The Judgment on Violence and ‘Terminator 2’
Give Cameron a break! He has delivered that rarest of rarities, a film with a moral point of view and enough entertainment to ensure that its message reaches a broad audience.
If “for a film to be anti-violent, its violence must repulse us,” as Mathews says, then look no farther than the dream sequence of the destruction of Los Angeles. No serious film has ever offered a more haunting anti-nuclear image.
There’s not much point in making slow, thought-provoking art films about nonviolence, because the people who most desperately need the message will never see them.
Mathews may not think the messages matter, but each of the three times I’ve seen “Terminator 2,” the clearly stated humanist moral at the end has been greeted with wild applause, and that’s a heck of a lot better than getting the same reaction for seeing some guy get plugged between the eyes.
ALAN SANBORN
Los Angeles
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