The Hunger Games -Important Portrayal of Violence

This post is going to be about the film techniques that emphasize the interpersonal violence of the games. The movie's large amount of violent killing scenes is important so that viewer's can question why the violence is happening? Why are the kids murdering each other? Why is it a "game"? The kind of violent imagery is important, too. In comparison to what I am used to from action entertainment movies, this is shocking for its intimacy and feelings of humanity and vulnerability. It is more similar to killing depicted in anti-war films where an abundance of slaughter-like murders show the meaninglessness of the violence. It says, "this killing does not support or glorify violent acts."

The early killing scenes included many cuts and medium-close shots. There were no wide shot scanning battle scenes. The camera was up close to the action, even cutting off parts of it, so we could not see the entire action or all of the figures.  The combination of these tight shots of chaotic violence with the constant wavering or jumpy camera movement made these upsetting scenes hard to grasp. I think this worked because the game's systematic murders are so insane, so manipulative and based on censorship and political oppression. 

For the most part The Hunger Games did not do any really interesting things in terms of being a thing composed of moving images. I think that the book and movie's violence are driving forces in its ultimate message of peace, nonviolence, and opposing despotic rule. In these scenes of killing and other violence the filming techniques made the fear and vulnerability come alive.