Warner Bros’ decision to push back the release date of its heavily anticipated film Gangster Squad has been met with mixed reviews, highlighting issues from sensitivity to over the top censorship.
On July 20, a gunman set off tear gas grenades while shooting into the audience of a midnight screening of Christopher Nolan’s The Dark Knight Rises in a cinema in Aurora, Colorado, killing 12 people and injuring 58 others.
In response to the shootings, Warner Bros instructed theatres to stop screening Gangster Squad’s trailer which preceded The Dark Knight Rises screenings because it contained a scene involving a shootout in a movie theatre. A later decision was made to edit the scene out of the otherwise finished film, rescheduling its September release date to January of next year.
A lot of mainstream audiences have been desensitized to cinema violence and it takes a lot to shock people, but the relationship between film censorship and shootings is a difficult issue.
Hollywood: ethics vs. moneymaking
Crikey writer Luke Buckmaster says while it’s often argued Hollywood is an industry that releases its productions with no moral or ethical consideration of their ramifications, the Gangster Squad response shows to some extent, this isn’t always the case.
“There are few occasions more appropriate to approach with caution and sensitivity than a real-life tragedy linked, albeit coincidentally, to the release of a major feature film,” he says, adding if he were part of the decision making at Warner Bros, he wouldn’t have the heart or stomach to release Gangster Squad so close to the events in Colorado.
Dov Kornits, publisher of Australia’s largest movie magazine Filmink, agrees with Buckmaster, arguing it’s totally understandable that a big budget studio would want to distance one of its films from the tragedy of the shootings.
“Apart from the monetary concerns, and the need to recoup such huge investment as an event movie starring Ryan Gosling, Emma Stone and Sean Penn, releasing the picture so close to the tragic event could be construed as bad taste,” he says.
Giving in to extremist views?
However author and film blogger Jess Lomas argues that editing Gangster Squad is simply bowing down to ‘those who seek to wreak havoc in this world’.
Lomas says that while the United States refuses to reevaluate its gun policies, despite annual mass shootings, not editing one violent scene out of one film shouldn’t be considered bad taste.
“Edit the film for creative or structural reasons,” she says.
“Choose not to see the film for personal or moral reasons, but don’t let a simple case of bad timing indicate what is the right thing to do.”
While Buckmaster finds the choice to delay the release of Gangster Squad just and appropriate, he finds re-editing the film to reflect a changed environment or a swing in public sentiment a separate issue, requiring a different approach.
“Reediting Gangster Squad would constitute a case of historical revisionism and could set a dangerous and reactionary precedent for free speech and artistic expression.”
Violence in cinema and gun control
It seems as though yet again the issue at hand isn’t violence in cinema, but gun control.
Toning down violence in cinema removes the element of choice in audiences and in the age of the Internet and extensive social networking, cinemagoers will walk into a film, for the most part, knowing what they’re getting themselves into. But there is no doubt an unedited version of a trailer or film will appear on the Internet at some point.
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