Murder and the Movies

by David Thomson

A renowned movie critic on film’s treatment of one of mankind’s darkest murder
 
“[Thomson’s] analysis of death in Hitchcock movies is gorgeous. His restlessness is palpable. There is an anxiety in this brief, hurried book that suits these political and medical times.”—Lisa Schwarzbaum, New York Times Book Review
 
Included in the New York Times Book Review ’s “Best Books to Give” holiday list, 2020
 
How many acts of murder have each of us followed on a screen? What does that say about us? Do we remain law-abiding citizens who wouldn’t hurt a fly?  Film historian David Thomson, known for wit and subversiveness, leads us into this very delicate subject. While unpacking classics such as Seven , Kind Hearts and Coronets , Strangers on a Train , The Conformist , The Godfather , and The Shining , he offers a disconcerting sense of how the form of movies makes us accomplices in this sinister narrative process.
 
By turns seductive and astringent, very serious and suddenly hilarious, Murder and the Movies admits us into what Thomson calls “a warped triangle”: the creator working out a compelling death; the killer doing his and her best; and the entranced reader and spectator trying to cling to life and a proper sense of decency.

Genres: Film, Audiobook, Nonfiction, Media Tie In, History

240 pages, Hardcover

First published August 5, 2020

About the author

David Thomson, renowned as one of the great living authorities on the movies, is the author of The New Biographical Dictionary of Film, now in its fifth edition. His books include a biography of Nicole Kidman and The Whole Equation: A History of Hollywood. Thomson is also the author of the acclaimed "Have You Seen . . . ?": A Personal Introduction to 1,000 Films. Born in London in 1941, he now lives in San Francisco.

Reviews

[Barbara · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5 stars

This book, Murder and the Movies, by British film critic and historian David Thomson, might be considered "a panorama of mayhem, a miscellany of malice."


Film critic and historian David Thomson

Thomson writes about the ubiquitous depiction of death and murder in the media, especially films, and asks what it says about us, the consumers who happily watch all the dying and destruction.

In his discourse Thomson skips around from topic to topic, including:

personal anecdotes: like the time his father showed him a ravaged homeless beggar, and said it was former British welterweight champion Johnny Summers;



history: like a tidbit about infamous cult leader Jim Jones and the Jonestown Massacre;



television shows: like the large number of characters murdered in the first season of Ozark;



mass killings: like school shootings perpetrated by "inhuman forces [that] keep getting access to guns, sometimes guns with video-game momentum";



philosophy: like his assessment that "some young people are in despair over their lives and the potential for life" so that "they begin to shift towards the impersonality of electronic media that measures lives as digital hits";



Kevin Spacey: like his opinion of the disgraced star, "who was an exceptional actor....the real and lasting thing: insightful, risk-taking, and ambiguous." Thomson laments Spacey's banishment from Hollywood, and says "he may be dead to his art - and that will be a loss to all of us as well as to the other people who could be employed on his projects";



satire: like Jonathan Swift's pamphlet 'A Modest Proposal for Preventing the Children of Poor People From Being a Burthen to Their Parents or Country, and for Making them Beneficial to the Publick' - which suggests that 'babes' should be sold to the rich as 'delicacies and choice food stuffs';



......to riffs on Lee Harvey Oswald:



Agatha Christie;



Alfred Hitchcock, and more.



For the most part, though, Thomson dissects death in films, and our reaction (or lack of reaction) to the killings....be it murder, manslaughter, casualties of war, or something else.

As a renowned critic, Thomson saw a plethora of movies, from little known films shown in only thirteen theaters - like Keith Maitland's 'Tower';



to blockbusters - like Alfred Hitchcock's Psycho.



Thomson opines about detective films; true crime movies; war films; comedies; live theatre productions; television series; and books - ranging from early entertainments to modern ones.

