Director Peter Bogdanovich: Movies part of violence problem

'People go to a movie to have a good time, and they get killed. … It makes me sick that I made a movie about it.'

  • The Hollywood Reporter
  • Posted July 26, 2012 at 8 a.m.
Peter Bogdanovich, right, and Brittany Murphy and on the set of 'Abandoned' in Los Angeles in June 2009. The film was Murphy's final starring role before her 2009 death. (AP Photo/Hybrid Productions)

Peter Bogdanovich, right, and Brittany Murphy and on the set of "Abandoned" in Los Angeles in June 2009. The film was Murphy's final starring role before her 2009 death. (AP Photo/Hybrid Productions)

In the wake of the Batman movie massacre, director Peter Bogdanovich shares his thoughts on film violence in the Aug. 3 issue of The Hollywood Reporter magazine

In the wake of the Batman movie massacre, director Peter Bogdanovich shares his thoughts on film violence in the Aug. 3 issue of The Hollywood Reporter magazine

Peter Bogdanovich is no stranger to violence — either onscreen or off. In an eerie foreshadowing of the Colorado tragedy, his very first film, 1968's "Targets," starring Boris Karloff, ends with a sniper, an angry Vietnam War veteran, picking off teenagers at a drive-in movie theater.

"Today, there's a general numbing of the audience. There's too much murder and killing. You make people insensitive by showing it all the time. The body count in pictures is huge. It numbs the audience into thinking it's not so terrible," Bogdanovich said. "Back in the '70s, I asked Orson Welles what he thought was happening to pictures, and he said, 'We're brutalizing the audience. We're going to end up like the Roman circus, live at the Coliseum.' The respect for human life seems to be eroding."

Read Bogdanovich's full story from the Aug. 3 issue of The Hollywood Reporter magazine

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