Emotionally disturbing images or films

railwayman3

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momus said:
Freaks. Eraserhead. The Sound of Music.
Click to expand...

Slightly OT, I've always quite liked Musicals, but hadn't seen The Sound of Music for about 30 years. I remembered it as a harmless tale with catchy music, but, when I saw it again on tv last month, my wife and I found it totally embarrassing, just too naive, simple and syrupy....couldn't even be bothered to watch it through!

Yet others, e.g. Oklahoma, Brigadoon, Oliver, Phantom of the Opera, My Fair Lady, etc., we can enjoy every Christmas! (And particular on the, now very rare, occasions when they are shown on the big screen, preferably analogue in 70mm, six-channel sound......)
 

dorff

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Disturb may not necessarily be the right word. But since we have children of our own, photographs or portrayals of children in suffering do touch me more. Knowledge of children that suffer at the hands of adults much more so. We had a case a few years ago where two illegal immigrants assaulted a one year old infant so badly during a housebreaking that she was left blind from brain injuries. I did not see pictures, but the mere knowledge of it made me physically sick. The same happened when a young family was killed during a farm attack. The daughter, 3 yrs old, was shot in the back of the head, because she knew one of the murderers, who was a worker on the farm. A month ago, two toddlers were found murdered in a public toilet, a day after their mother reported them missing. These are but a few cases in a very long list. In a country such as mine, where crime is so prevalent and violence seems to be the answer for every problem, one can become numbed from the daily gush of news reports of people that were injured, traumatised or killed. Movies and photos on the other hand seem somewhat distant by comparison.

Oh yeah, in hindsight any photograph of Amy Winehouse used to disturb my equillibrium slightly. Lately the same goes for Justin Bieber.
 

L Gebhardt

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Se7en disturbed me when it first came out, but now that I know how it ends it probably wouldn't have much effect on me. Silence of the Lambs was like this.


The Deer Hunter sure made an emotional impact when I first saw it, and I've spent a lot of time thinking about it since. I suspect it would still be emotional to watch it again. Very few movies are as powerful as the Deer Hunter to me.
 

MattKing

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The scene in "The Cook, the Thief, his Wife and her Lover" where the young boy singer is brutalized.

And a movie that I walked out on in the 1990s that to this day is the only movie I have walked out on: "Farewell My Concubine". Again, because of realistic brutality.
 

culturesponge

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the screener for Steve McQueen's (no not that one) "12 Years a Slave" arrived in the post this week. Phenomenal! ...anyone who can sit & watch this film without being deeply moved aka "disturbed" is imho not a human being. "12 Years a Slave" should be compulsory viewing for the LAPD etc

also found "disturbing" in a different way - the original version of "The Vanishing" aka "Spoorloos" 1988, very clever cinematic story telling & not one to sleep soundly after seeing

best
alex
 
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Dave in Kansas

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The "images" I have found to be the most disturbing are the news narrations on NPR when they talk about happenings in war torn countries, or starving children, etc. For me, the mental images provided by news stories on the radio are often more vivid and disturbing than real visual images. There are times when I just have to change the station.

Dave
 

spatz

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Anything by David Lynch. Nevertheless i love his work - especially Twin Peaks and Mulholland Dr.
 

Jim Jones

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In 1953 I saw some quite gruesome B&W photographs of traffic accident victims in Japan as part of a safe driving campaign. Robert Mapplethorpe captured some fine photographs, but also some disturbing ones.
 

batwister

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Interesting that nearly all of these are films. Agree with Blue Velvet suggestion, probably more brilliant than disturbing.

But the most truly, existentially disturbing film I've seen is Society. Couldn't have seen anything worse at a younger age. http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0098354/

The most disturbing photographs I've seen were photojournalistic, but even the atrocities of war pale in comparison to the above mentioned film. Sincerely.
 

Jeff Kubach

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Jim Jones said:
In 1953 I saw some quite gruesome B&W photographs of traffic accident victims in Japan as part of a safe driving campaign. Robert Mapplethorpe captured some fine photographs, but also some disturbing ones.
Click to expand...

I saw some of those here in Virginia back in the 1960s & 70s.

Jeff
 

Mustafa Umut Sarac

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We had a armenian worker and he was looking to suicide scene pictures everyday , what a sick bastard !
 

BradleyK

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Eddie Adam's 1968 Pulitzer Prize winner of the Saigon police chief executing his "suspected" Viet Cong prisoner on a public street in broad daylight. The TV coverage of the same execution, while also a little tough to watch, lacked the same impact.
 
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cliveh

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BradleyK said:
Eddie Adam's 1968 Pulitzer Prize winner of the Saigon police chief executing his "suspected" Viet Cong prisoner on a public street in broad daylight. The TV coverage of the same execution, while also a little tough to watch, lacked the same impact.
Click to expand...

Doesn't that say something about the still image? To be able to give more impact than a moving image coverage and often in black & white. Simple is often the common denominator.
 

Thomas Bertilsson

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Any photograph of a doll is disturbing to me. Just thought of that. They creep me out.
 
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cliveh

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jwd722

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Many many years ago there was a photo essay in, I believe it was American Photo, titled "Heads You Lose". It depicted many images of beheadings including a blow by blow of a Chinese execution. I tore out those pages and threw them away. I may be a wuss but I found it quite sickening.
I find works by Joel Peter Witkin equally sickening.
 
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