“While you watched this, five of us were murdered. One was the random killing of a stranger.”
That is the final spoken narration of The Killing of America; delivered as deadpan and heavily-handed as all before it but this time accompanied by John Lennon’s “Imagine.” A few seconds earlier, we are informed that two people were murdered at Lennon’s vigil that we are currently seeing. Three and a half minutes prior we are shown the haunting photographic evidence of one of the pivotal moments in America cultural history: Lennon dutifully signing an autograph for Mark David Chapman hours before his death.
The eighty-five minutes leading up to the segment on Lennon’s murder are comprised of authentic footage of scores of violent incidences ranging from ubiquitous inclusions such as the Zapruder film to seldom seen footage of middle-America hostage situations, sniper attacks, and serial killers. The film is somewhat unfairly lumped into the Mondo genre due to its grim subject matter and adoption of the narration style that so often accompanies such films. Yet “Mondo” inevitably implies a bit of falsity; cinematic legerdemain with the truth. The entirety of the information presented in the film is from first-generation sources pulled from news footage or other on-scene cameras and at no point is anything staged. The Killing of America is as close to “truth” as one can come within the Mondo genre.
The few critics that have been able to see The Killing of AmericaÑstill unavailable in the US to this dayÑhave labeled this sentimental closing sequence as the powerful film’s lone weak point. I, however, found it to be an apt and somewhat profound conclusion to the documentary’s examination of 20th century America’s obsession with violence. The central motif of the film is a subtle but clearly communicated anti-gun stance. The film hypothesizesÑnot unconvincinglyÑthat the gun-related deaths of the Kennedy brothers and Martin Luther King Jr. desensitized the population and enforced a belief that violence was simply a part of American life. While it offers no counter argument to its claims, the material it presents paints a shockingly bleak portrait of the US at the dawn of the eighties and offers no possibility for avoiding an even more dismal future if guns continue to be an ingrained part of American culture. The Killing of America’s parting shot does what its lamentably more famous genre-mate Faces of Death claimed to do: present a world where violence and death are inescapable.
by David Carter | Source: Bootleg DVD
08 Jul 2008 10:02 PM | Comments (2)
I’ve been interested in seeing this ever since I read that John Waters claimed it to be one of the most violent films he’d ever seen—now that’s an endorsement you can trust.
This is still not available in America? That’s a shame, here in Australia it’s sold at regular DVD stores with an R rating (about the equivalent of NC-17).
I think the finale with John Lennon’s funeral was extremely powerful and depressing. But it narrativizes the film, and this is to its detriment. The footage and images themselves are powerful enough, to place a message behind the film rather than just let the footage stand on its own terms lessens its impact. Then again that’s what separates this film from most Mondo work.
I wouldn’t say this is the most violent film I’ve ever seen, that would have to be the first “Banned from Television” (protip: NEVER watch that film).
Rumsey
8 July 2008
8:30 PM
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