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.

Melancholia

Melancholia. Lars von Trier, 2011.Edition screened: Magnolia Blu-ray, released 2012. English language. Runtime approximately 135 minutes.
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Summary: Depiction of a horse being beaten.

Details: Kirsten Dunst’s horse refuses to go any further, at which point she whips him with a crop until he lies down and Charlotte Gainsbourg makes her stop, 1:22:18-1:22:50.

From the opening scene in which a limousine ride demonstrates man’s unwillingness – not inability, but unwillingness – to function on the earth; through the technological value of a wire loop on a stick surpassing a Meade 127 Newtonian telescope; to the closing moments that show how we all die in Magic Caves of our own design, few films provide the wealth of discussion points proposed by Melancholia. Not content with continual symbolic content, von Trier also loads dialogue and tableaux with cultural meaning, often referencing obscure and delicious marginalia that make Melancholia quite different from a Tarantino-style pop culture trivia contest … All those Bettys at the wedding reception … and the spoons … and the ease with which Kirsten Dunst slips between her roles as Steelbreaker and Dealbreaker.

Since you get what you pay for, membership in the I Want That Two Hours of My Life Back! club is free, as always, at Amazon reviews. Alternately, quite a few people have something interesting to offer, including the tantalizing observations here.

I will truncate my thoughts to a brief admiration of von Trier’s expansion of a private golf course. We get several glimpses of a clearly-marked 19th hole throughout the film, presumably a costly bit of merriment planned by the wealthy host (Keifer Sutherland) for the amusement of guests at the lavish multi-day wedding reception. Perhaps he planned also to set up a bar at the end of the course in keeping with the traditional joke. Perhaps there were special 19-column score cards printed for the event. We never will know, as nothing comes of his endeavor. How, he must have thought, could anyone not notice? How could anyone just drive past in a golf cart and not see my work, not appreciate my effort? We see his wife doing just that. We even see him beg her to put two and two together, to notice – anything – when he asks slyly, “Hey, How many holes on our golf course?” But no nothing.

It is common for von Trier, in his outrageous and intentionally unreal films, to give us a thread just this hyper-realistic in both its portrayal and content. Here, a disappointment known to all good partners: To mistakenly think that your effort might be enjoyed or even noticed, and then to pour salt in the self-inflicted wound by hinting and prodding for acknowledgement. Von Trier presents this thread ingeniously, perfectly, by providing mere glimpses of the golf course contrivance, thus placing the viewer in the role of inattentive family member. He has packed Melancholia with two hours of such juicy berries. But how could we be expected to notice them when that time is so better spent wishing that we had it back?

See also, comments for Silent Running.

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