Thomson's appraisals are generally detailed and long, covering many aspects of the arts, especially movies. For films, Thomson discusses things like plot; scenes; denouement; actors; director; cinematographer; location; cost; prizes; remakes; and more. To provide a taste of Thomson's thoughts, I'll give some brief examples:

⦿ Stanley Kubrick's 'The Shining': "One of the coldest comedies ever made, and an admission of how murder can get into our blood. In The Shining, RED RUM sounds like a pick-me-up for a cold winter's night, until we see that the scrawled word in the a mirror says MURDER."



⦿ Steven Spielberg's 'Jaws' - "There was really no future in Jaws if that opening scene didn't provide the enterprise with a good-looking corpse.....ripped and shredded by [shark] teeth."



⦿ Anthony Minghella's 'The Talented Mr. Ripley' - "Tom Ripley feels an urge to murder his new chum, a perfect, arrogant shit named Dickie Greenleaf".....and then thinks of something brilliant...."He could become Dickie Greenleaf himself." Thomson says, "Tom does it in existential irony, to pass the time, and as a response to the absolute unfairness of being alive." (Note: This assessment is a bit too philosophical for me. Maybe Tom is just a greedy shit. 😝)



⦿ Alfred Hitchcock's 'Psycho' - "Hitchcock was English, till the end. Faced with the slaughter of Marion Crane, he did it daintily, fastidiously. He boasted that, in that shower scene in Psycho, you never saw a knife entering flesh. It was just that you thought you had seen it." (Note: In my opinion, that shower scene is waaaay not dainty. 🥺)



⦿ Ken Burns and Lynn Novick's television documentary 'The Vietnam War' - "It is steadily conceded that official 'permitted' combat killing was one thing, and the casual offing of civilians, or 'the wrong gooks' was another. Still, there will always be a conservative interpretation of military killing that regards it as men's work, a duty that will let guys be all that they can be." (Note: This seems harsh, but true. 😏)



⦿ Director David Fincher - "Fincher is one of the few exceptional and personal directors left in America. When I say personal, I am talking not just about the authentic signature of his style - he is a planner more than a poet, and an expert with the camera, with sound and actors - but in his choice of material." (Note: Fincher's films include: Alien 3, The Game, Fight Club, Panic Room, Zodiac, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, The Social Network, The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo, and Gone Girl.)




⦿ David Fincher's 'Se7en' - "John Doe (the murderer) is one of the most organized and authoritative people in cinema. He devises murders that would be beyond the imagining of most of us. You'd have to love your work to have such care and patience over it." John Doe uses the seven deadly sins as his motive, and "to demonstrate gluttony, a man has been forced to eat until his stomach bursts - here are the spilled guts." (Note: This is one of the most scary and disturbing movies I've ever seen. 😨)



⦿ Fred Zinneman's 'Day of the Jackal' - Edward Fox played the Jackal, an assassin hired to kill French President Charles de Gaulle. "The drawn-out process of preparation for the killing makes us hushed accomplices to it all, and Fox seems like a good fellow dedicated to the task. A part of me sees that film repeatedly in the daft hope that the Jackal might succeed - it is HIS day." Ha ha ha 😊



Martin Scorcese's 'Taxi Driver' - "It is a searing portrait of a lost soul, a would-be saint, a Vietnam wreck, a man uncertain how to go mad but drawn to it, and a dangerous, likely killer (called Travis). Travis thinks of saving a maybe-fourteen hooker. In that process he murders three people, and it is up to us to decide how justified or deranged he is."



To make his point about murder in movies, Thomson writes, "We know that "murder is not at all pleasant.....It's horrid; It's bad; It's the last thing in the world you want to have come your way." He goes on, "But why do you watch so much of it if it is really hideous, or disturbing, or simply not your kind of thing?"

For myself, I'd answer that we watch movies - or read books - because they're entertaining. I don't agree with Thomson's tarring us with the brush of 'indifference to killing' because we watch detective movies or war films and the like. I'd say, we just want a bit of escapism. 😊

On the downside, the book is a bit all over the place and overly philosophical. Still, I enjoyed the narrative, and would recommend it to movie buffs - who'd appreciate Thomson's extensive knowledge of the entertainment industry.

