Feature: Should cinema pursue a social role?

VENICE, Italy (Xinhua) - Should movies give positive values? During a particularly violence-shaken Venice Film Festival, Xinhua has consulted several directors, actors, film critics and common watchers on whether cinema should also have a "social role."

Assunta Masullo, a literature professor who was busy with attentively evaluating the world premiere works, hit the ceiling when asked this question.

"Of course cinema should pursue an educative role," she said. "But violence has become an unbearable recurring element instead."

The professor went on to say that she found some of the plots "horrific," and she refused to watch such films.

"Society has already too much violence and it makes no sense to further stimulate bad feelings. I strongly hope that filmmakers will have the courage to realize this," she stressed.

In fact, many observers told Xinhua they were annoyed by violence and sex being among the main themes on show at the 70th edition of the Italian festival.

"In general, this time's movies are very dark and hopeless. There is a lot of violence against everyone, and I am not sure that it is really good for people," a cinema critic of the Agence France-Presse (AFP), Sandra Lacut, noted.

According to the festival director Alberto Barbera, this could be a sign of the ongoing times of crisis.

"The crisis and its fallout in terms of values, models, behaviors and relationships, is a big theme this year," he told a recent news conference.

Among the most talked titles competing this year for the coveted Golden Lion award are "Child of God" from James Franco, a story of an insane man who falls deeper into crime and degradation, and David Gordon Green's brutal American South drama "Joe," all containing disturbing scenes.

Both part of the Out of Competition section, Paul Schrader's erotic thriller "The Canyons" starring Lindsay Lohan tells the story of a violent tour through the dark side of human nature, while "Moebius" by Ki-duk Kim, the South Korean director winner of the Golden Lion last year, portrays the destruction of a family as its members give into incestuous sexual desires.

Speaking of his work, which is based on a novel by Cormac McCarthy and was screened on Saturday, Franco acknowledged that some scenes are "extreme." However, they were necessary to "mark" the character, he told Xinhua.

Other film directors, including Stephen Frears who presented "Philomena" and Emma Dante, author of "Via Castellana Bandiera," said that films should not have any "social missions" because the public must be let free to find different meanings in them.

"The question is on whether to make movies about what does not function or about the positive world that we all desire," a cinema consultant, Paolo Luigi De Cesare, told Xinhua. "After all, people have all possibilities to watch dark stories on television, while they need to go to the cinema in order to imagine a different world," he added.

Echoing his words, Francesco Minarini, a short film maker, said the many scenes he saw of violence, unease and anger against the world not only represent the society's present condition, but especially highlight "the incapacity of many people to appreciate good sentiments."

"In fact, I am convinced that human beings fundamentally tend to improve themselves. Giving them some help and lightness in this direction would be best for cinema," he told Xinhua.