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Released by: Exploited
Released on: 7/10/2002
Director: Sheldon Renan
Cast: N/A
Year: 1982
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The Movie:
America changed in a big way on November 22, 1963. When John F. Kennedy was assassinated in Dallas, many say that the so-called 'American Dream' died with him that day. Whether that's true or not is debatable but the homicide rate, gun related deaths in particular, have risen since the early sixties. The Killing Of America takes a look at some of the more notable examples of gun related deaths to hit the news from the sixties through to the time of the films completion in the early eighties.
What this notorious Japanese/American co-production does, is take a clinical and historical look at some famous and not so famous crimes through the use of news clips and archival footage. The stoic narration over top provides the historical and social context through the use of statistics and background information on the footage provided, thus raising the film from what is essentially a compilation of crime and death footage into a cohesive package that does more than just shock the viewer.
Contrasting footage of little boys playing with toy guns against JFK and Ronald Reagan being shot in front of the entire country makes for an interesting and enigmatic statement. Of course, parallels can be drawn to Michael Moore's Bowling For Columbine, but this film relies not on clever pranks and humor to relay its message, but harsh, shocking, and sometimes very difficult to watch real life footage of what guns can do when in the wrong hands. Interesting then that the film's un-credited co-director (Schrader claims Renan's work was unusable and that he reedited almost the entire film himself) Leonard Schrader grew up in Flint Michigan, just like Michael Moore, and also around guns and in a family that went hunting regularly.
The onslaught of depressing statistics that opens the film is quickly punctuated by the aforementioned footage of the attempt on Reagan's life. The JFK footage is included, followed by the always-moving image of his son saluting at his funeral. Charles Manson and Jim Jones make appearances as well, as do a few lesser-known sociopath types from the news. Horrifying images of race riots, protests, court room footage of Ted Bundy and news footage of university sniper attacks make for a film that is hard to watch, and at the same time, hard to forget.
The film closes on a positive note, at least in a sense. The footage of a vigil held for John Lennon, himself an advocate for peace shows how many people his work and his music touched. While I'm not personally a fan, seeing the kind of huge response elicited in his fans is quite impressive and touching. At the same time, this footage seems out of place with the rest of the film. According to Schrader in an interview given to British newspaper The Independent in June of 2000, the financial backers strong-armed him into ending the film on a more upbeat note. Not only does this ending feel forced, but it also dates the film considerably, as Lennon's assassination was fresh at the time this film was made - it probably had more impact then than it does now.
The biggest flaw that the film has is that it doesn't really give any consideration into why firearms are such a huge part of American culture. At least Moore's film, while far from perfect itself, made an attempt to look at the reasons behind the existence of gun culture. The Killing Of America doesn't even attempt anything like this, it simply lets its shocking footage do most of the talking. While this makes for a powerful experience, and a morbidly fascinating one, it also leaves the film feeling only half finished.
The film, despite being made by American filmmakers with Japanese money, has never had a proper release in the United States. Because of that, US viewers have only ever seen it via poor quality bootlegs, sometimes censored, oft times horrid in quality. This DVD release from British-based Exploited is fully uncut.
Video/Audio/Extras:
The documentary is culled together from various different sources, many of it news broadcast footage and fly on the wall video footage. As such, quality varies depending on where it was taken from and what the source was. Some of it is in pretty rough shape (the Zapruder Kennedy assassination footage), some looks pretty decent (the Lennon memorial service). Most of it is watchable enough, and given the nature of the film it is understandable that some of it looks better than the rest.
The English Dolby Digital Mono track is pretty basic, and much like the video quality, it fluctuates depending on the source material used at the time. The narration is always clean and clear and easy to understand without any problems, though some of the archival footage is a little rough around the edges. Overall though, the audio is of sufficient quality to get the job done.
The only extra feature on this release is a short featurette entitled A Brief History Of Mondo Movies, which is a short narrated piece set against still pictures of posters, videos, cover art and stills from various Mondo films from the 20s to the present. It's an interesting little segment, but all too short and it would have been great to see this fleshed out a bit more.
The Final Word:
While the disc isn't a perfect presentation, it's a pretty solid presentation none the less and Exploited get two thumbs up for releasing this film uncut. The Killing Of America is a poignant and morbidly fascinating documentary that takes a cold look at the violence that continues to plague our society and how the accessibility of firearms comes into play.