Publishers Weekly
06/01/2020
Film critic Thomson devotes an unsatisfying treatise to the theme of cinematic homicide and the guilty pleasures that audiences derive from it. He ponders issues of responsibility tied to the collective infatuation with fictional murder—are moviegoers responsible for cinema’s obsession with blood and death, or has Hollywood foisted this upon a captive audience? This topic is partly spun off from a chapter in his 2015 book of essays, How to Watch a Movie, which indulged in a similar philosophical bent. Here, Thomson plows through classics including Full Metal Jacket, Psycho, The Shining, and Taxi Driver trying to pin down what makes viewers willing to watch, and even identify with, murderers in movies. Unfortunately, Thomson’s writing is short on sustained reasoning, favoring pseudo-profound aphorisms (“We love life, but we gather to contemplate death”) that don’t add up to a sustained argument. Thomson also puts more credence in the connection between on-screen and real-world violence, and the suggestion that the former gives rise to the latter, than most readers will. He further attempts to link a widespread American experience of loneliness, “in a country that sings all the time about fame,” to the fascination with violence, but this idea also remains vague. Thomson’s diffuse work never coalesces into anything resembling a thesis. (Aug.)
From the Publisher
[Thomson’s] analysis of death in Hitchcock movies is gorgeous. His restlessness is palpable. There is an anxiety in this brief, hurried book that suits these political and medical times.”—Lisa Schwarzbaum, New York Times Book Review“It is a pleasure to follow David Thomson through a century’s harvest of movies featuring what Raymond Chandler called the ‘simple art of murder,’ and other kinds of violent death. . . . He successfully throws revealing light on the ways that representations of that hideous crime have captivated and spellbound its movie audiences.”—Lars Ole Sauerberg, Criminal Law and Criminal Justice Book Reviews“Thomson’s dive into dependency of movies on murder leads to a surprisingly quiet tone, a conversation of lowered voices: a sense of film enacting some fated, circular history.”—Greil Marcus“Thomson, one of the world’s leading film critics and historians, in his polished, recognizable style (dancing writing, provocative gestures, first person participation), has produced a slim, smart, readable volume on murder, movies, and society.”—Jonathan Kirshner, author of Hollywood’s Last Golden Age“Completely unpredictable, always surprising, always deeply engaging, and always very entertaining. You never know where Thomson may take you. You just know that wherever he does take you will be a wonderful place he will let you discover for yourself.”—Richard Burt, University of Florida
Library Journal
07/24/2020
Thomson (Sleeping with Strangers) presents murder in the movies as a triangle connecting the on-screen killer, the storyteller, and the audience. Murder is objectively bad, but why is our entertainment infused with it? The audience bears the brunt of his moral hand-wringing, but Thomson is more concerned than outraged by the pervasiveness and appeal of killing. He himself is complicit, having witnessed an estimated 150,000 cinematic slayings. Dampening his critique is his waving off of Kevin Spacey's, Roman Polanski's, and Woody Allen's off-screen behavior; he doesn't expect artists to be good people. Reading like a book-length essay, the work contains cogent insight into filmmakers such as Alfred Hitchcock and Stanley Kubrick, interjects thought experiments (a disturbing one explores a hypothetical scenario in which The Godfather's Michael Corleone bludgeons Kay to death), and pauses for reflections (discussing Joker with his son). VERDICT Thomson leads readers on a meandering path, never successfully reaching a conclusion. However, the journey isn't unpleasant and Thomson is a reservoir of film knowledge.—Terry Bosky, Madison, WI
