Irish directed film on James Bulger comes under criticism for humanising the killers

I presume not one person on this thread so far has actually seen this film as of yet.

Maybe people should hold fire until at least one person has watched it?

Read the file on what they actually did to him during the murder it made me feel ill reading it starting feeling off I had to stop

Mr. Incognito wrote: »

Hitler won Times Man of the Year in 1937 for Bringing Germany back from the great depression.
.

Man of the Year was based solely on influence, not on whether the person was admirable.

donkeykong5 wrote: »

Why ! Because he has no manners. No respect. No empathy. Is it ?

I think his empathy is what's gotten him into trouble pal.

Hopefully it will be shown at the Dublin International Film Festival.

Schedule not published as of yet though.

https://www.diff.ie/festival/films

Empathy towards the killers if towards anybody.

If this guy made this movie and said he was donating all the money generated to the James Bulger Memorial Trust or to our mental health services or criminal psychology units to help understand and therefore prevent such cases from ever happening again, then hats off to the guy. I probably still wouldn't watch the documentary but I would at least believe it was made with good cause and hope for a greater society.

Right now, I believe Vincent lambe made the documentary as he knew the shock value would raise not only publicity and outrage but also his professional profile and ultimately his bank balance.

Porklife wrote: »

Empathy towards the killers if towards anybody.

If this guy made this movie and said he was donating all the money generated to the James Bulger Memorial Trust or to our mental health services or criminal psychology units to help understand and therefore prevent such cases from ever happening again, then hats off to the guy. I probably still wouldn't watch the documentary but I would at least believe it was made with good cause and hope for a greater society.

Right now, I believe Vincent lambe made the documentary as he knew the shock value would raise not only publicity and outrage but also his professional profile and ultimately his bank balance.

What you are saying is that Lambe wanted a quick way to fame and profit.

He never expected this film to get a nomination, which has exponentially raised it's profile among the ...ahem...permanently outraged twitteratti, redtop media.
There were easier ways to shock and draw attention.

It played at film festivals without 'outraging anyone' and only drawing praise from what I can see/research.

Those only taking notice of it now that it has received acclaim from film making peers might be the ones that need to assess whether they are bandwagoning.

P.S. It is doubtful a film such as this will ever make more than wages for those who made it, if even that. So as a get rich scheme, he would have had easier ways too.

gerrybbadd wrote: »

Has this film been released yet at all? Where would you watch it? I see it's a half hour long - how does Lambe expect to "humanise" Venables & Thompson in that short a time frame

It's based I believe on the police transcripts when they interviewed them. In terms of humanising I would look at the movie Jaws and Quint's famed Indianapolis speech. In four minutes of screen time, this speech humanises Quint. Before he was this one dimensional, irascible salty sea dog but his retelling of his experience forms a much fuller and human character.

In short, he himself, is scared of sharks and has PTSD. He has been so affected by it that he dedicated his life to hunting them. He refuses to wear a life jacket for example and Brody and Hooper empathise with his experience. That changes a person. It helps explain why he is a curmugeonly and cantankerous man. This was a movie with a man eating shark, there are graphic scenes and jump scares aplenty yet for me the scariest scene is Quint, sitting at a table, slightly tipsy, recounting his backstory. Our vivid imaginations filling in the blanks with empathetic dread and the primal fear as we think what it must have been like waiting for a rescue while simultaneously hoping you don't get ripped to pieces.

In terms of the Bulger movie, it might be the same approach. Humanise two ten year olds with their high pitched voices detailing to Police what they have done to a toddler, speaking about the graphic details of the murder and it scaring the **** out of us as we picture their words in our minds and imagining what that poor child endured.

valoren wrote: »

It's based I believe on the police transcripts when they interviewed them. In terms of humanising I would look at the movie Jaws and Quint's famed Indianapolis speech. In four minutes of screen time, this speech humanises Quint. Before he was this one dimensional, irascible salty sea dog but his retelling of his experience forms a much fuller and human character.

In short, he himself, is scared of sharks and has PTSD. He has been so affected by it that he dedicated his life to hunting them. He refuses to wear a life jacket for example and Brody and Hooper empathise with his experience. That changes a person. It helps explain why he is a curmugeonly and cantankerous man. This was a movie with a man eating shark, there are graphic scenes and jump scares aplenty yet for me the scariest scene is Quint, sitting at a table, slightly tipsy, recounting his backstory. Our vivid imaginations filling in the blanks with empathetic dread and the primal fear as we think what it must have been like waiting for a rescue while simultaneously hoping you don't get ripped to pieces.

