In "The Texas Chain Saw Massacre," Feeding Your Family Comes First

https://www.newyorker.com/culture/cultural-comment/in-the-texas-chainsaw-massacre-feeding-your-family-comes-first

by speckx • 2 years ago

44 57 2 years ago

speckx• 2 years ago

Fifty years on, the film reads like sociology: assembly lines make the working class deranged, technology makes them irrelevant, and unemployment makes them hungry.

goles• 2 years ago

https://archive.is/Vrazd

Loughla• 2 years ago

I'm not sure what the purpose of this article is other than as a love story to the movie. I guess I expected more sociological study of society or some such.

Maybe I'm just too stupid to understand?

msravi• 2 years ago

IMO, it's BS. At best, it seems to be trying to conjure up and provide some deep non-existent insight into characters in the movie masked by a cloudy haze of meaningless verbiage, and at worst, seems to be taking potshots at traditional family structures for being the raison d'etre for seemingly irrational crimes.

JKCalhoun8• 2 years ago

...he met a doctor who mentioned a Halloween mask made from human flesh ... Ed Gein, the killer who converted corpses into lampshades ... Charles Whitman climbed to the top of the clock tower and murdered passersby with a hunting rifle ... was rattled by the image of his mother having a lung removed.

As I get older I have become increasingly unaccepting of another's art borne of pain. I allow that a lot of very good art does in fact come from pain of shyness, pain of abandonment, rejection ... unrequited love. But expressing that pain doesn't have to be a cruel expression.

I would say, just my opinion, if you haven't seen "The Texas Chainsaw Massacre", don't bother. I am still unable to find something redeeming from the film (despite the author's suggesting otherwise).

I think instead it remains as a historical reference to the changes in "Hollywood" in the 1970's when drive-ins provided an outlet for underground directors making budget films that were outrageous in their depiction of depravity, etc. Scrub through it in 5 minutes or so and you'll get the idea without having to suffer the full effect of immersion.

adamtaylor_13• 2 years ago

Yeah the older I get, the more I realize just now depraved humans can be. I don’t take any joy watching fictional depictions of it, when I can easily go read “Machete Season”, and experience the horror that actually took place.

More often it’s a better use of my time to find and appreciate the beauty in life.

kaycey20222• 2 years ago

I also feel the same. I guess this is why I like supernatural and cosmic horror more than the realistic variety.

davidw3• 2 years ago

That's a great way of expressing it. I read the newspapers every day, and if you stop and consider what some other person or family is going through because of what's being reported, I don't know, I find there's pain aplenty there without needing to get more from 'entertainment' like movies or books.

codr7• 2 years ago

Careful what you feed your brain, there are a lot of amazing things happening out there that they aren't writing about. It's basically 100% fear at this point, just different flavors. Because it works, you just have to keep raising the volume faster than people get numb/bored.

FrustratedMonky5• 2 years ago

Don't need painful art because there is enough pain in real life?

"There's pain aplenty there without needing to get more from 'entertainment'"

So no Diary of Anne Frank? no 'Night' by Wiesel, Etc... Etc......

Sometimes art is also a cautionary tale of what could happen again. Maybe Texas Chainsaw Massacre is also in that thrust, a cautionary tale of society collapse.

nkrisc2• 2 years ago

As I got older, I realized the supernatural wasn’t scary. Horror movies became boring. Every ghost movie made me roll my eyes in boredom. What became scary was the realization that the real monsters live among us.

I also lost all desire to see people being cruel to other people in movies when I could see the same thing on the news.

Blackthorn• 2 years ago

Isn't that the entire point of Scooby Doo (a television show for children)?

slibhb2• 2 years ago

Strong disagree about the movie. Today it comes across as an art house horror movie. Not particularly gory compared to modern gross-out slasher films (which I rarely watch or like).

It's okay to dislike horror movies. But to me, as I watch more movies, I care less about genre. Romance, horror, thriller, whatever

interludead2• 2 years ago

How time and context can shift our view of a film

JKCalhoun8• 2 years ago

It's not the gore (or relative lack of it despite its reputation?) that I disagree with, it's the depravity. Depravity and gore are orthogonal (although, of course, often along for the ride with one another).

I'm certain humans are capable of really depraved stuff in the real world, I just don't want to "capture it", watch it. As I said, I feel more strongly this way as I get older (for whatever reason).

benrutter• 2 years ago

I'm interested in whether you've seen like Hitchcock's Psycho, which is probably a lot less shocking in the way of Texas Chainsaw Massacre, and a lot more often considered a "classic movie" but similarly based on the horrific acts of Ed Gein.

