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Kat Candler released her short film, Black Metal onto YouTube in preparation for its upcoming premiere at the Sundance Film Festival. The plot revolves around the singer of a black metal band whose music may—or may not—have inspired a teenager to kill his teacher. The film features sound clips from Honed Almighty, Vesperian Sorrow, Curtis Heath and Pallbearer.
Black Metal is Candler’s second short film to premiere at Sundance in as many years. Last year’s short, Hellion, garnered some positive buzz; given the controversial subject matter and arresting images that black metal offers, I’d wager Black Metal will draw further attention to Candler, especially in light of the shooting at Sandy Hook earlier this year.
What Black Metal says about the relationship between music and youth violence, and metal as a subculture, is obscure. It would be easy to dismiss Black Metal as another example of non-listeners co-opting black metal’s violent past for the sake of attention, but the soundtrack is current, high-quality, and obviously curated by someone with an interest in metal beyond the film. Even the concert sequence looks accurate to an average black metal show. If Candler wanted to make black metal into a scapegoat she could have tried harder—there are no musicians doused in blood, no women hanging from crucifixes, or goat heads flying into the audience. Metal blogger and true crime writer Corey Mitchell served as a consultant on the film.
Judge for yourselves. It’s a fine short, and takes less time than a cigarette break:
-Joseph Schafer
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Yeah, I don’t know. This is well-shot, edited, directed, and acted, but the central question of whether violent music contributes to violent acts just seems facile to me. And I don’t think that’s just me being defensive because I happen to like metal (a lot!) and am tired of people assuming that means I’m a murderer (spoiler alert: I’m not).
The central question isn’t just whether or not the band’s music “caused” the young boy to kill, but also how an artist’s work no longer becomes his or her own once it is disseminated to the rest of the world.
Interestingly enough, one viewer pointed out that the character of Ian may actually be smirking after his daughter’s question. I don’t necessarily believe that to be the case, however, it does put yet another interesting twist on the non-response.
Finally, had Kat’s goal been to implicate heavy metal music as responsible for heinous, I would have never signed on as a consultant for this film.
To me personally this comes off as a cheap cash-in riding the popularity of the genre. Using violent music, films or games as an excuse to commit real violence is just that, an excuse. That mentality encourages people not to take responsibility for their own action.
Believe me, if Kat wanted to “cash-in,” she would not have chosen Black Metal as her genre to co-opt. A beloved genre with very few followers is the last thing one would go after if they wanted to make money. Plus, it’s a short film. There are no markets within which to make cash from in short films.
I do, however, like the fact that you are a Cobalt fan.
At first I was slightly annoyed because I felt like the final question (“did you?”) was intended to be rhetorical, but on second thought that’s not necessarily the case. The question is legitimate – the problem though is that this kind of debate is often co-opted by people who have no understanding of or sensibility for metal culture. As a result, they tend to take many of its messages and symbols literally, which is almost always a misinterpretation of their intentions. It is no surprise then that the resulting policy advice will be wrongheaded, too.
As to the question itself, I think it is hard to say that there can never, ever be a case where a black metal conceptualization of the world is instrumental to someone’s obsessions turning into violence. But I think that crucially, it is still a form of art and not an actual physical means of violence (which, by the way, separates this debate from the gun debate), so it may at most be a lens through which the perpetrator rationalizes or stylizes their violence instead of being the actual cause of the violence.
I was hired as the “metal consultant,”true crime consultant,” and music supervisor for BLACK METAL. I have officially been involved in the business of metal since 1986. I also write true crime books and have addressed the issue of violence and media in various formats over the years.
Just to be clear, I would not have taken the gig if Kat’s intention was to declare metal responsible for violent crimes.
I think that the short portrays the main family as very human people, who lead a normal life having a normal job, the musician as a person who although a bit ill-tempered, loves and cares about his family. They also face the scorn and rejection of non-metal society, who don’t understand it’s all about the music.
