The relations between violence, screen violence and audience experience have been controversial since the cinema's inception. In this subject students explore issues relating to "screen violence", focusing on a broad range of independent, popular, fiction and non-fiction films, situating them in a historical, social, cultural and political context. Topics covered include: national discourses on violence; censorship; ideas surrounding catharsis; the relations between and experience of social violence and representations violent actions; the aesthetics of violence and the thematic function of representations of violence; rituals of violence and enchantment; the relations between screen violence, pain, war and torture.

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