Ann Hornaday's examination of recent movies drenched in gore was an important, deeply thoughtful analysis of something very wrong with our culture ["For all that film suffering, we need more than gore," Arts&Style, Dec. 27]. Hornaday touched on exactly what is missing from the Quentin Tarantino and Alejandro González Iñárritu films: "It's genuine empathy and self-reflection that get short-circuited, swamped by surface values of aesthetics, technical achievement and shocking, vicarious jolts." Right on.
When we are riveted by YouTube beheadings in Syria and senseless slaughter at U.S. schools, theaters, a marathon, a crowd meeting with a congresswoman, even a holiday party for environmental health workers , we need films that wake us up, not feed our passive stupor. Thankfully, Hornaday found “Spotlight” and “Room” examples in which “ we’re asked to do more than just watch.”
Watching without caring may be the chief vice of our time. Think of all those who let Nero do what he did.
Gregory Orfalea, Washington
ncG1vNJzZmivp6x7uK3SoaCnn6Sku7G70q1lnKedZLyxtc2ipqerX5y8s8WMpqavoZWoeqK%2BxGaYpaRdpa6quoyapZ1lnqR6qK3Ip2ZraGFrfHF9jmlvaGmVl4VxfJZrZJtskWd6cn3EbmRxmZKYeqV8mGxwa52UmINyfr6sq6iqqWO1tbnL