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.

Django

Django. Sergio Corbucci, 1966.
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Edition screened: Blue Underground Blu-ray, released 2010. Italian language with English subtitles. Runtime approximately 92 minutes.

Summary: Depicted disregard for the safety of horses.

Details:
1) Several times in the film we see large gun fights with men on horseback as targets, and both man and horse tumble to the ground amid a swirl of other riders. This could be interpreted as a depiction of a horse being shot. However, most of the physical ground in Django is covered in thick slippery mud, and the actual circumstance probably is that the horse is thrown off balance and slips in the mud when the rider lunges to the side pretending to be shot. The depiction, then, could be interpreted either as the horse slipping in the mud, or as both horse and rider being shot in crossfire.
2) Similarly, a scene begins at 1:10:05 in which a gatling gun aimed at a door shoots all who enter. At 1:10:50 a horse runs in front of the gun and falls as though shot. The gun certainly is shooting blanks at the rush of men, and so again, the horse probably slipped in the mud and fell in such a way that a bonus violent suggestion was created coincidentally.

None of these incidents shows any injury to a horse. But the possible interpretation of the horses being shot could cause viewer alarm, and therefore should be noted in this project.

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