In terms of the Bulger movie, it might be the same approach. Humanise two ten year olds with their high pitched voices detailing to Police what they have done to a toddler, speaking about the graphic details of the murder and it scaring the **** out of us as we picture their words in our minds and imagining what that poor child endured.

Humanise them??
This is what those 2 evil frakking cvnts did to him. (taken from wiki)
You could torture those 2 pricks for the rest of their lives and it still wouldn't be enough of a sentence.




James Bulger being abducted by Thompson (above Bulger) and Venables (holding Bulger's hand) in an image recorded on shopping centre CCTV
One of the boys threw blue Humbrol modelling paint, which they had stolen earlier, into Bulger's left eye.[21] They kicked him, stamped on him and threw bricks and stones at him. Batteries were placed in Bulger's mouth and,[22] according to police, some batteries may have been inserted into his anus, although none were found.[3] Finally, the boys dropped a 22-pound (10.0 kg) iron bar, described in court as a railway fishplate, on Bulger.[23][24][25] He sustained 10 skull fractures as a result of the bar striking his head. Dr Alan Williams, the case's pathologist, stated that Bulger suffered so many injuries —42 in total— that none could be isolated as the fatal blow.[26] Thompson and Venables laid Bulger across the railway tracks and weighted his head down with rubble, in the hope that a train would hit him and make his death appear to be an accident. After they left the scene, his body was cut in half by a train.[27] Bulger's severed body was discovered two days later on 14 February.[8] A forensic pathologist testified that he had died before he was struck by the train.[27]

Police suspected that there was a sexual element to the crime, since Bulger's shoes, socks, trousers and underpants had been removed. The pathologist's report, which was read out in court, found that Bulger's foreskin had been forcibly retracted.[23][28] When Thompson and Venables were questioned about this aspect of the attack by detectives and a child psychiatrist, Dr Eileen Vizard, Thompson and Venables were reluctant to give details; they also denied inserting some of the batteries into Bulger's anus.[3][17][29] At his eventual parole, Venables's psychiatrist, Dr Susan Bailey, reported that "visiting and revisiting the issue with Jon as a child, and now as an adolescent, he gives no account of any sexual element to the offence

Also, just because people don't want to see a film made about the case does not mean that they want it swept under the carpet or are afraid to accept that these boys were human and not just plain evil. Give society some credit. The reason alot of people don't want a film to be made about this case is because it's one of the most deplorable, horrific, sickening cases of all time with one of the killers going on to reoffend as an adult paedophile.
Nobody should make money from this but I bet Vincent lambe isn't short a few bob from it.

Blazer wrote: »

Humanise them??
This is what those 2 evil frakking cvnts did to him. (taken from wiki)
You could torture those 2 pricks for the rest of their lives and it still wouldn't be enough of a sentence.




James Bulger being abducted by Thompson (above Bulger) and Venables (holding Bulger's hand) in an image recorded on shopping centre CCTV
One of the boys threw blue Humbrol modelling paint, which they had stolen earlier, into Bulger's left eye.[21] They kicked him, stamped on him and threw bricks and stones at him. Batteries were placed in Bulger's mouth and,[22] according to police, some batteries may have been inserted into his anus, although none were found.[3] Finally, the boys dropped a 22-pound (10.0 kg) iron bar, described in court as a railway fishplate, on Bulger.[23][24][25] He sustained 10 skull fractures as a result of the bar striking his head. Dr Alan Williams, the case's pathologist, stated that Bulger suffered so many injuries —42 in total— that none could be isolated as the fatal blow.[26] Thompson and Venables laid Bulger across the railway tracks and weighted his head down with rubble, in the hope that a train would hit him and make his death appear to be an accident. After they left the scene, his body was cut in half by a train.[27] Bulger's severed body was discovered two days later on 14 February.[8] A forensic pathologist testified that he had died before he was struck by the train.[27]

Police suspected that there was a sexual element to the crime, since Bulger's shoes, socks, trousers and underpants had been removed. The pathologist's report, which was read out in court, found that Bulger's foreskin had been forcibly retracted.[23][28] When Thompson and Venables were questioned about this aspect of the attack by detectives and a child psychiatrist, Dr Eileen Vizard, Thompson and Venables were reluctant to give details; they also denied inserting some of the batteries into Bulger's anus.[3][17][29] At his eventual parole, Venables's psychiatrist, Dr Susan Bailey, reported that "visiting and revisiting the issue with Jon as a child, and now as an adolescent, he gives no account of any sexual element to the offence

The sexual element to the crime was one that was strongly denied by the boys and one which was never proven from the pathologists perspective however the chief investigator kirby upon first visiting the crime scene immediately felt it was a sexual crime committed by an adult/paedophile, with Jon Venables’ conviction as an adult for uploading violent child porn which included rape of toddlers one would strongly suspect that there was indeed a sexual element, great rehabilitation at work there.