If you have, did you feel the same way? If not, what was different about them for you?

JKCalhoun8• 2 years ago

I saw "Psycho" probably over four decades ago. I think I came to it from its reputation — a terrifying film for its time, Hitchcock, apparently a scary shower scene... I would not have judged it when I was that age as to whether it was "self-actualizing art" or not (whatever that means).

My only recollection was that I found the ending shocking and unexpected.

Learning about it afterwards, I see how there were interesting aspects of "Psycho", particularly for its time, that went over my head when I was young: that the "protagonist" at the start of the film stole money and so should not have been sympathetic, that they switched protagonists half-way through.... It was a departure for sure for Hollywood.

I have been working through the "1001 Films to See Before You Die" for a few years now and so have come upon films like "Texas Chainsaw Massacre" at an age now where I seem to have lost my patience for depictions of cruelty.

I liked "A Clockwork Orange" when I was younger, like it less now.

Another example, I had heard about "Pink Flamingos" from its reputation but only saw it recently due to its being on "1001 Films". Hard pass on that film too (although I like some of John Waters later films).

spywaregorilla• 2 years ago

Strongly disagree. Horror is the best genre for interesting artistic conversations. What are we afraid of? Should we be afraid of it? How do we overcome it? These are great questions that are easier to coexist with fun action sequences without distracting from the movie's purpose.

Texas Chainsaw is a great film. It explores an uncommon american sociological fear.

RajT88• 2 years ago

I get your point, and whether I agree or not is besides the point.

I would suggest that the best place for interesting artistic conversations is lower budget films, which are often horror films (but any lower budget film is going to have lower expectations, and thus be less risk averse, and more creatively free).

spacechild1• 2 years ago

To me it's the overall atmosphere, the cinematography, the sound design and the mix between gruesome horror and grotesque comedy that make "The Texas Chainsaw Massacre" a truely outstanding movie. As others have mentioned, there is surprisingly little graphical violence, yet it manages to maintain an unrelenting atmosphere of madness and terror.

ElevenLathe3• 2 years ago

If you are a fan of movies on almost any level, you'll want to see Texas Chainsaw Massacre. I know this is all somewhat subjective, but many many people agree that it's a literal masterpiece. In my opinion any suggestions otherwise are born of snobbery or poor taste.

nontiko• 2 years ago

Your dismissal of other opinions sounds like snobbery.

interludead2• 2 years ago

Much powerful art emerges from personal struggles

JKCalhoun8• 2 years ago

I don't disagree but I prefer the art that comes of it be a balm (if that makes sense).

Der_Einzige• 2 years ago

Oh man you rustled feathers with this. I'll try to further rustle them by saying that this exact critique applies to many body horror films, including all SAW films (yes, including the first one).

wccrawford• 2 years ago

I actually avoided the Saw films for a long time because of this. I finally watched them recently and they were better than I expected. Still nowhere close to my favorite movies... Not even favorite horror movies... But not the total trash that I expected.

JKCalhoun8• 2 years ago

EC Comics (and now I am showing my age for sure) attracted me when I was 12 years old or so. I am not sure if the "Saw" films reciprocate (also have avoided them), but the victims in the EC Comics (and the "Night Gallery" TV series is another example) often "deserved" their gruesome end. It was karma ... or "vengeance porn" if you like (wow, with "Death Wish", "Walking Tall", "Legend of Billy Jack", vengeance porn was the Zeitgeist of the 70's).

Older me is put off by "morbid justice", but I recognize the appeal.

dietmtnview• 2 years ago

This feels lifted from the Chapo Trap House folks: https://www.patreon.com/posts/movie-mindset-12-90285597

graton• 2 years ago

Sort of made me think of https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sawney_Bean

Husband and wife in Scotland, who lived in a cave and raised their children there. They would go out at night and kill people and then eat them. Supposedly they killed over 1,000 people.

ddmf• 2 years ago

Pretty sure it's just anti-scots propaganda: "ooh, don't go up there, you'll get eaten by the natives" is a story as old as exploring.

Side note: Propaganda is what a Yorkshireman does if he sees an accident.

jccalhoun• 2 years ago

"Throwaway lines about barbecue and cuddly animals and planets in retrograde are, naturally, not throwaway at all, a point the script makes comically obvious when Franklin, who uses a wheelchair, asks his sister Sally, the only youth who’ll survive, if she believes in astrology. She replies, “Everything means something, I guess.”"

I don't understand how this makes the "planets in retrograde" mention "comically obvious?

In "The Texas Chain Saw Massacre," Feeding Your Family Comes First

Related Stories