The Rules Of Violence - Part Two

Making violence have meaning was much easier to achieve in a world where any gun held only one shot and most
of the violence was performed with sword or dagger. In the words of Frank
Miller’s Batman, ‘We kill too often because we've made it
easy... too easy... sparing
ourselves the mess and the work.’ If you’re going to kill someone with a sword
or knife, there’s a certain commitment to the deed, as it will take work. What
a good story-teller can do is make taking a life work, re-create that
commitment, and never make it casual or easy.

Here’s a modern
example of violence with consequence – DIE HARD. Not the second, fourth, or
fifth installments of the series, but definitely the original, and to some
extent the third.

Most everyone
agrees that the original DIE HARD is, if not the pinnacle of the Action genre, certainly a touchstone and model to be emulated. But what producers and writers
mistakenly focus on is the set-up – one man against twelve villains in a high
rise – and not what makes the film so compelling, which is the humanity of John
McLane.

In DIE HARD,
surviving hurts. The violence is messy, and has unintended consequences. John
is so battered by the end that his wife doesn’t recognize him. He’s been shot,
beaten, and had to run (or hop) across broken glass. Of course, this is Hollywood,
so they didn’t go the extra mile of NOTHING LASTS FOREVER, the book upon which
the film is based, and have Holly go out the window with Hans, killed by that damned
wrist-watch, the symbol of her success. But at the end there is a real catharsis.
John suffered to do what was hard, what was right.

That he did so
with grim humor makes him more heroic. His were not James Bond-like coy
tag-lines after an enemy’s death. McLane’s humor was bravado, a way to keep up
a brave face against the enemy. But we also see his guard down, in that great
monologue where he asks the cop outside to apologize to his wife for him. And also in that moment of pure honesty. "Please, God, don't let me die."

Speaking of
Bond, there is a reason I enjoyed CASINO ROYALE more than any other Bond film
in years, perhaps ever. I am a huge Bond fan, but have cared less and less for
the films over time. I’ll still watch the original trio of Connery’s films,
OHMSS, THE LIVING DAYLIGHTS and maybe GOLDENEYE. But CASINO ROYALE was a return
to the Bond of Ian Fleming, the Bond of the books, the damaged, cynical man who
kills for his government and who doesn’t get the girl. Twice in the books Bond
fell truly in love. Both times, the woman he loved died – once by her own hand,
once murdered. While the fantasy of Roger Moore’s Bond was childishly fun to
watch, those films have no weight. They don’t matter the way that CASINO ROYALE
and SKYFALL do. Because violence has consequences.

Here’s a weird
one. I enjoyed the movie TAKEN. And I remember how much of a badass Liam
Neeson’s character was. But I don’t remember his name, or much of any of the
fighting. I remember his daughter being dragged out from under the bed. That
was the only human moment in that film.

The trouble with
films like TAKEN or the DIE HARD knock-offs, which try to replicate the original’s
formula, is the indestructibility of the hero. Because the explosions have to
be bigger, the violence bigger, there’s less and less room for humanity. And
it’s humanity, not the lack of it, that makes an Action film great. Jason Bourne’s
search for his identity; Aragorn’s reluctance to lead juxtaposed against his
natural ability; Tony Stark’s growth from naïve weapon-maker to arrogant
protector; and of course, the greatest of all Action heroes, Indiana Jones.
Remember that scene in Raiders where – well, remember all the scenes in
Raiders, because it’s a perfect film. But there’s no point at which the
violence is easy. It can be funny and still be desperate and thrilling. The
giant ball at the beginning is hilarious and very scary at the same time, while
the great scene on the ship with the ‘years/mileage’ line is a perfect example
of simple humanity and the cost of these adventures.

No, we’re not in
the age of Shakespeare, and we don’t need or want all our heroes to die if they
commit an act of violence. But we do need them to be mortal, and we need their
deeds to have weight.

So, to my fellow
writers, I have this simple suggestion. If you write a scene of violence, don’t
make it bigger. Make it matter. Don’t make it easy, make it hard. Look to
character and motivation to root the violence in the people committing it, both
for villains and heroes. Because villains are rarely villains in their own
mind. Make everyone the hero of their story, make the violence matter as much
to them as it should, and make it as surprising and upsetting as it is in life.