Hector Savage wrote: »

8.8 on imdb ... typical "liberals", and people wonder why sensible people are leaving the left in droves and why Trump won.

You seem to think making a film about an atrocity is the same as condoning the people who committed the atrocity.

Steven Speilberg - Gives a thumbs up to the Holocaust for making Schindlers List

Steve McQueen - Thinks slavery was OK as he made 12 Years A Slave


Can you see how warped your point of view is now?

Hector Savage wrote: »

Yeah I do remember how in Schindlers list Spielberg humanised the SS officer who would just pick off jews from his bedroom window... that bastard!!

A good example of 'humanising' a character which happens to be an evil kunt.

Ralph Fiennes spoke about how he was to portray Goth and not reduce it to just being your cardboard cut out Hollywood nazi psycho.

People believe that they’ve got to do a job, they’ve got to take on an ideology, that they’ve got a life to lead; they’ve got to survive, a job to do, it’s every day inch by inch, little compromises, little ways of telling yourself this is how you should lead your life and suddenly then these things can happen. I mean, I could make a judgment myself privately, this is a terrible, evil, horrific man. But the job was to portray the man, the human being. There’s a sort of banality, that everydayness, that I think was important. And it was in the screenplay. In fact, one of the first scenes with Oskar Schindler, with Liam Neeson, was a scene where I’m saying, 'You don’t understand how hard it is, I have to order so many—so many metres of barbed wire and so many fencing posts and I have to get so many people from A to B.' And, you know, he’s sort of letting off steam about the difficulties of the job.

So shooting people from a balcony in and of itself is one dimensional. You know it's horrific. What Fiennes is getting at here, by fleshing out a character, is comparing the idea that some people have high pressure jobs and relieve the stress by say swimming or working out. For Amon Goth, in a high pressured job, shooting prisoners from his balcony was his way of relieving stress. Murdering on a whim is for him as banal as going for a brisk walk. He is humanised and not a one dimensional monster anymore.

[Supervising the incineration of bodies buried near Plaszow] Can you believe this? As if I don't have enough to do, they come up with this? I have to find every rag buried up here and burn it. The party's over, Oskar. They're closing us down, sending everybody to Auschwitz … as soon as I can arrange the shipments, maybe 30, 40 days. That ought to be fun.

So hundreds of Jews have been 'liquidated'. They must be dug up and burned. Goth doesn't see that, he's only concerned about the stress more workload is causing him, pissed off about the paperwork he has to do and wound up about the red tape it will involve all while piles of bodies are burning around him. He's missing the bigger picture and instead focused on hating his job. Just like other people can hate their jobs. He is humanised in that way.

An approach in the Bulger film could be similar where the murderers might conflate torturing and murdering a child as to them being the same as killing an ant or a ladybird on the ground, shooting birds or kicking around a dead kitten i.e. they don't get what the fuss is about whereas the police and the audience recoil in horror thinking wtf? How is their frame of reference so warped? How come they can't grasp the enormity of what they've done? It would most certainly not be a 'telpis' portrayal of them.

FrancieBrady wrote: »

The film was released and screened without any 'outrage' and the twitterati outraged didn't notice it. It was only when it was nominated for an award (something he could not have depended on or influenced) that they whipped up the hounds.

It gives the complete lie to your amateur psychology. And whoop de doo, film maker wants to further his career by making the best film he can shocker! Your amateur detective work needs some attention too. :rolleyes:

What detective work? When did I claim to be a detective? I also haven't added any amateur psychology. I said I'm fascinated by serial killers and have read loads of books about the likes of Dahmer and the Wests. Not claiming that brings me any closer to understanding them or their actions.
Of course he wanted to make a good film and obviously it is very well made, that's got nothing to do with my point. Your post is ridiculous.