Saving Private Ryan.

On Saturday I was at home with my brothers all day. My mother and sister were shopping, my father was fixing my sister's car and my brothers and I spent the day doing very little work and lazing about.
Towards the middle of the afternoon we got sick of watching the news, it was annoying and we were tired. So, we decided to turn on a movie. We spent some time considering and finally we chose one, "Saving Private Ryan."
For those who have not seen or heard of it Saving Private Ryan is a world war two movie about a group of soldiers who are sent deep into German territory in order to find and rescue Private James Francis Ryan.
If you have seen the movie, than you know that it is one of the most intense movies you will ever see and probably one of the more violent. It is one of those movies that makes you ache for the sake of the experiences of the characters, not because you are scared or even disgusted, but because the movie was accurate. It properly showed a modern audience what a hell WWII was. Especially some of the parts that are covered in the movie, like the storming of the beaches on D-day.
I wouldn't say that people don't know how bad it was, but to see it presented in such a manner is concussive.
But all of that is merely background on what I wanted to say, which is that, after watching that movie, I did walk away thinking, 'Wow, that was violent.' But, at the same time, when I asked myself, 'Could you remove any of the violence from it?' The only answer I could come to was no.
I thought about it and I talked about it to other members of my family, and what I came to was the fact that, in movies, there are three different types of violence. There is Chaotic Violence, which is when the characters are under threat of injury from their surroundings, examples, 'Jurassic Park' or disaster movies like 'Twister'. Now obviously, these can be pushed over the top, but not very easily.
Number two is one that is much more easily identified; Grotesque Violence, which is in movies like 'Saw', 'Friday the Thirteenth', 'Rambo', 'The Ring' and others, but it is not just in horror movies, anything that is more violent than realistic is grotesque. It is violence almost entirely for the sake of the violence.
Finally, what I call, The Violence of Reality, weird name but it's the best way I can think of to describe it, it is violence for the sake of the story, it stands in the important spot of the setting, unlike grotesque violence which uses it as the theme. It brings out the characters, shows what their world is and calls them to do great things in the face of almost certain death. Of course, the funny thing is, that the movies that fall into this category are almost always war movies and are almost always based on a true story; movies like 'Gettysburg', 'The Patriot', 'Braveheart', 'Letters to Iwo-jima' nad the subject of this post, 'Saving Private Ryan'.
It is not that the violence in these movies isn't a bad thing, but it is the fact that it is the reality that this is the way the world is, that these characters have to stand before the yawning maw of death itself and while standing there say that they will continue even to their death. The characters shine forth out of the darkness of the desperation of their situation. The violence must be there, for no other reason than the fact that if the situation were the same in the real world there would be violence and death.
In my oppinion, what it all comes down to is this: Violence, like any other movie component should only be used to form a setting for a larger and grander story, it should not be the story, but it is a tool to help solidify the story, to make you see the bravery in some characters and the cowardice of others, to expose the wise and the foolish, and to convey the truth of what is happening in the story. If you are going to tell a story about war, you shouldn't ignore the ugliness and the bitterness that war is, it would be an insult to anyone or anything who has been scarred by war.
You don't have to agree with me, I don't mind if you don't like violent movies, I'm not going to say that this is the only right way to think. Likewise if you like the afore-mentioned style of bloody horror films I will not say you can't watch them, these are my oppinions, and as far as I'm concerned you are free in the Gospel ;-) to watch 'Saw' until the cows come home.
If you made it all the way through my obnoxiously long shpiel... Thank you for reading.