Gun questions fired off at Sundance Festival
PARK CITY, UTAH — The Sundance Film Festival isn’t home to many shoot-em-up movies, but action-oriented actors at the festival are facing questions about Hollywood’s role in U.S. gun violence.
Guy Pearce, Alexander Skarsgard, Kristen Bell and director Roger Corman were among those discussing the issue at the annual independent-film showcase.
Pearce is in Park City, Utah, to support the family drama Breathe In, but he’s pulled plenty of imaginary triggers in violent films such as Lockdown and Lawless. He says Hollywood may make guns seem more appealing to the broader culture, but there are vast variations in films’ approach to violence.
“Hollywood probably does play a role,” Pearce said. “It’s a broad spectrum, though. There are films that use guns flippantly, then there are films that use guns in a way that would make you never want to look at a gun ever again — because of the effect that it’s had on the other people in the story at the time.
“So to sort of just say Hollywood and guns, it’s a broad palette that you’re dealing with, I think. But I’m sure it does have an effect. As does video games, as do stories on the news. All sorts of things probably seep into the consciousness.”
Skarsgard, who blasted away aliens in Battleship, agreed that Hollywood has some responsibility for how it depicts violence onscreen.
“When ( NRA executive director) Wayne LaPierre blames it on Hollywood and says guns have nothing to do with it, there is a reason,” he said. “I mean, I’m from Sweden. We do have violent video games in Sweden. My teenage brother plays them. He watches Hollywood movies. We do have insane people in Sweden and in Canada. But we don’t have 30,000 gun deaths a year.
“Yes, there’s only 10 million people in Sweden as opposed to over 300 (million) in the United States. But the numbers just don’t add up. There are over 300 million weapons in (the U.S.). And they help. They do kill people.”
Bell, who stars in the dramatic competition film The Lifeguard, said the issue is far more complicated than simply blaming Hollywood.
“There’s a lot of things that are emphasized in our entertainment industry as plot points or interesting shorelines, but none of them seem to be as affecting the American public as the gun control,” she said. “So I don’t necessarily know that it’s blameable on Hollywood, though I think there’s a certain responsibility and we need to re-examine everything that we do.”
Skarsgard suggested it may be time to revisit the U.S. constitution’s second amendment.
“The whole second amendment discussion is ridiculous to me. Because that was written over 200 years ago, and it was a militia to have muskets to fight off Brits,” he said.
“The Brits aren’t coming. It’s 2013. Things have changed.
“And for someone to mailorder an assault rifle is crazy to me. They don’t belong anywhere but the military, to me. You don’t need that to protect your home or shoot deer, you know.”