To value human life in movies
Thursday, December 16, 2010

In the World of Movies there is no such thing as all human life’s equal value.

In the real life each killing is equal with refusing that unique individual his or hers upcoming life; denying husband or wife to ever see his or hers loved one again, robbing a father or a mother from their children, or the other way around. Each murder is a tragedy.

No such thing in the World of Movies.

A room filled with people, lets say bad guys, someone shoots, let say the police. There is a cop and a bad guy that constitute this story’s main characters. The police survives, the bad guy dies; but not any death, the Death, with a final word, coming to conclusions.

People around these two guys die like flies, without any value. There are no mothers, fathers or children calling for them. No one morns them.

They are there to fill the screen with action, not tragedy.

Sometimes the carelessness of human lives in movies overwhelms me.

A movie is not life. It is a story. We don’t have grieving family members unless it serves a purpose for our story.

But still, what happens in a movie affects people. We want to affect; that’s the whole point with making movies. But sometimes we get unwanted results.

I hope I will never write a movie where a killing passes unquestioned and unnoticed.