Thanks to Netgalley, the author (David Thomson), and the publisher (Yale University Press) for a copy of the book.

You can follow my reviews at https://reviewsbybarbsaffer.blogspot....

[JoAnne McMaster (Any Good Book) · Rating 2 out of 5]

I have to tell you that I am a huge fan of classic films and own thousands of them. Movies of today, not so much. However, this doesn't mean that I haven't seen any of them; of course I have, but that doesn't make a difference in this book at all.

While I was looking forward to this book insofar as that fact, what it contained was something quite different, and it threw me for a bit of a loop. I do love Mr. Thomson's other works, so this was quite a surprise.

While I expected to read a discourse on how murder and the movies coincide with one another, there was rare mention of any film noir which, of course, have a great deal of murder within them; and to be honest, every single film mentioned tells you the ending. Now the only reason I am saying this is some people might not have seen the films mentioned (as I have never several of them) and I wouldn't want them to be blindsided by this fact.

But the thing that struck me the most wasn't the facts listed above, but the fact that at one point it descended into a mini-political rant, telling us that perhaps we shouldn't own guns because they cause more problems. Well, I think if you can get the guns out of the hands of the criminals, then we won't need them to protect ourselves. Also, if Hollywood is so concerned about getting rid of guns, why are they making films that use them? (My mini-rant).

Anyway, he does make several very good points as to the fact that perhaps seeing all this murder onscreen might have deadened our sense of it; but one could also say that playing violent video games might cause the same effect. I've often thought myself that if people could stop playing them for hours on end they might begin to be less aggressive, but who knows? (I have heard of them calling the police on one another during a gaming session just to 'get revenge.' How is this normal?)

Nevertheless, as I've stated above, I own thousands of films, and many of them mysteries. Yet never once have I had that desire to "do someone in," and I also read hundreds of mysteries every year (I read a book a day on the average); and I also watch true crime on television. Has it deadened my senses? Notably not. I still cringe at the thought of someone senselessly losing their life, and I wonder at the type of person who can take a life so easily. I think you have to be a certain type of person to have their senses deadened, much like you have to be a certain type of person to kill the way Charles Whitman did. If not, we'd all be in deep doo-doo when we left our homes on a daily basis.

I'm not positive that this is exactly what Mr. Thomson meant when he wrote the book, but it is what was interpreted to me. Just because we see it on the screen does not mean that we're so numb to life that murder means nothing to us as a people. Unfortunately, I found little humor in the book and wish I could recommend it, but I can't. I will just wait for Mr. Thomson's next book -- which I am sure will be superior to this one.

I was given an advance copy from the publisher and Edelweiss but this in no way influenced my review.

[Mayke ☕️ · Rating 2 out of 5]

DNF

I could not get through this book. One tedious long sentence jumping between endless movies and topics. The premise sounded so good. I love watching movies and also the movies from older decades interest me, and I've always enjoyed crime and thrillers and murder is often part of that.

I was looking forward to learning more about the topic of how murders are portrayed in movies. Perhaps information about types of murders we see more in movies or how the way a movie murder is staged adds to a story. Some Main topics with movie examples to add some imagination to what the author is talking about.

Instead I got an in my eyes unorganized book where no single paragraph had a clear story to tell. There was so much movie name dropping that I felt I had to watch a movie everyday for the next two years to understand what the author was talking about.

Unfortunately this wasn't a hit for me.

This book was given by Netgalley and Yale University Press. This does not affect my opinions on the book.

[Alex Sarll]

Plenty of people have tutted and clutched their pearls at cinema's fascination with killing, but for the most part they're Mary Whitehouse types, and they would say that, wouldn't they? I won't say we should ignore them, but only because ceaseless vigilance is necessary to stop them regaining the least foothold. There is no interest in what they have to say, no merit. They are conforming to type, and fundamentally they have no understanding of what film can be, what it means, even – for all that they fear its corrosive effects – of its real power.

