Heads Up, Ears Down

This blog accurately identifies depictions of violence and cruelty toward animals in films. The purpose is to provide viewers with a reliable guide so that such depictions do not come as unwelcome surprises. Films will be accurately notated, providing a time cue for each incident along with a concise description of the scene and perhaps relevant context surrounding the incident. In order to serve as a useful reference tool, films having no depictions of violence to animals will be included, with an indication that there are no such scenes. This is confirmation that the films have been watched with the stated purpose in mind.


Note that the word depictions figures prominently in the objective. It is a travesty that discussions about cruelty in film usually are derailed by the largely unrelated assertion that no animals really were hurt (true only in some films, dependent upon many factors), and that all this concern is just over a simulation. Not the point, whether true or false. We do not smugly dismiss depictions of five-year-olds being raped because those scenes are only simulations. No, we are appalled that such images are even staged, and we are appropriately horrified that the notion now has been planted into the minds of the weak and cruel.


Depictions of violence or harm to animals are assessed in keeping with our dominant culture, with physical abuse, harmful neglect, and similar mistreatment serving as a base line. This blog does not address extended issues of animal welfare, and as such does not identify scenes of people eating meat or mules pulling plows. The goal is to itemize images that might cause a disturbance in a compassionate household.


These notes provide a heads-up but do not necessarily discourage watching a film because of depicted cruelty. Consuming a piece of art does not make you a supporter of the ideas presented. Your ethical self is created by your public rhetoric and your private actions, not by your willingness to sit through a filmed act of violence.

1900

1900 (Novecento). Bernardo Bertolucci, 1976.
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Edition screened: Paramount 2-Disc Collector’s Edition DVD, released 2006. Italian language with original English dub. Runtime approximately 315 minutes.

Summary: Torture and murder of animals.

Details (Disc 1):
1) From 26:40 through 31:38 is a graphic, extended scene of living frogs being tortured. First we see Tommaso Sawyerini snatching frogs from a river bank and impaling each through the chest on a heavy wire, as though he were stringing beads. He proudly announces that he has 20, and we see the frogs writhing in agony. He then wraps the wire around his hat and proceeds to have a monkey-see-monkey-do game with his friend while the frogs convulse in pain and nostalgic Gosh, Don’t You Wish You Was a Kid Again? music plays in the background.
2) Beginning at 1:46:00 is a 1-minute sequence of sportsmen shooting Sitting Ducks. We see four or five ducks struggle on the river with broken necks and similar wounds before they die.
3) At 1:54:00 the Brown Shirts hold a meeting in a church. They have brought their hunting proceeds with them, and drape dead rabbits and fowl across the backs of the pews while they talk. 
4) At 2:40:52 Donald Sutherland straps a cat to a wall. The cat is in extreme distress while Sutherland delivers a speech about destroying Communism. He then kills the cat in a very alarming way.
(Disc 2):
5) The obligatory pig slaughter happens 47:10 through 53:00. Real, no special effects, no merciful quick killing, just disemboweling. Of course they clown around with entrails, just like in every other movie.
6) Not really abuse, but weird: At 1:42:00 we get quite a detailed shot of a man massaging a horse’s anus to make it defecate into his hands. He then pelts Donald Sutherland with the steaming.

Even disregarding the extreme cruelty to animals and the complacent attitude about those cruelties, 1900’s five hour and fifteen minute commitment is not adequately rewarded. You could watch The Silence, Persona, and Shame, with a snack between each one in the same amount of time, and finish up saying, “What a fabulous evening,” instead of “Well, at least now I’ve seen De Niro and Depardieu naked at the same time.”

The inevitable pig slaughter scenes in these manly historical Italian movies manage to be boringly predictable, embarrassingly stupid, and shamefully cruel all at once.

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