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.

God Respects Us When We Work, But Loves Us When We Dance

God Respects Us When We Work, But Loves Us When We Dance. Les Blank and Skip Gerson, 1968.
😸
Edition screened: Included in Criterion Blu-ray set #737 Les Blank: Always for Pleasure, released 2014. No dialogue track. Runtime approximately 20 minutes.

Summary: No depictions of violence or harm to animals.

At the closing of the film, the band Spontaneous Combustion is thanked for providing the music soundtrack. According to clear and authoritative comments made by Les Blank during a 2011 interview at MOMA in coordination with the exhibit Les Blank: Ultimate Insider, the band we see performing at the event is neither Spontaneous Combustion nor the Steve Miller Band, as sometimes proposed. The musicians seen performing are a mix of local talent, possibly including Ray Manzarek. Blank did not record an audio track while filming the video portion. Spontaneous Combustion created the soundtrack specifically for the film soon thereafter.
Indexed after God Respects Us in the Criterion set is the recent making-of documentary Flower Power.
at
Labels: , , ,