David Thomson, though, was at Britain's first public screening of Psycho. He's spent a long career analysing and rhapsodising about films. So when he starts voicing similar worries...well, it's not so much that he might be right. It's not even as unprecedented as all that; even now, plenty of people get a touch of the old late-life repentance. If it becomes a habit, if he starts popping up hither and yon suggesting that maybe censorship would be a good idea after all, then I shall rapidly lose patience. But one brief work expressing his compunctions, one anomalous cry de profundis in a career otherwise devoted to praising the medium? That's interesting. And I'd always much rather read something interesting than something correct (For pleasure, I mean. If it's the instructions to a vacuum cleaner, I'll take dull but accurate every time). Handy, then, that Thomson is, for me, nearly incapable of writing a piece that doesn't sparkle. Your mileage may vary on that, of course, and this is him in full flow; if you don't already know that you like his style, one of his standard reference works, or the bigger, more solid books like The Big Screen and The Whole Equation, might be a better place to start. This is associative, hopping from idea to idea, dropping in whole chunks of autobiography, frequently comparing films that exist to ones which do not but make for fascinating parallels all the same. It's not even entirely a single piece so much as a collection of linked essays with recurring themes – above all, the complicity of filmmaker, audience and killer even in films which ostensibly go along with conventional morality as regards murder being, on the whole, a bad thing. Is he right? I don't know. I don't think he's entirely wrong, and I enjoyed reading his argument. I loved the little details like Alec Guinness demanding Kind Hearts & Coronets have more deaths, even if it was one of the times I found myself mentally rechristening the book (in a Royston Vasey accent) ''Ow Many Killin's?'

There are gaps, of course. There always will be, especially in a book this brief. Some are unavoidable; he was writing in 2018, in a gap between school shootings (at one point he presciently suggests that maybe the solution was to abolish schools – and hey, the 2020 stats from the US confirm that as a success!), so the tedious fact of time means he can't include Once Upon A Time...In Hollywood, a fascinating example of a director known for his violence making a film in which the audience is praying for the violence never to begin, just as we would in real life, just like you don't expect to when watching Tarantino. Elsewhere, though...his presumed director is male, and not very nice – Hitchcock looms large, in all senses. Now, if you asked me to picture a director, I would indeed default to picturing an unpleasant male, but other flavours are available, and particularly when there's a passing mention of The Hurt Locker I thought, now wouldn't Kathryn Bigelow be an interesting case study, her films certainly not shying from death and damage? Would he find a difference in her approach? From this book, at least, we'll never know.

Still, much like those films whose counterfactual versions Thomson considers (The Seventh Seal courtesy of Preston Sturges!), while I might like to see other worlds' versions of Murder And The Movies, I definitely appreciated the one I got – the late, contradictory, but beautifully phrased thoughts of one of my favourite film writers. As mortal as he's evidently feeling, long may he keep evading the Reaper, whether Bergman's version or Sturges.

(Netgalley ARC)

[Juli Rahel · Rating 2 out of 5]

Murder is such an enticing topic. We all know it's wrong, we all definitely agree it should be illegal. And yet we cannot get away from the fact that we're obsessed by it, by the fact that all of us could, technically, kill someone. It is the obsession that fuels countless documentaries, books, and podcasts, and it is also the personal interest of David Thomson which finds him gathering his thoughts in Murder and the Movies. While many of his thoughts and insights were interesting to me, I realized we approach this thorny topic from very different angles. Many thanks to Yale University Press and NetGalley for providing me with a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review. My apologies for the delay.

