“Decontextualized Little Clips of Violence”: Daniel Goldhaber and Isa Mazzei on Faces of Death

When Faces of Death was released almost fifty years ago, the idea of being “extremely online” was a distant glimmer, probably somewhere in Tim Berners-Lee’s eye. If you had a predilection for the grotesque or a passing fascination with that which should not be seen, darkened theaters or pulpy true crime rags were the only source. The idea of seeing “real” human death, bodies dismembered, viscera strewn all over the street, was all taboo, but a softening one as we emerged from the Vietnam War. The horrific imagery from those senseless massacres awakened something in the general public. It certainly […] Source