THE Oscar winning American actor, Dustin Hoffman, strongly criticised the levels of violence in current cinema when he addressed an international press conference at the 49th Cannes Film Festival.
"Commerce and violence are mixed together now in a way like I've never seen before in my lifetime," he said yesterday.
Hoffman drew a connection between film and video violence and the recent massacres in Port Arthur and Dunblayne. He echoed comments made by the Irish film censor, Mr Sheamus Smith, last week when he rejected the violent US film From Dusk Till Dawn.
"Do violent films contribute?" Mr Hoffman asked. "Absolutely."
The American actor was in Cannes to announce a package of six films with relatively low budgets which his company, Punch Productions, will make in a joint venture with the Australian company, Village Roadshow.
Each of the films will have budgets of $6-10 million, less than a third of the cost of the average Hollywood movie.
"The budgets of films are so high now that some are costing more than $100 million," he said, noting that such figures would have been unthinkable a few years ago.
"Then the studios have to throw another $30 million or more at launching a film to make sure it succeeds on its opening weekend in America. If it doesn't open big on that first weekend, it's dead."
The films he has liked most in recent years were all made for relatively little money, he said, pointing out the irony that it is sometimes easier to raise finance for expensive rather than for smaller films. "My company had this really good Irish project about two kids during the Troubles and not one American studio wanted to do it."
After the press conference, Mr Hoffman told The Irish Times his company was no longer involved with the Irish project.
And the actor also criticised the standards of film critics. "Film criticism has deteriorated so much now in some of the media that a movie is all down to whether it gets a thumbs up or a thumbs down. It's ridiculous."