Murder is everywhere these days. It's all over our screens, from the phone to the TV to the cinema screen. What does this do to us? What does our desire to consume all this death mean? Should we have gleefully recounted the latest murder on Game of Thrones at work the way we did? In short, why are we so attracted to murder and does it mean we are being desensitised to it? These questions all come to play in Murder and the Movies, a fascinating non-fiction book in which famed film critic David Thomson shares his thoughts and insights. Split into a set of chapters, the book nonetheless feels like one long conversation in which Thomson asks us questions, gives us trivia, and sets up a larger narrative. Along the way he lingers extensively on certain film, like The Shining (1980), The Godfather (1972), and everything Hitchcock, and discusses others briefly, like Full Metal Jacket (1987) and the series Ozark (2017-now). While he does track the history of murder on screen he doesn't necessarily do so chronologically or extensively. He has films he has something to say about and those are what are featured in the book. Alongside that there is fascinating historical background and information, but also tangents that don't feel wholly relevant to me. Towards the end of the book, the last whole quarter in fact, Thomson ponders on societal ills. While I do think, for example, that the crisis of mass shootings and specifically school shootings int he US needs to be addressed, I don't know if this is the book for it nor if Thomson is the man to guide that conversation.

I must admit that I struggled with Murder and the Movies. It has a lot of interesting insights into the films it discusses, and yet those insights are intensely flavoured by the person presenting them. Thomson asks countless interesting questions but he never takes that deeper that his own first instinct. I am one of those women who is intensely interested in true crime. I listen to countless podcasts, read books, watch documentaries, I am fascinated by what drives a person to murder. Most of the true crime I "imbibe" comes from female-centred podcasts, I will admit. But that is because murder is such a deeply gendered crime in many cases. Thomson kind of touches on this but cannot separate himself from his male gaze, from his male perspective. 2018, when the book was written, already was aware of the female-led true crime craze, yet not once does this appear in the book, not once do his questions consider a female interest or female perspective. As such, the book remains interesting for its insights but it also very much feels like you're getting a particular kind of insight. I don't know why Thomson felt the need to interrupt his discussion of the film Se7en to bemoan the fate of Kevin Spacey's career, nor why he would refer to Roman Polanski's behaviour, which included fleeing the USA to prevent his arrest for raping a minor, as a 'being a bad boy'. This feels unnecessary but it also defined for me what the perspective of this book was without knowing about David Thomson before reading Murder and the Movies. Now I know he is a respected film critic and that explains some of it. He writes from an establishment position, something he himself probably would not agree with. He even imagines himself as an Uncle character towards the end of the book, with whom you're in conversation and who you can disagree with and who, quite simply, has something still to say about Kevin Spacey, 'whatever you need to think about [him]'.

I quite simply have to admit that, to me, he does feel like that old uncle, who has admiration for the men that in his eyes defined cinema. So while he will mention that Glenn Close did not like the way her character in Fatal Attraction was treated, he will focus on how her unruly hair suggested sex. He can wax poetic about the way Hitchcock was a sexually frustrated genius, and thus his behaviour towards Tippi Hendren is a mere sidenote, a symptom but not something to be investigated or questioned. There is such an interesting question here, namely the idea whether the creation of all this murder and horror on screen does something with those who make it. I would have loved it if Thomson had really looked at some female-directed murder, to complicate his view. The bok briefly discusses female killers in films, such as Aileen Wuornos in Monster, but even here his comments feel dominated by his emphasis on how changed Charlize Theron was for her performance. As such Murder and the Movies is like a conversation that both interested me and made me look for a way out. At times in Murder and the Movies it almost feels like Thomson is daring us to sat we don't give a sh*t about the victims of murder as long as the murder is exciting, yet this feels disingenuous to what he is actually saying. So the book runs a fine line between really interesting and frustrating.

As I hope this review makes clear, this was a very personal response, triggered in a large part by my own interest in film and murder. It may be that your own opinions, thoughts, and questions align more with Thomson in which case this is absolutely a book for you. I wavered hard when it came to my rating. But if reading is anything it is a personal experience. Murder and the Movies struck me in the wrong way, I could not get on board with some of Thomson's thoughts. This does not invalidate those thoughts in and of themselves. It just means I'm sadly not the audience for this book.

Murder and the Movies holds some fascinating insights into some of cinema's most influential films and directors. While for me the tone and thrust of the book didn't work, I could see this being very interestingt o others.

URL: https://universeinwords.blogspot.com/...

