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September 28

Examples of violent movie scenes that weren't actually that violent

Two examples that spring to mind are the shower scene in Psycho and the chainsaw scene (which also happens in a shower) in Scarface. If you rewatch them, you don't actually see metal entering flesh, but it's edited in such a clever manner that you think that you saw more graphic gore and mutilation on-screen than you did. I've seen discussions online where people swear that they saw something they didn't and that these movies must have been censored for violence after the fact. Amazing filmmaking, I must say. But can anyone tell me some other examples? Iloveparrots (talk) 00:37, 28 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Prior to the mid or late 1960s, movies and TV shows with violent scenes seldom had any apparent penetration or any blood. Some guy would fire a gun and the other guy would immediately drop dead, with no blood. Most any western would do for that example. I'm thinking of the scene in "Fort Apache", where the Indians surround Henry Fonda's character and kill him, but with no closeup or slo-mo or anything like that. More recently, I'm thinking of "West Side Story", where the gang members were stabbing each other with switchblades, again with the victims falling over dead immediately after one knife stab but little or no blood. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 02:13, 28 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Also, consider how fistfights were and are filmed, with guys seemingly slugging each other but filmed from an angle that allows the actors to "swing and miss" but to look like they could be making contact. Though there were occasional slipups. In one "Superman" episode, Frank Richards took a swing at Phyllis Coates, who was standing too close to him and he actually knocked her out. Oops! ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 02:19, 28 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]

This is difficult in two ways: what blood and gore actually features in any given movie? (Censorship boards may help with that.) What do people generally misremember happening in it? That one is hard to source. I found 13 horrific moments of implied violence in movies, which is the same sort of idea, although in some cases it's plainly implicit, and in many others (Reservoir Dogs!) the movie has lots of blood in it elsewhere. Card Zero (talk) 03:28, 28 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]

There was also 1967's "Bonnie and Clyde", which I haven't seen for a long time, but as I recall it was an early use of slo-mo along with little explosions to depict them being riddled with bullets. In contrast, the old movie "The Big Sleep", as I recall, had the villain run out the door yelling in vain to his men not to shoot. You didn't see any bullets hit him, but they penetrated the door he had closed behind him. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 11:05, 28 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]

See all 'A-Team Firing' on TVTropes which talks about the trope of everyone shooting but no-one actually dying. 'Bloodless Carnage' where no entrance or exit wounds or even blood is shown. And also 'Non-Lethal Warfare' Nanonic (talk) 12:24, 28 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Tarantino explained that violence is more violent if you don't show it. That is why he pans away or shuts a door when he wants something to be extremely unsettling. He was praised by critics by panning away in Reservoir Dogs and shutting the door in Pulp Fiction, but he wanted to explain that it was a trick that was around for decades before he copied it in his films. When it comes down to it, your imagination is far more revolting than anything that can be put on film. 12.116.29.106 (talk) 12:39, 28 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Just watched the 2017 version of "Murder on the Orient Express". The depiction of the murder is very powerful, but actually shows no actual vision of a knife entering the body. HiLo48 (talk) 11:44, 5 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

1917? Deor (talk) 14:00, 5 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Whoops. Sorry. Fixed. HiLo48 (talk) 02:55, 13 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

In Fight Club, the cuts away from swinging to reaction shots is quite effective. I think it may have been in the DVD commentary where someone pointed that out, during the one actual fight-club-brawl scene maybe 45 minutes in.

Temerarius (talk) 00:30, 13 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]