Bibliographical Essay

Prior to the 1960s, the vast majority of writing about film violence was confined to empirical effects research, whose goal was to find causal connections between viewing of violent content and subsequent behaviour.

However, since the millennium an upsurge in film violence scholarship has created an ongoing discourse among scholars about the role it plays. Three of the classic works that helped push this dialogue forward are L. Alloway, Violent America: The Movies 1946-1964 (New York: Museum of Modern Art, 1971), J. Fraser, Violence in the Arts (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1974) and T. R. Atkins (ed.), Graphic Violence on the Screen (New York: Monarch Press, 1976).

There are a number of fine anthologies, histories and overviews. For general, concise overviews of the subject, see J. Kendrick, Film Violence: History, Ideology, Genre (London: Wallflower, 2009) and S. Prince, ‘Graphic Violence in the Cinema: Origins, Aesthetic Design, and Social Effects', in Prince (ed.), Screening Violence (New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press, 2000). Anthologies that offer a wide variety of perspectives include J. D. Slocum (ed.), Violence and American Cinema (New York: Routledge, 2001); S. Prince (ed.), Screening Violence (New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press, 2000); S. J. Schneider (ed.), New Hollywood Violence (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2004); C. Sharrett (ed.), Mythologies of Violence in Postmodern Media (Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 1999); M.

For histories of film violence, see S. Prince, Classical Film Violence: Designing and Regulating Brutality in Hollywood Cinema, 1930-1968 (New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press, 2003); chapter 2 in J. Kendrick, Film Violence: History, Ideology, Genre (London: Wallflower, 2009); chapter 1 in S. Prince, Savage Cinema: Sam Peckinpah and the Rise of Ultraviolent Movies (Austin: University of Texas Press, 1998); and several relevant sections in H. Schechter, Savage Pastimes: A Cultural History of Violent Entertainment (New York: St Martin's Press, 2005).

The poetics of film violence has only recently been explored and it challenges many of our preconceptions regarding how film violence ‘works'. See chapter 3 in H. Bacon, The Fascination of Film Violence (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2015); S. Prince, ‘Beholding Blood Sacrifice in The Passion of the Christ: How Real Is Movie Violence?', Film Quarterly 59.4 (2006), 11-22; S. Prince ‘The Aesthetics of Slow-Motion Violence in the Films of Sam Peckinpah', in Prince (ed.), Screening Violence (New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press), pp. 175-204; D. A. Cook, ‘Ballistic Balletics: Styles of Violent Representations in The Wild Bunch and After', in S. Prince (ed.), Sam Peckinpah’s The Wild Bunch (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999).

The recent rise of extreme violence and torture porn has led to a new emphasis in the scholarship, which can be seen in A. M. Kerner, Torture Porn in the Wake of 9/11: Horror, Exploitation, and the Cinema of Sensation (New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press, 2015); T. Horeck and T. Kendall (eds.), The New Extremism in Cinema: From France to Europe (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2011); J. Middleton, ‘The Subject of Torture: Regarding the Pain of Americans in Hostel', Cinema Journal 49.4 (2010), 1-24; G. Murray, ‘Hostel II: Representations of the Body in Pain and the Cinematic Experience in Torture­Porn', Jump Cut (Spring 2008), www.ejumpcut.org/archive/jc50.2008/TortureHostel2/; M.

There have also been a number of intriguing works that have interrogated the audience's relationship to film violence and its inherent fascination. See H. Bacon, The Fascination of Film Violence (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2015); T. McGowan, ‘A Violent Ethics: Mediation and the Death Drive', in R. Begin (ed.), Figures de violence (Paris: L'Harmattan, 2011); B. W. Donovan, Blood, Guns, and Testosterone: Action Films, Audiences, and a Thirst for Violence (Lanham: Scarecrow Press, 2009); J. H. Goldstein (ed.), Why We Watch: The Attractions of Violent Entertainment (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1998); S. Bok, Mayhem: Violence as Public Entertainment (Reading, MA: Addison-Wesley, 1998); A. Hill, Shocking Entertainment: Viewer Response to Violent Movies (Luton: Luton University Press, 1997).