Life inspires life

If the art didn’t exist, life couldn’t have inspired life — I think that’s the point.

Last week, I watched an old (1991) Bill Kurtis documentary on the movies and copy-cat crimes, on one of the history/documentary channels. I started retching at the end, with all the talk of “positive role models” and whatnot. Still, there were plenty of examples, and I don’t think it’s possible to deny that violent images encourage violent behavior, however mediated.

But one example was really very very VERY ill-chosen. Jaw-droppingly ill-chosen. There was a whole segment devoted to a French-Belgian couple who bilked people selected from lonely-hearts ads out of their money and killed them. They were supposedly inspired by the movie THE HONEYMOON KILLERS. Except … that the film follows a true story, even giving the characters the same names as their real-life counterparts. How can you blame life on art, when that art imitated life in the first place?