[Biblio Files (takingadayoff) · Rating 5 out of 5]

If you've read David Thomson's novels Silver Light and Suspects, you're familiar with how he plays with movie history. He mixes the characters in films with the actors who play them. For Thomson the history of Hollywood is no more or less true than the stories on the screen.

In this book Thomson asks us if we could commit the crimes the filmmakers use to entertain us. What he won't do is let us off the hook. The point of movies is the audience identifying with the hero. But what if the hero is a monster?

(Thanks to NetGalley and Yale University Press for a digital review copy.)

[Jan C · Rating 4 out of 5]

Well written. Food for thought. The question is how many murders have we seen? Thomson guesstimates it could be 150,000 for the average adult movie watcher. Does the fact that we have seen so many murders inure us to everyday violence? Is this part of the reason we have so many mass shootings? Too many unformed minds seeing too much massacre on the silver and small (or not so small anymore) screens? I would think people in other countries have seen just as many but they don't have the same access to high power weaponry as here.

He ends the book with his own real life contact with death. He was looking for his grandfather and was told he was outside. He was - but was no more. He just looked like he was sleeping, with a semi-smile. I saw my mother the day before she died. She was sleeping, thanks to morphine. She had stopped eating and was waiting to die. But, otherwise, I have always been somewhere else when anyone close to me has been in the process of leaving and thus, have rarely even seen a dead person. We send them to the crematorium before anyone sees them.

I hadn't seen all the movies he talked about. But I certainly had seen a lot.

And, it is a fairly short book.

[Susan Tunis · Rating 5 out of 5]

I have always found intense pleasure in listening to really smart people discussing subjects they're knowledgeable about. That's what this book was for me, intensely pleasurable! David knows his stuff, and he moves so agilely from subject to subject, I was riveted. This is a short book, and I just didn't want it to end.

Of course, he talks about films, and also about the people who make the films, and the events that inspired the films, and about television, books, and theatre, and any number of other subjects. And being an accomplished critic, he is not shy about sharing opinions, one or two of which may raise an eyebrow.

I am slightly acquainted with the author, having had the pleasure of hosting him as a speaker at the bookstore where I worked, and seeing him in the store many times as a customer. As I read this book, I just wanted to have a full-on conversation with this charming and knowledgeable man. And lucky, lucky me--I have.

[Michael Samerdyke · Rating 2 out of 5]

I would give this 2 and 1/2 stars if possible.

When I read David Thomson's essays in Film Comment years ago, some would be brilliant, and some would just strike me as hot air.

The same could be said of this book.

He has some great insights on movies here, but he loses focus a lot. He talks about mass shootings. Does he blame movies for the hollowness of the culture that produces mass shooters. Maybe, I guess. He talks about his family.

This should have been boiled down to one long essay, or he should have approached the topic differently. As it is, "Murder and the Movies" feels betwixt and between, a frustrating experience.

[Marcela · Rating 3 out of 5]

I see the only lens this author used was a Caucasian one

[That Book Guy · Rating 5 out of 5]

Through NetGalley.com, I read an advanced copy of Murder and the Movies by David Thomson, a long time film critic/writer of great note. The author explores how films have evolved in their depiction of death/murder in conjunction with how society has changed.

From Agatha Christie to The Godfather, Hitchcock to Kubrick, Thomson discusses many of the biggest films in the last hundred years. From the rather chaste way movies handled murder in the ‘30’s to the blood and gore of today, the author clearly illustrates how the movies have changed over time. Further, Mr. Thomson examines the relationship of how art influences life and vice versa including the troubling increase in mass shootings that plagues our society.

This was a quick read that I devoured in one sitting. Both entertaining and thought provoking, I would strongly recommend this book. 5 Stars.

