Sundance stars sound off on gun violence in film

From left, actresses Ellen Page, Brit Marling, director Zal Batmanglij and actor Alexander Skarsgard, from the film "The East" pose for a portrait during the 2013 Sundance Film Festival on Sunday, Jan. 20, 2013 in Park City, Utah. (Photo by Victoria Will/Invision/AP Images)
From left, actors Guy Pearce, Amy Ryan, Mackenzie Davis, Felicity Jones and director Drake Doremus from the film "Breathe In" pose for a portrait during the 2013 Sundance Film Festival on Sunday, Jan. 20, 2013 in Park City, Utah. (Photo by Victoria Will/Invision/AP Images)

PARK CITY, Utah (AP) -- The Sundance Film Festival isn't home to many shoot-em-up movies, but action-oriented actors at the festival are facing questions about Hollywood's role in American gun violence.





Skarsgard, who blasted away aliens in "Battleship," agreed that Hollywood has some responsibility for how it depicts violence on-screen.



Bell, who stars in in the dramatic competition film "The Lifeguard," said the issue is far more complicated than simply blaming Hollywood.

"There's a lot of things that are emphasized in our entertainment industry as plot points or interesting shorelines, but none of them seem to be as affecting the American public as the gun control," she said. "So I don't necessarily know that it's blamable on Hollywood, though I think there's a certain responsibility and we need to re-examine everything that we do."

Bell's co-star, Mamie Gummer, said she's often "perturbed" by on-screen violence.

"I really hate Quentin Tarantino's movies generally, and I thought 'Django Unchained' especially was really tough to bear in light of everything," she said. "Just the deep romanticizing of it, the fetishizing of it is creepy to me. Or maybe it's lost on me. I don't enjoy it."

Bell doesn't mind seeing violent films but advocates for greater awareness of mental illness and for stricter gun control.

"It's such a paradoxical issue. Because those movies don't bother me at all. And it doesn't bother me when I see people shoot guns. Yet I'm fully for more gun control in reality," she said. "Because I'm smart enough to recognize what's reality and what's not. And I think that's an issue that needs to be addressed... A lot of the people that are picking up guns have an inability to distinguish between reality and fantasy. And I think that's probably -- though I do support gun control, a tighter gun control than we have now -- that's an issue that deserves to be addressed because that's probably the root of it."



Corman also cited Canada's response to movie violence.

"Canada sees the same motion pictures that we do. They play the same video games that we do. They see the same television that we do. Their crime rate -- and specifically their murder rate -- is a tiny fraction of ours," he said. The only difference is they have strong gun control laws and we (don't). I wish somebody would ask the head of the NRA how he explains that."

Skarsgard suggested it may be time to revisit the Second Amendment.


AP Entertainment Writer Ryan Pearson is on Twitter:

AP Movie Writer David Germain contributed to this report.