The New Violence: The Loss of Innocence

Abstract

The changing representation of violent criminal psychology in British film over the years has resulted in a sea change in the genre, with previously marginalised psychopathic killers moving from periphery to centre stage. Needless to say, the threat (or promise) of violence has long been an integral element of the genre, but its filmic representation has often been circumspect — even in the era when the Kray Twins ruled London’s East End with extreme retribution for those who crossed them. The fact that the actual crimes of the duo can now be represented unblinkingly (no discreetly averted camera is necessary) is something of an index of the new, franker orthodoxy in such matters. This move to full-on confrontation with the reality of East End gangsters is suggestive of a new honesty and a readiness to confront once-taboo themes, such as police corruption — which also became standard in modern cinema from the late 1960s onwards.