For the final in my class called "Punishment, Politics, and Culture," I've decided to do a paper on how torture appears in U.S. popular culture and informs our approaches to punishment. In other words, I want to look at a few films and see how they play into American cultural understandings of torture (i.e. our intuition of how violent or painful an act must be before it becomes torture, who uses torture and to what ends, how and when torture is or should be used, if it can get reliable information, etc.)
I'm not really interested in so-called "torture-porn" films, like
Hostel or
Saw; torture-as-exploitation isn't really the end goal here. I'm more interested in films that try to depict torture "realistically"—the sorts of situations in which one might find torture used in the "real world."
Two limiting factors:
1) I'm ONLY looking at film. TV shows like
24 would be interesting, but the research paper is too short to be crossing formats.
2) I want to look at movies made in the last decade, preferably during the Bush presidency. So films like
Reservoir Dogs are out.
So far all I can think of is
Casino Royale and
Syriana. Are there any other (recent) pop-culture movies where torture scenes appear? I'm most interested in scenes where torture is used an an interrogation device (even if it's something as simple as, say, a cop breaking a dude's fingers to pry information out of him).
Posts
Ironman has a scene in which Afghani terrorists use waterboarding. Its interesting because waterboarding is on us really, but in this movie its projected onto the enemy.
There's an excellent 2007 film, Rendition, that touches on these subjects. It's about an Egyptian American who is taken without notice to his family and tortured over a period of time. His wife exhausts all her resources to discover his whereabouts, and Jake Gylenhaal plays an excellent CIA analyst who is supposed to be the 'heart' or 'objectivity' in a world fraught with suspicion and guilt until proof of innocence. It even showcases a really excellent quote that's been a favorite of mine for years, from Merchant of Venice:
I fear you speak upon the rack
Where men enforced do speak anything
Even if you don't choose to include the film in your project, I think it'd be great for you to check out if you're at all interested in the subject matter.
I really wish you were doing TV too! haha
Also... Hard Candy had some torture of sorts.
Fight Club had a few instances that could be construed as torture, but that movie might be just a bit too old.
The Proposition has a scene which starts off as punishment (which may or may not be deserved) but turns into essentially torture while the towns people watch in horror.
Basically, if you haven't seen it (spoilered in case I give away too much):
Not to mention taken is awesome anyways.
Jesus, that film's one of the "best" portrayals of mental torture that I've ever seen. From how the OP describes it, Hard Candy would fit in well with the paper's themes.
I think Empire went for a torture angle in their review.
EDIT: Hard Candy is an excellent idea.
Also, Empire review of Taken, which is a bit excessive, but gives an interesting viewpoint whether you agree or not:
http://www.empireonline.com/reviews/reviewcomplete.asp?FID=135695
Team America had torture. Oh, I see....
It should be mentioned that just because someone makes a film including torture it doesn't mean people saw the movie, which limits people's exposure. No one saw Rendition in comparison to other movies released at the time, so whether it has influenced society's opinions on torture might be rather small. A film can only have a significant impact on changing people's perceptions if enough actually see the film (this isn't a slam on the movies themselves)
Of the movies mentioned, the only big ones would be Casino Royale, the new Batman movies, and Iron Man. And of those, Casino Royale is the one that really showed the most.
It doesn't really matter how successful the film was. There's really no way of measuring how a single movie influences society's opinions, short of maybe conducting a nationwide poll (which I don't have the time or resources to do). What I'm actually trying to do is the opposite: examine how American society influences the way torture is approached in film, and see whether these films serve to undermine or strengthen commonly-held American cultural conceptions of torture (i.e. that it is used by and against people who are "outside the law," that it can effectively be used as an interrogation device, that it is always extraordinarily physically painful, etc).
I think any movie is fine, as long as it was produced in the United States and given wide release. Thanks for all the help so far, guys, these are some good suggestions.
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http://www.imdb.com/find?s=kw&q=torture&x=0&y=0
I'm pretty sure it's inferred in the first film that Princess Leia is tortured (that ball droid thing with the syringe).
You'd be hard pressed to find an action film though that didn't have some form of enhanced interrogation though, just watched The Fast and the Furious, some guy gets motor oil forced over his face to give up some info.
There's a funny torture scene in Kiss Kiss Bang Bang though.
The ending of Hostel's the only thing that springs immediately to mind...or maybe 8mm. But neither of those have any sort of overarching sociopolitical meaning re: the torture.
"So it's to be torture? I can withstand anything. ...You don't believe me?"
"You survived the Fire Swamp; you must be very brave. But no one withstands The Machine."
And in 2 fast 2 furious, the one guy gets a bucket with a rat trapped in it placed over his belly, the villain proceeds to use a blow torch on the bucket to make the rat try to escape by clawing into his belly.
I don't know if that will help the paper though...
What is Payback.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Payback_(film)
This little piggy stayed home ...
Can trade TF2 items or whatever else you're interested in. PM me.
read the op
I remember reading about that in an R.A. Salvatore book.
Spy Game - Brad pitts character gets caught in a Chinese prison and is tortured to find out who he is with.
Sin City - Marv is tortured when tied up, only to find out he could have got out at any time. There are a couple other torture scenes in this movie as well with other characters.
Taken (which was already mentioned) - Has several torture scenes where Liam's character is trying to find out more where his daughter is.
The new Rambo count? The torture here was more off screen, but the result was on screen.
Shooter - Again, kind of a stretch. the torture here was forcing the FBI agent to make it look like he killed himself.
The Passion of the Christ - This movie kind of speaks for itself.
Finally, what about self torture?
The DaVinci Code - Silas, inflicks pain on himself so he can do pain to others (sort of ways of excusing what he does).
He was really the only good thing about that movie as well. That might add a reason to include him in the paper; the ability for the psychological problems of a self torturer to be disturbing yet relate able.