There is one central paradox that adapting The Hunger Games into a movie franchise poses, and that is the problem that the novel criticizes the gross spectacle of elites sending young people into this bloodbath of a reality show, but the very act of watching the Games unfold in the film puts us in the position of an audience complacent to horrific violence. Reading gives us distance from the people tuning into this atrocity; watching makes us complacent.
Some have complained about the filmmakers’ aim to make the films “PG-13 friendly.” This is likely true, but I suspect the decision to turn the camera away from some of the more gruesome moments is an attempt to wrestle with this paradox. It could be said that it’s a cowardly move to let viewers off the hook regarding the real darkness of the material. I think it could also be said that the artful execution of these moments is to avoid turning us off completely, making us more effectively relate to the spectacle-hungry viewers of Panem.
So when we see Cato snap a young boy’s neck in the first movie, the sound is cleverly muted, from Katniss’ deafened aural perspective, making it less immediately real, but still shocking and disturbing. The genius of Catching Fire‘s arena sequence is that our reaction to it, the fact we’re rooting for the tributes to just get along and turn their efforts against President Snow and his regime, is precisely the feeling in a country with a revolution brewing.
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