beg for reconsideration later.So be open!
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Madan
November 1, 2014
But what makes horror a lesser form of art anyway? It is just as valid an emotion as any other that the human mind experiences. The difference between a horror movie that conjures up the most disgusting monsters and one that simply tries to enact in exacting detail events that happened is….well, doesn’t the sentence itself give the answer?
I am not sure one approach is more valid than the other. All that can be said is it is situational. The art of using metaphors is valuable at certain times while a no holds barred approach works better at others. I have not seen 12 Years so I cannot comment on whether the amount of violence depicted was really apt. But I cannot quite go along with a position that such an approach in itself is a ‘lesser’ approach to movie making. Stanley Kubrick quite brilliantly blended both the stark and the subtle on Clockwork Orange. Likewise could also be said for One Flew Over a Cuckoo’s Nest. There is probably no need to linger on the moment when McMurphy attempts to strangulate Nurse Ratched for so long, nor the scene where he is administered an electric shock. But these scenes served a purpose in depicting how cruel and inhuman the institution was and how it drove a sane, if rebellious, person to commit a violent act.
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