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.

By Brakhage: An Anthology, Volumes One and Two

By Brakhage: An Anthology, Volumes One and Two. Stan Brakhage, 1954-2003.
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Edition screened: Criterion Blu-rays #184, and #517, included in the 3-Blu-ray box set #518, released 2010. Mostly silent. Cumulative runtime of Volume 1, originally released on Criterion DVD in 2003, approximately 243 minutes. Cumulative runtime of Volume 2, originally released on Criterion Blu-ray in 2010, approximately 454 minutes.

Summary: No depictions of human violence toward animals, but two documents of dead animals in nature.

Details:
1) Volume 2, Disc 1, Program 3 - Burial Path: Beginning at 13:45 and continuing through 14:08, a dead young Robin is found and sensitively buried under moss.
2) Volume 2, Disc 1, Program 3 - The Domain of the Moment: Beginning at 49:07 and continuing through 52:56, we see documentary footage of a snake constricting and swallowing a mouse or guinea pig.

This set contains 56 works by Stan Brakhage, including such appropriately famous films as Dog Star Man (1961-64), The Act of Seeing with One’s Own Eyes (1971), and Mothlight (1963). Brakhage’s stunning oeuvre explores the nature of sight and vision through the creation of films with unorthodox content and technique. Most are extremely beautiful creations, most are enlightening viewing experiences.

Volume 1:
Desistfilm - 1954 • 6 minutes, 48 seconds • 16 mm • Monaural
Wedlock House: An Intercourse - 1959 • 10 minutes, 47 seconds • 16 mm • Silent
Dog Star Man - 1961-64 • 74 minutes, 34 seconds • 16 mm • Silent
The Act of Seeing with one’s own eyes - 1971 • 31 minutes, 50 seconds • 16 mm • Silent
Cat’s Cradle - 1959 • 6 minutes, 16 seconds • 16 mm • Silent
Window Water Baby Moving - 1959 • 12 minutes, 11 seconds • 16 mm • Silent
Mothlight - 1963 • 3 minutes, 13 seconds • 16 mm • Silent
Eye Myth - 1967 • 9 seconds • 16 mm • Silent
The Wold-Shadow - 1972 • 2 minutes, 24 seconds • 16 mm • Silent
The Garden of Earthly Delight - 1981 • 1 minute, 43 seconds • 35 mm • Silent
The Stars Are Beautiful - 1974 • 18 minutes, 27 seconds • 16 mm • Monaural
Kindering - 1987 • 2 minutes, 51 seconds • 16 mm • Monaural
I . . . Dreaming - 1988 • 6 minutes, 35 seconds • 16 mm • Monaural
The Dante Quartet - 1987 • 6 minutes, 3 seconds • 35 mm • Silent
Night Music - 1986 • 30 seconds • 35 mm • Silent
Rage Net - 1988 • 35 seconds • 35 mm • Silent
Glaze of Cathexis - 1990 • 35 seconds • 35 mm • Silent
Delicacies of Molten Horror Synapse - 1990 • 8 minutes, 16 seconds • 16 mm • Silent
Untitled (For Marilyn) - 1992 • 10 minutes, 27 seconds • 16 mm • Silent
Black Ice - 1994 • 1 minute, 49 seconds • 16 mm • Silent
Study in color and black and white - 1993 • 1 minute, 35 seconds • 16 mm • Silent
Stellar - 1993 • 2 minutes, 19 seconds • 16 mm • Silent
Crack Glass Eulogy - 1991 • 6 minutes, 6 seconds • 16 mm • Monaural
The Dark Tower - 1999 • 2 minutes, 19 seconds • 16 mm • Silent
Commingled Containers - 1996 • 2 minutes, 42 seconds • 16 mm • Silent
Love Song - 2001 • 10 minutes, 48 seconds • 16 mm • Silent

Volume 2:
Program 1: 1955–67
The Wonder Ring - 1955 • 5 minutes, 34 seconds • 16 mm • Silent
The Dead - 1960 • 10 minutes, 21 seconds • 16 mm • Silent
Two: Creeley/McClure - 1965 • 3 minutes, 11 seconds • 16 mm • Silent
23rd Psalm Branch - 1967 • 63 minutes, 47 seconds • 8 mm • Silent

Program 2: 1967–76
Scenes From Under Childhood, Section One - 1967 • 23 minutes, 46 seconds • 16 mm • Silent/Monaural
The Machine of Eden - 1970 • 10 minutes, 45 seconds • 16 mm • Silent
Star Garden - 1974 • 20 minutes, 58 seconds • 16 mm • Silent
Desert - 1976 • 10 minutes, 7 seconds • Super 8 mm • Silent

Program 3: 1972–82
The Process - 1972 • 8 minutes, 1 second • 16 mm • Silent
Burial Path - 1978 • 8 minutes, 2 seconds • Super 8 mm • Silent
Duplicity III - 1980 • 22 minutes, 18 seconds • 16 mm • Silent
The Domain of the Moment - 1977 • 14 minutes, 33 seconds • 16 mm • Silent
Murder Psalm - 1980 • 16 minutes, 24 seconds • 16 mm • Silent
Arabic 12 - 1982 • 17 minutes, 1 second • Super 8 mm • Silent

Program 4: 1989–90
Visions in Meditation #1 - 1989 • 16 minutes, 19 seconds • 16 mm • Silent
Visions in Meditation #2 (Mesa Verde) - 1989 • 16 minutes, 9 seconds •16 mm • Silent
Visions in Meditation #3 (Plato’s Cave) - 1990 • 16 minutes, 36 seconds • 16 mm • Monaural
Visions in Meditation #4 (D. H. Lawrence) - 1990 • 17 minutes, 41 seconds • 16 mm • Silent

Program 5: 1982, 1992, 1994
Unconscious London Strata - 1982 • 22 minutes, 15 seconds • Super 8 mm • Silent
Boulder Blues and Pearls And ... - 1992 • 22 minutes, 24 seconds • 16 mm • Monaural
The Mammals of Victoria - 1994 • 34 minutes, 9 seconds • 16 mm • Silent
From: First Hymn to the Night - Novalis - 1994 • 2 minutes, 52 seconds • 16 mm • Silent

Program 6: 1995-2003
I Take These Truths - 1995 • 17 minutes, 44 seconds • 16 mm • Silent
The Cat of the Worm’s Green Realm - 1997 • 14 minutes, 10 seconds • 16 mm • Silent
Yggdrasill: Whose Roots Are Stars in the Human Mind - 1997 • 16 minutes, 58 seconds • 16 mm • Silent
“. . .” Reel Five - 1998 • 14 minutes, 6 seconds • 16 mm • Stereo
Persian Series 1-3 - 1999 • Total run time: 5 minutes, 54 seconds • 16 mm • Silent
Chinese Series - 2003 • 2 minutes, 18 seconds • 35 mm • Silent

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