[Susan Oram · Rating 5 out of 5]

Through a broad sweep of film history, a renowned movie critic offers insights into how the treatment of death on screen has evolved. I enjoyed reading the author’s witty remarks and learning how Hitchcock and others worked. Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for providing an advance copy for an honest review

[Samantha · Rating 2 out of 5]

I can tell that "Murder and the Movies" was written by somebody with interesting thoughts but this book unfortunately offers little depth on the broad topics it covers. Thomson jumps from film synopsis to political commentary to memoir throughout the book and doesn't linger on any one topic long enough to say anything particularly convincing. I'd be interested to see how the author would handle a narrower topic of discussion, as this book is well-written despite its other faults. Thanks to NetGalley for providing an advance copy for review.

[connie · Rating 3 out of 5]

reviewed this for netgalley.

as an editor, sometimes you've got to take a step back and go: 'should i let this nearly 80 year old white man praise kevin spacey, woody allen, and roman polanski? is that the right decision, in the year of our lord 2020?'

and if it's a difficult decision to make, you might want to ask how their victims feel any time they see these men's faces, and then reassess if your instinct is to let it pass.

[Justin Chen · Rating 2 out of 5]

2 stars | DNF at 100/240

I've decided to stop reading Murder and the Movies at about halfway mark. It is plainly obvious David Thomson is passionate about the subject, and obtains a treasure trove of knowledge and trivia, however the meandering writing style makes the content very difficult to digest.

The book reads like a run-on sentence, where the subject at hand is compared with a previous topic mentioned pages earlier (often in the 15+ pages range), and the comparison itself becomes another point of discussion, to be referenced to another 15+ pages further. Not only is it difficult keeping track of all the open topics, it also feels very aimless. In short form, like an essay, I can see this tree-branching approach being very engaging, as it pairs up disconnected concepts into an unexpected conclusion. But as a 200+ pages book, it constantly feels like the author is simply spitballing random thoughts without a formalized structure.

Perhaps I'm not patient enough to read it through the end, and see how all the puzzle pieces fit together, but as someone who love cinema and am always on the look out for deep dive into the subject, I cannot recommend Murder and the Movies as a place to start.

***This ARC was provided by the publisher via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. Much appreciated!***

[Taylor · Rating 1 out of 5]

Pathetic hand wringing fills the final chapters of the book with Thomson leaping between assumptions both psychological and sociological without any backing. One can't tell if he's aware they are different fields, or if he simply wants to command others in what they can or cannot do. When he's focused on film and craft the book has something elegiac to say regarding classical film eras, otherwise it comes across as little more than a piece asserting Fincher as our greatest modern movie maker. Daft.

[Euan Franklin · Rating 4 out of 5]

Murder and the Movies isn’t a compendium of the best deaths on screen. Thomson’s a better writer than that. Although he does move through movies and shows like Ozark, The Shining, and Strangers on a Train, he relates them to the cultural consciousness around real murder and on-screen murder.

Often, he takes true murderers – Jim Jones, Anders Behring Breivik, etc. – and compares their actions to the ways in which movies interpret them. Certain facts knock you into a state of intense thought, of the kind involving both brain and heart. For example: that people will see 150,000 murders on screen by the time they reach 70. It’ll probably be more for my generation (if I, we, make it that far) considering the infinite deaths we inflict by necessity in video-games.

Many battles are now digitally manufactured, avoiding the arduous blood make-up and prosthetics and extras required – making me think the desensitization to killing only increases when they’re created by computers.

Then, like with Thomson’s other books, he weaves in personal anecdotes – turning existentially heartfelt towards the end, perhaps predictable for a man approaching 80. He even empathises, to a certain extent, with these mass murderers: comparing the ‘aloneness’ of these killers with the solitude of a writer. Being a writer who craves that solitude, I couldn’t help but worry.

It’s one of the darkest film books I’ve ever read, its sharp blade still fiddles in my chest.

