Echoes of violence. Howard Hawks and the End of the Production Code

Abstract

Focusing on Howard Hawks’ last six movies, especially on Rio Bravo, El Dorado and Rio Lobo, the article casts a critical eye over the reasons of the cancellation of the Hays Code. The changes that Hollywood cinema suffered during the sixties can help us understand the essence of classical cinema as opposed to the films that were born of the fight against censorship. The text will focus mainly on the depiction of violence as a crucial movement against the Production Code – looking for the reasons of this growth of violence in the social context and, more specifically, in the assassination of John Fitzgerald Kennedy in 1963.