Article: Atom Egoyan's The sweet hereafter: death, Canadian style.

Try this on as a distinguishing characteristic. In American movies, death tends to be an event, either a cathartic punch line that snaps the intricately crafted spell of suspense ("Go ahead. Make my day.") or, in revenge terms, a convenient motivating agent ("Now it's your turn to die."). In short, it's either someone getting shot or someone getting licence to shoot them. Its emotional effects tend not to be lingered on, as that would hinder action instead of promoting it, and the only fate worse than death in contemporary Hollywood-think is stasis, the suspension of interest caused by even the slightest lapse in action. That's why death is reduced to a form of spectacle ...

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