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.

Night Mail

Night Mail. Harry Watt and Basil Wright, 1936.
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Edition screened: Included on BFI Blu-ray The Soviet Influence: From Turksib to Night Mail, released 2011. English language. Runtime approximately 23 minutes.

Summary: No depictions of violence toward animals.

Night Mail shows the people and machinery of a post office on rails that provides non-stop pickup, sorting, and delivery on its nightly run from London to Scotland. Although made as a public education piece by the UK General Post Office, it is a beautiful little film with original music by Benjamin Britten and poetic narration that reflects the train’s rhythm and speed.

The glitch is featuring this title in a compilation declaring to show how the English learned modern filmic techniques from the Soviets. Rather, Night Mail indicates that even seven years after Turksib the Brits still feared an artful modern appearance and clung to quaint traditionalism. A slight rewording of BFI’s mission statement, reminding us that change comes slowly in England and often through side doors, would have accommodated Night Mail nicely. Additionally, Britten’s music and W.H. Auden’s narrative poem are nicely modern in style and content, but their mere presence reflects the dual Anglo needs to over-explain everything and to decorate all available space. Contrast to Turksib’s elective silence and boldly superimposed lettering of shockingly modern scale and typeface.

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