The Hollow Men is a character drama, however the film climaxes in a bloodbath. So I've been looking at how violence is represented in films. Here are a few examples to demonstrate the different possible approaches we could take.
Firstly, and perhaps most obviously, is to go down the route of trying to make the violence look as realistic as possible. This is the sort of thing that you would find in Saving Private Ryan. It isn't glamourised. It's brutal. It's horrific. It's disturbing, not by being manipulative, but by being franked.
Moving on the films like Lawless and The Sisters Brothers, the violence is still relatively realistic, but it's slightly heightened. I've mentioned before about The Sisters Brothers gunfire. When someone fires a gun in that film, it really packs a punch; it sounds like a canon going off. The issue however, is that these films at times perhaps start to sensationalise their violence and that is something I'd like to stay away from.
Finally in films like Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid and Django, the actually act of violence itself might be fairly realistic, but the blood it very heightened. The colour isn't quite right and there is too much. This carries the weight of the realistic violence while also becoming more impactful due to the shocking extent of the damage on screen. The colour of blood only stands out from the frame even more.
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