[D L · Rating 3 out of 5]

Murder and the Movies is David Thomson's look at murder in movies (and occasionally television) and how viewers will have watched thousands of people being murdered on-screen and how that plays out in real life.
In an occasional philosophical book whereby the writer even touches on his own mortality, Thomson uses his encyclopaedic knowledge on films and television to enhance his point of how the casualness of murder has become acceptable. Also how as technology has progressed, we can see witness hundreds of people murdered in a single scene. With a book like this, there are things to agree with and disagree with. For instance, are the murders in Taxi Driver, a film Thomson uses in his book, more shocking than the destruction of Alderon in Star Wars. Or should the audience be given the credit to distinguish to the fantasy playing out on screen to real life?
David Thomson is a brilliant writer with an enviable knowledge of film, however, this didn't keep me enthralled as some of his other books.
This book was provided by NetGalley and the publisher for an honest review

[Noah Sanders · Rating 3 out of 5]

The opening two chapters of famed film critic David Thomsen’s long essay on murder in movies are so knottily written, I almost put it down. Thomsen, a veteran film thinker, has great ideas but they’re often tangled in overly complicated writing. When he gets down to talking about movies, it’s wonderful and his ability to discuss the dangers in consuming, without thought, murder in film is amazing. In the end the book draws strong lines of thought between current events and a hundred years of cinema, but it isn’t always an enjoyable or clear path to the destination.

[Stephen Bacon · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is an interesting collection of essays covering the various aspects of murder in cinema, by the celebrated film historian and critic David Thomson. The categories are rather muddled -it's neither organised chronologically or thematically - but that doesn't spoil the fun. In fact, the randomness of the chapters allows for a more unpredictable journey. You really get the sense that Thomson knows his stuff. The tone is relaxed and not too highbrow, and yet there are insights and observations that will give you a greater appreciation of the art of cinematic murder. Recommended.

[Bill · Rating 3 out of 5]

I'm a big fan of Thomson and was looking forward to this book but found it disappointing - although there are some really good segments about particular films. Thomson however it trying to get at larger issues about the culture and humanity and gets into some really obtuse flights of fancy and intellectual musings. He seems to be attempting to channel writers like Joan Didion, using movies and other murderous events to make larger connections. But somehow, it doesn't come off.

[Emma Dargue · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was interesting. A series of interlinked essays about the pyschology of movies murders and the links to real life that might cause bad things to happen. Some of the views held by David Thomson really put me off this book (Kevin Spacey being a good actor despite being a prolific abuser and how he feels he should not have been cancelled due to this) but he does raise interesting points that stir up conversation whether controversial or not.

[Brett Warnke · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a subjective and interesting long essay by America's Movie Man. It follows his impressions and memories of murder in the movies he's loved since boyhood, paying close attention to Hitchcock and Fincher. It meanders like a long chatty column. Thomson is always fun to read. There's not much critical edge or argument as much as enjoying a good-natured monologue with a writer who has seen more movies than you. Thomson is never wasted time.

[James · Rating 3 out of 5]

A book wholly comprised of digressions. I loved it.

There are times when Thomson engages in psychobabble or editorializes, but that's forgiven because of the grace of his sentences. Reading Thomson is like panning for gold--when you hit it, you see it.

[Elise · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was fine? I guess? I wanted to read something that would make me smarter and I do feel like I’m more into movie culture so that’s something. This kind of thing just takes me.. forever to read… obviously. We’ll try to do better next time!

[David · Rating 2 out of 5]

I've been reading Thomson for decades and his books are getting worse to the point that I am kind of hate reading them now.

He picks interesting topics but kind of just riffs his way through them with no central thesis and no ideas fully explored.

[Raegan Fredrickson · Rating 1 out of 5]

2 chapters in and you get the entirety of his point. The other 175 odd pages are pandering and a little self indulgent. This book could have been a great short essay; but this book about murder could have used more cuts in the editing process.

[Amy the book-bat · Rating 4 out of 5]

interesting look at why we love murder stories and how real-life murders influence the movies

[LimeCream · Rating 3 out of 5]

A good overview of the subject which I found interesting.

Thank you to NetGalley and to the publisher for allowing me to read this in exchange for an honest review.

[Addi · Rating 4 out of 5]

Loved it. Very nice reading of American predilection for morally justifying vicarious murder.