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Original poster

James Bulger

567 replies

Monty27 · 03/01/2019 07:32

Hang your head in shame Vincent Lambre.
You low life creep.
Anyone?

OP posts:
CuriousaboutSamphire · 03/01/2019 08:00

Obviously but why go out of your way to try to give any shred of sympathy to those murderers?

What sympathy? There has been none shown on this thread!

DitzyPrints · 03/01/2019 08:00

The director admitted he didn’t want to ask the family in case they said no on Gmb which is such a cowardly excuse.
Terribly sad for the Bulger family to have to deal with this as well.
I don’t think the director’s excuse of humanising the murderers is quite accurate if that was the case that could have been done with purely showing a dramatisation of the interviews even an insight into their homelife. However, from the trailers it’s clear the interviews are interjected with scenes showing James Bulger being taken, being walked by the killers and eventually taking the railway track- was this necessary? Oh course the Bulger family should have been contacted prior to another child recreating James final hours.

Someone up thread asked why this was different from dramatising any other murder- it’s completely different. It was the torture, abuse of a 2 year old baby by two children.
The hysteria and mass panic in the country at the time in response - video nasties etc was huge. We all felt affected by what happened to James Bulger I still feel incredibly sad for the family and for that poor boy and he went through that day.

NeverTwerkNaked · 03/01/2019 08:02

@DitzyPrints oh I hadn’t appreciated how graphic it was. That doesn’t seem acceptable at all. Angry

Zoflorabore · 03/01/2019 08:03

My ds is studying GCSE drama and has 2 set pieces to perform. The first was the tragedy of the little boy found washed up on the beach who was a refugee and the second is the James Bulger murder.

I'm unsure how i feel about this to be honest. My ds is 15 and that was how old I was when James was murdered only a few miles away from us. I will never ever forget that day when he was found.

The fact that he didn't speak to the family speaks volumes. From what I've heard over the years both boys families were driven out of the city years ago as they were constantly targeted by vigilantes.

hazell42 · 03/01/2019 08:03

We need to remember the victims . Not the offenders. Can anyone remember the names of children who have been killed. Probably not. But you can remember the killers.

Er yes. James Bulger. Its in the title.

Vitalogy · 03/01/2019 08:04

Is it not important that actually, yes, we DO humanise the murderers? If not, isn't it just a case that we are ignoring humanity's ability to commit murder, even as children, thus failing to develop our understanding of the human psyche? I agree. Makes others very uncomfortable, as the anger on these threads show. It's more palatable to see them as monsters. Under the right set of circumstances anyone is capable of these crimes.

Ohheyyy · 03/01/2019 08:06

What sympathy? There has been none shown on this thread!

I wasn't talking about this thread. I was talking about how it's thought by humanizing the killers people may feel sorry for them somehow.

TheStoic · 03/01/2019 08:06

Obviously but why go out of your way to try to give any shred of sympathy to those murderers?

Is there sympathy in the film, though? I have not seen it.

daisychain01 · 03/01/2019 08:07

We need to punish them, certainly. But we also need to have some understanding, so we, as a society, can try to avoid, ameliorate, prevent repeated acts.

Sounds like something a politician would say.

Look, we are never going to understand or "ameliorate":the acts of these scumbags. They should just be locked away and have the key thrown away. Look at Ian Brady, he spent years twisting the justice system round his little finger making empty promises when he was playing games for his own entertainment.

Absolutely no point trying to do anything with them other than determine they were guilty then take them out of circulation. Anything else is a travesty to the victims families and a waste of public money.

DitzyPrints · 03/01/2019 08:09

Yes but you can humanise the boys and explore their homelife and what factors may have contributed them committing those acts WITHOUT showing James there is no justification for the injection of another child playing James Bulger. It was unnecessary and it feels gratuitous imo.

Fairylea · 03/01/2019 08:10

As an aside, I really wouldn’t have wanted my son to play either of those boys in the film.

OrgyofSausages · 03/01/2019 08:11

I agree with nevertwerknaked. It is tragic and very worrying that two ten year olds can end up committing such monstrous acts. I think it is far more productive and intelligent to attempt to understand how it happened and why the two boys did it. More intelligent than baying for blood and screaming mobs bellowing 'throw away the key' at two ten year old kids at any rate. Hmm.

I haven't seen the film and I don't intend to. I doubt it is any more or less intrusive and/or salacious than any tabloid report or red top 'investigation' of violent crime.

My dd studied this particular crime as part of her R.S GCSE in the component about crime, punishment and forgiveness. This strikes me as far more intelligent and constructive than adopting the Sun approach of monosyllabic dim-witted hate-speak.

HaudYerWheeshtYaWeeBellend · 03/01/2019 08:11

well I guess this was exactly what he was aiming at, he may have been the first to make a movie, but loads of people have cashed in on the Bulger case...

