http://forerunner.com/predvestnik/hollywood.html
The following won the "Best Documentary" at the Christian Broadcasters' Awards in Moscow. I produced the video with LOZA-TV in 2000. Victor Victorov narrates a script that has been translated and adapted from Reel to Real's HOLLYWOOD series written by Eric Holmberg.
PART 5
VIOLENCE
(VICTOR)
Like sex, we do not have to go very far to prove that television and movies are over-saturated with acts of violence. How to accurately portray the depth of this sin without shocking and desensitizing you is a problem here. Most of the blood and gore that is so prevalent in today's entertainment has been carefully edited out of this section. Of course, these films are really much worse than what you are about to see.
[SCRIPTURE ON BLACK SCREEN]
But the one who loves violence, my soul hates. -- Psalm 11:5
[INTERVIEWS: What do you think about all the violence in most movies and television today? Has the violence that you've seen on television and films ever affected you in a negative way?]
(VICTOR)
It's been said: There is no more violent place on earth than the Hollywood set. Not only has the death count become astronomical, but the victims just don't die they explode. Bodies contort in slow motion, blood spurts, and the instrumentality of death is shown in excruciating detail. To better understand our culture's fascination with violence, it is worthwhile to consider another culture, one whose power and wealth also enabled it to pursue increasingly complex and grotesque forms of entertainment.
[SCENES OF GLADIATORS]
Some three hundred years before Christ, the emerging Roman Empire inaugurated a new form of entertainment. To commemorate a certain Roman nobleman's death, six battle hardened warriors were led into the arena to fight. The Empire's love affair with the gladiatorial games had begun. In the next 600 years of the Roman Empire, the games became more widespread and cruel. Condemned criminals were purchased from wealthy patrons. And were put to death for the crowds pleasure. The weapons and methods for putting people to death also became more diversified. The crowds became more callous calling for more cruel forms of entertainment.
And beginning with the Emperor Nero, a new group of people, followers of Jesus Christ, were also called into the arena. Christians were persecuted sporadically under ten cruel Roman Emperors. Over the first few centuries AD, thousands of Christians died in the arena.
[MONTAGE OF VIOLENT SCENES FROM MOVIES]
Today a modern form of the Roman gladiatorial games has hijacked the imagination of western culture. Through cinematic film, today's audience is becoming increasingly callous and is shouting for more blood and more deaths. Acclaimed director, Martin Scorcese, noted this dark parallel: Maybe we need the catharsis of bloodletting and decapitation like the ancient Romans needed it, as a ritual but not real like the Roman circus.
(VICTOR)
Scorcese is only half right. Our obsession with bloodletting reflects the same calloused heart that affected the spectators of the Roman games. But to excuse our modern blood-lust because it is aroused only by cinematic fantasy, rather than by actual death, is to ignore the spiritual dimension of our humanity. We are profoundly affected by the things we allow into our hearts.
[SCRIPTURE VERSES OVER BIBLE]
Proverbs 4:23; Proverbs 33:7; Romans 12:2; Galatians 6:7,8
(VICTOR)
What happens when we stop watching over our hearts? -- What happens when we start sowing the seeds of gratuitous violence into the soil of our fertile imagination. God has already told us:
[SCENES OF VIOLENT CRIME FROM NEWS PROGRAMS IN RUSSIA]
Is it a coincidence that since 1990, violent crime in our nation has risen dramatically? And that in the last decade, violent films shown on television and through videos have also grown in number and frequency? Is he influence of Hollywood's films somehow contributing to this rise in violent crime.
(VICTOR)
Well, these individual denials do not refute the overall affect of violent imagery on our society. Over 3000 independent studies now conclude that violent images play a major role in affecting our behavior. This effect is even more dramatic in young people who form their social behavior and moral values from what they see and hear. There can no longer be any doubt that heavy exposure to televised violence is one of the causes of aggressive behavior, crime, and violence in society.
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7 videos
Hollywood (Russian language documentary)
please, just tell the truth without further inflicting meaningless & unnecessary violence upon any more viewers! if we meditate on that which is Good & Honourable as the Scriptures advise, the devil & his works will barely play a part. when His followers watched Jesus die, how upsetting that was for them! but The Father sent Him to do it...it wasn't meaningless! it's all a reality show from Heaven down here, in which we play our parts the best we can...with the help God so graciously offers!
InnerMittenSignal 1 year ago