Review: 'Murder and the Movies' by David Thomson

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. 

Pub. Date: 8/5/2020
Publisher: Yale University Press

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.

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.

I give this book...

2 Universes!

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.