Representations and categories of violence in the cinema; a historical and contextual journey

Abstract

The article approaches violence as a central element in 20th and 21 st century cinema, determined historically by social conditions. We work on the forms of social representation, following the relationship of the subjects with themselves and nature. This relationship is observed critically, as a social construction and discursive practice, given the importance of cinema and its implications with violence; it is recognized that the ingredient of violence in cinematographic art has manifested itself in multiple forms and throughout history.
In the same way, some of the different edges present in the different plots that over more than one hundred years of the cinematographic art working on productions from different parts of the world are systematized. It stops to problematize with cinematographic examples of varied cinematographies, how the ingredient of violence of very diverse degrees, forms, nuances and levels is omnipresent in the cinematographic fact. Cinema without violence is more exception than rule. Which is not a minor issue, given the social and ethical impact of the various films in the social reality. Therefore, the chapter is restricted and limited to analyzing four specific categories: a) Action / violence seen as a cinematographic genre, particularly the recent evolution of war movies, in the last two decades and its reminiscences and various treatments and manifestations in cinematographies mainly German and North American. We are interested in seeing the treatment of violence in cinema after the fall to the Berlin Wall; b) Domestic violence in the cinema, especially since the nineties of the last century and with the international breakthrough of human rights (children, women’s rights, healthy environment, etc.) the analysis focuses on Spanish films , English and North American, also of the last twenty years; c) Social institutions and violence, examples in the cinema and violence in prisons, hospitals and schools and; d) violence over natural resources: violence as a reason for accumulation and not for sustainability in environmental documentaries. Progress is made in some final reflections that integrate the six issues discussed.