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.

Pierre Étaix

Pierre Étaix. Pierre Étaix and Jean-Claude Carrière, 1961-1971.
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Edition screened: Criterion Blu-ray #655, released 2013. French language with English subtitles. Collective runtime approximately 457 minutes.

Summary: No particular depictions of violence toward animals.

The set includes five full-length films and three shorts, comprising just about Étaix’s entire directorial output. The films follow an understandable but unfortunate progression. The first few are refreshing works of understated comedy in the French taste, each containing surprises that are quite funny. The frequent comparisons to Jacque Tati and Buster Keaton are appropriate, and there also is a taste of Ernie Kovacs-style visual wit. These early works culminate in the excellent Yoyo. The next few films mark a downward slide toward You Kids Get Off My Lawn fist shaking, still entertaining at times, but similar to the worst episodes of Mr. Bean. Le Grand Amour tries to recapture the earlier charm, but Étaix’s career ends with Land of Milk and Honey, innovative in a few ways, but a tedious indulgence in humiliating contemporary French culture by rehashing ideas and visual language used previously to better effect.

The Criterion compilation contains:

Rupture (1961)
The Suitor (1962)
Yoyo (1965)
Feeling Good (1966)

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