The Blood Poets: A Cinema of Savagery, 1958-98

Why do people feel the need to create images of violence, and why do audiences continually watch them? This work brings together the multiple disciplines of psychology, criminology, censorship and anthropology in a study of 40 years of violent American cinema. The 40 years are divided between two volumes. The first volume looks at American Chaos from the films Touch of Evil to Brazil . This second volume covers Millenial Blues between the films Apocalypse Now and The Edge . Jake Horsley raises a dialogue between scholars and movie buffs as readers struggle to find their own answers to the connection between the need to portray and the need to watch violent films. The study shows the readers how to use violent film as a text with which to analyze society, but without losing touch with the aesthetic qualities of the films themselves. The author uses films such as Psycho , A Clockwork Orange , M.A.S.H. and Blade Runner . Together, the volumes aim to provide both a critical overview of the films themselves and a cultural study of the social and psychological factors relating to the demand for screen violence.