Its a different prospective, nothing more, whether you agree or not.

BertrandRussell · 03/01/2019 08:11

Why would you not feel sympathy for children so damaged that they would do such a thing? Why would you not want to know why?

Vitalogy · 03/01/2019 08:11

Absolutely no point trying to do anything with them other than determine they were guilty then take them out of circulation I don't disagree with this. Shouldn't stop us asking questions though surely.

daisychain01 · 03/01/2019 08:12

We already know deprivation was at the centre of their behaviour. How's that going to help. I can't see any good can come from making a film out of it. It tells us nothing we don't already know.

NameChangerAmI · 03/01/2019 08:14

HowamIgoingtocope

My comment about no body forgetting James' name was in response to your comment at 7:42:42.

Why can't people be made aware of their crime through film. It's a bit like saying ask the victims families of Harold shipman ( Im from that area ) thwre would always be someone who doesn't like what's happening

I agreee with you, I haven't said that people can't be made aware of crime through film, though I was shocked that the transcripts were released. That was me just being naive, I think.

It's uncomfortable, but personally I think the film should have been made for the reasons @CuriousaboutSamphire and @NeverTwerkNaked have explained ...

If we want to prevent similar we need people to “humanise” them, to ask questions about how this can be prevented in future.

To call them monsters and then shut up shop, and vilify anyone who suggests we should never look at the tragedy from this perspective is so simplistic and unintelligent. It achieves nothing!

TheStoic · 03/01/2019 08:16

We already know deprivation was at the centre of their behaviour. How's that going to help. I can't see any good can come from making a film out of it. It tells us nothing we don't already know.

Plenty of people around the world know nothing of this case.

Bumper1969 · 03/01/2019 08:17

Of course the murderers are human and chrldren at the time. I found the idea of the film interesting. It is insensitive to not contact the family but that's what film makers, writers etc do. Does anyone really believe in the idea of evil and demons? Is that not a denial of the intrinsic nature of being human? Humans do horrific things to each other. Surely it's worth looking at this?

Grace212 · 03/01/2019 08:21

Bertrand "Let’s hope nobody on here watches or reads “True Crime”, eh? Or speculates on here with all the other armchair detectives/pathologists/psychiatrists whenever a crime is committed?"

um, no, hate all that type of thing. Imagine many posters here will be same.

DangermousesSidekick · 03/01/2019 08:22

Under the right set of circumstances anyone is capable of these crimes.

I disagree. Many people, most people, yes. But even in Nazi Germany there were heroes.

Tinkobell · 03/01/2019 08:22

No thank you. I shallnt be watching that. Cras and v unpleasant. The memory of James should be left alone.

MoreCheeseDear · 03/01/2019 08:23

It was a dreadful case. What hit home to me at the time were the ways in which it could have been prevented. If he'd been wearing reins or strapped in his pushchair he could not have wandered off - but how may times have mothers taken their eyes off a toddler in the same circumstances? It could happen to almost anyone.

There were many eye witnesses to James' awful last walk and no one did anything. Two young boys with a sobbing toddler went past them and yet they did nothing. I think this case changed people's attitude to "getting involved" and I really believe they would be challenged at some point if this were to happen today, I hope so.

The boys who killed James were children themselves. We need to learn how they could come to do such a dreadful thing. Are psychopaths born or made?

I don't know anything about this film - if it's prurient then I won't want it to win any awards. If it's a genuine attempt to understand how it happened I think it's worth doing.

DistanceCall · 03/01/2019 08:23

Why would you not feel sympathy for children so damaged that they would do such a thing? Why would you not want to know why?

Indeed. I don't blame the killers - they were children, just like their victim. I blame their families, who brought them up in such a way that they became monsters.

GinIsIn · 03/01/2019 08:27

They weren’t demons or scumbags, they were extremely fucked up children.

There have already been several TV & film adaptations of the case - the frankly brilliant Boy A, and an episode of Law and Order UK spring to mind.

What happened to James Bulger was horrific. Absolutely horrific. My son is the same age as he was now, and I was the same age as the killers were when they did it, and the case makes me feel very, very sick.

But it’s ridiculous to say that we can and should dictate what is and is not acceptable in the arts. The whole point of art, and I include film in that, is to make people stand up and talk, be moved in some way, recognise something about themselves or their society. It shouldn’t always just be things that everyone will like. Just look at the painting Myra by Marcus Harvey.

Those of you calling the killers demons etc. - what if your own child did something truly awful? Would you denounce them as demons and never want anyone ever to try and explain why they did what they did?

A beautiful little boy’s life was taken, but two other young lives were lost too, possibly long before their awful, terrible actions. Something made them so what they did, and isn’t it important to explore and understand why?