What About Murder?

Reference Books Reviewed

- Jon L. Breen

Thomson, David

Murder and the Movies New Haven: Yale University Press, 2020. 241pp. Index. $26, ebook $12.99

The author, a prolific historian and commentator on film, says his original title for this book was Murder at the Movies, which suggests a much lighter survey. The one-word change was appropriate. This book reflects a very dark view of present-day society and where we seem to be heading. It begins with David Thomson and his co-viewer enthusiastically enumerating the murders in the excellent Netflix series Ozark, quickly finding at least 11 in the first season alone. The game sounds like fun for a while, but it leads into the questions that drive the discussion to come: Why are we willing to absorb and celebrate so many visual homicides? What does it say about our society, values, gender attitudes, and our own capacity to murder?

Among the movies considered at some length are the screen adaptations of Rogue Male, East of Eden, The Godfather, French and American versions of The Talented Mr. Ripley, Silence of the Lambs, Kind Hearts and Coronets, M, Blow Up, The Manchurian Candidate, Fatal Attraction, Gone Girl, Double Indemnity, Targets, Taxi Driver, The Big Sleep (with a pointed comparison to the much darker Raymond Chandler novel), LA Confidential, and several Woody Allen films.

Unsurprisingly, Alfred Hitchcock’s name comes up more than any other. An extended survey of murders in his films concentrates on his complicated relationship to actresses and the characters they play. He is compared and contrasted with his contemporary Agatha Christie: both English, both associated with murder as subject matter, but of different social classes and very different in their approaches.