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.

Swept Away (Wertmüller)

Swept Away (Travolti da un insolito destino nell'azzurro mare d'agosto). Lina Wertmüller, 1974.
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Edition screened: Koch Lorber DVD, released 2006. Italian language with English subtitles. Runtime approximately 114 minutes.

Summary: Hunting violence in a reasonable context.

Details:
1) A sardine is caught, cleaned and eaten, at 33:20.
2) A lobster is brought up from the ocean at 47:30 and we see cooking preparation, but no actual killing or boiling.
3) At 1:01:30 several real fish are shown impaled on sticks during a brief fishing scene.
4) At 1:14:00 a rabbit is caught in a snare, and 30 seconds later comes a brief but explicit scene of it being skinned. At 1:15:00 we see the skinned body impaled on a spit.
5) At 1:33:30 eggs are taken from a nesting mother bird.
6) At 1:36:38 in the final scene, a character pulls a horse too high up on its reigns and the horse falls backwards onto its back.

Respectful hunting in a genuine survival context might be one of the least offensive types of animal violence. The obstacles in getting through this film are the shouting vacationers of the opening scene and the embarrassing “Me Tarzan, you Jane” dialogue that fills the middle section, more than the brief hunting depictions.

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