The Killing of America

The documentary tells American violence through statistics and archive footage. It starts with the Kennedy assassination and runs through street confrontations, bank robberies, police camera recordings and serial killer interrogation tapes. Interviews with figures including Sirhan Sirhan and Wayne Henley are cut in. The narration keeps supplying numbers: guns in circulation, homicide rates, annual increases. Sheldon Renan and Leonard Schrader soften nothing and present that as a deliberate argument: violence stays abstract as long as it is not shown. The same stance became the most criticised thing about the film, which was called exploitative. Completed in 1981, it screened in Japan and for many years was not distributed, televised or sold in the United States. It was restored and returned to circulation in later decades. Who it's for: Anyone studying the contested works of documentary history and interested in American gun culture. Who it's not for: Not suitable for most viewers. The film contains real footage of death and censors none of it.