It makes it very obvious that the musician doesn’t like what that kid has done, did not intend in any manner to motivate an action of that sort and is going through a bad time after this has happened. For me the final question represents the inevitable self-questioning of the signer and the burden that careless and ignorant people put on his shoulders and he’ll have to carry for the rest of his life.
Great comment – made me think about it in a different way.
Probably one of the best things ive heard anyone say about this argument, well said.
I agree with you on this one — for the most part. I think any musician who’s had his or her music called into question in this manner probably wonders, inside or aloud, whether the music could have had something to do with it. The act of questioning doesn’t mean that the music was an influence, but the musician probably does think about it.
That said, there IS still the implication that the music is somehow connected to the crime which, as others have said, allows the criminal to abdicate responsibility. I wish that point was also addressed in the film somehow, even briefly, to balance out the singer’s act of questioning his own potential culpability.
Bngo! You nailed it. All.
y’know, i doubt this opinion will be very popular around here, but i’ve always been totally down to own up to the ability of metal/black metal to inspire murder, massacres and other fucked up shit. what other genre is so immersive, so moving, so totally powerful that it could move some of its listeners to total insanity?
You don’t hear about some bonkers 70’s Bowie fan actually trying to go to outer space. You don’t hear about some crazed Radiohead fan doing something similarly insane. Black metal, on the other hand, does have the power drive some of its most unstable listeners to do some pretty wild things. And let’s face it, its not like the best BM bands have alot of moments of catharsis. Most of them have entire discographies that entirely consist of bleak dissonance and nihilism. I’m not surprised that it really messes up some people.
I think its the thought that you are weird an unaccepted that drives people to do horrible things. Black Metal is just an outlet that attract those who do horrible things.
Maybe to you black metal is the only genre that’s so immersive, but there are others who would probably say the same about hip-hop, or trance, or whatever. People who aren’t fans of black metal, or metal at all, do crazy things all the time. We just don’t usually hear about their musical tastes unless it’s something that’s unusual to the general public.
Mark David Chapman killed John Lennon. I wouldn’t say they were very metal.
To the post above, you must be ignorant about the juggalo movement and The Insane Clown Posse. The have some of the most ignorant fans who see themselves as one body, a family as they like to call it, and in some cases carry out violent acts against those who they deem a “theat”. Black Metal has insipired some violence in its past but it was mostly by a few within the movement itself and not some random fan that has little to no contact with the artist themselves. Overall I thought this short film was excellent and shows that most of the artist are real people with empathy and compassion which was reflected at the end after the main characters daughter asked if he helped to commit the violent act at which point he was left speechless and possibly questioned the legacy he was going to leave upon society. I really felt bad for that character who was attempting to deal with the situation by even considering counseling.
After listening to all kinds of death metal for 25 years (not bragging), I’ve always been interested as to whether mass murderers or spree-killers were, at least, partially inspired by extreme metal. I haven’t seen any evidence that they are. Look at the two big spree-killing stories of the last year–the Colorado movie theater and Sandy Hook school shooting. The perpetrators of these crimes are often completely alienated due to mental disorders and such–they don’t often appear to be inspired by a sense of righteous indignation. In fact, I think people who are really in touch with their anger (as I believe many fans of extreme metal to be) are the last ones to do these kinds of things. The Korean Virginia Tech shooter was a quiet loner loser who wasn’t in touch with reality–kinda like that clown from the movie theater. Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold of Columbine fame weren’t angry metal dudes, just alienated morons with some serious screws loose. Shit, back in the 70s they said that Richard Ramirez was inspired to commit murders by the music of AC/DC! I don’t know about you, but “A Whole Lotta Rosie” doesn’t make me want to gun down anyone, except for the person who keeps playing it on the jukebox! Judas Priest was another unjustly associated band. Doesn’t it seem a bit ridiculous by today’s standards? They’ve been trying to pin violence on music since the 1950s. It’s just a very weak connection.