ON A cold afternoon I thought I’d watch an afternoon movie.

For nearly half an hour I stuck with a stream of incomprehensible dialogue, stark brutality, sexual and physical violence, in close up; crude language and general blood and gore. And this a mainline general release film premiering at a major world international film festival.

Giving this up I turned to a classic of the 1950s. And lo and behold - dare I say - it had a moral centre. It told a story with major human values in play. How a society holds together in the face of threatening violence.

Yes ‘romantic’- with a great soundtrack. And yes by today’s standards very simple. A straight forward story of good facing up to violence.

‘What’s your point?’ I hear you say.

I would say everything in the world. How our value system has collapsed over the decades.

Films and gaming and media have become so much more violent and crude with us, generation by generation, barely noticing. And this plays out in the behaviour of the young; in both sexual behaviour and violence.

We all - when young and not so young - have our role models. When I was young these were clean cut, standing up for fairness; the classic Robin Hood. They took on the bullies of the world.

But now where are we? Violence and brutality in graphic detail pumping out of movie factories.

Jeff Williams