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 Train

Night Train (PociÄ…g). Jerzy Kawalerowicz, 1959.
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Edition screened: Second Run DVD #65, released 2012 and included in the “Polish Cinema Classics” box set. Polish language with English subtitles. Runtime approximately 93 minutes.

Summary: No depictions of violence or harm to animals.


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The Manchurian Candidate

The Manchurian Candidate. John Frankenheimer, 1962.
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Edition screened: Arrow Blu-ray, released 2015. English language. Runtime approximately 126 minutes.

Summary: No particular depictions of violence or harm to animals.


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Make Way for Tomorrow

Make Way for Tomorrow. Leo McCarey, 1937.
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Edition screened: Criterion Blu-ray #505, released 2015. English language. Runtime approximately 92 minutes.

Summary: No depictions of violence or harm to animals.


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A Hijacking

A Hijacking (Kapringen). Tobias Lindholm, 2012.
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Edition screened: Arrow Blu-ray, released 2013. Danish language with English subtitles. Runtime approximately 103 minutes.

Summary: Goat killing and mild fishing violence.

Details:
1) A large fish is caught. No butchering or gore, just reeling in and passing around of the catch, 51:50-52:40.
2) Several goats are brought on board. Mikkel is forced to kill one by slitting its throat, 1:17:40-1:18:35. 

A very good thriller.

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Heart of Glass

Heart of Glass. Werner Herzog, 1976.
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Edition screened: Included in the BFI Blu-ray box set The Werner Herzog Collection, released 2014. German language with English subtitles. Runtime approximately 94 minutes.

Summary: No particular depictions of violence or harm to animals.















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La Grande Bouffe

La Grande Bouffe (Grande Abbuffatta). Marco Ferreri, 1973.
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Edition screened: Arrow Blu-ray, released 2015. French language with English subtitles. Runtime approximately 130 minutes.

Summary: Culinary corpses.

Details:
1) Parade of Carcasses, culminating in Michel Piccolli dancing around with a boiled calf’s head, 18:15-20:50.
2) Close-up of a piglet roasting on a spit.
3) Turkey butchered on a chopping block, 1:13:25-1:13:48.
4) Parade of Carcasses D.S. al Coda, 2:05:09-2:05:12, and 2:07:40-2:08:20.

Comparatively, this is all pretty mild except for the turkey murdering scene, which still contains no blood or gore since the camera is positioned above the beheading. La Grande Bouffe does not wallow in the mistaken cuteness of mutilating animals like Les Blank’s films.

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Gomorrah

Gomorrah. Matteo Garrone, 2008.
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Edition screened: Criterion Blu-ray #493, released 2009. Italian language with English subtitles. Runtime approximately 137 minutes.

Summary: No depictions of violence or harm to animals.


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Garlic Is as Good as Ten Mothers

Garlic Is as Good as Ten Mothers. Les Blank, 1980.
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Edition screened: Included in Criterion Blu-ray set #737 Les Blank: Always for Pleasure, released 2014. English language. Runtime approximately 50 minutes.

Summary: Carcass porn.

Details:
1) First we are shown healthy piglets with their mother, accompanied by subtitles paraphrasing ‘This Little Piggie’. Then we are shown partially prepared (blanched?) piglet carcasses with excessive detail to their intact eyes and ‘smiling’ mouths, again with cutesy subtitles declaring how yummy they is or some such crap, 9:39-11:40. 
2) Similar eyeball-and-mouth gore porn during fish preparation, 39:20-39:51.

This project usually does not extend the concept of Violence to Animals to include normal food prep, normal meat cutting, etc. These scenes, however, revel smugly in the appearance of the dead faces and coerce us to identify with the earnest downhometry of it all. Not nearly as abhorrent as the jackassery of Blank’s Cajuncentric features, but few things are.

Criterion indexes two related 2014 documentaries after this title, For the Love of Garlic and Remembering Les.

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The French Connection

The French Connection. William Friedkin, 1971.
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Edition screened: 20th Century Fox DVD, released 2001. English language. Runtime approximately 104 minutes.

Summary: No particular depictions of violence or harm to animals.


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French Connection II

French Connection II. John Frankenheimer, 1975.
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Edition screened: 20th Century Fox DVD, released 2001. English language. Runtime approximately 119 minutes.

Summary: Fish market gore.

Details:
1) The opening scene is set in a Marseilles fish market with typical scenes of cleaning fish, 3:33-3:50 and 6:28-7:50.
2) Brief pheasant hunting scene, 21:48-22:08, nothing gory.

Gottlieb Big Brave and Sheriff machines in the French bar scene.


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Frankenhooker

Frankenhooker. Frank Henenlotter, 1990.
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Edition screened: Arrow Blu-ray, released 2013. English language. Runtime approximately 84 minutes.

Summary: Simulated killing of a Guinea Pig. 

Details: Super-strength rocks of crack cocaine are ‘smoked’ into a Guinea Pig’s cage as an experiment. The animal is shown exploding in a way that is neither realistic nor clear, at 33:35. 


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Excision

Excision. Richard Bates Jr., 2012.
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Edition screened: Eureka! Blu-ray, released 2012. English language. Runtime approximately 81 minutes.

Summary: Dissection of a dead bird.

Details: Pauline finds a dead bird on the sidewalk, 50:43, and gently places it in her book bag. She practices her surgery skills by carefully opening its chest and removing some organs, 51:30-52:30.

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Contamination

Contamination. Luigi Cozzi (as Lewis Coates), 1980.
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Edition screened: Arrow Blu-ray, released 2015. Italian with English dub. Runtime approximately 96 minutes.

Summary: Depicted murder of a lab rat.

Details: A deadly fluid is injected into a white rat at 21:33. Depiction of the rat exploding in its acrylic cage at 21:57, with ensuing chitchat around the splattered mess until 22:43.

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Bill Morrison: Selected Films

Bill Morrison: Selected Films. Bill Morrison, 1996-2014.
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Edition screened: BFI 3-Blu-ray set, released 2015. English language. Cumulative runtime approximately 460 minutes.

Summary: The Film of Her includes a famous 1903 short clip of an elephant being electrocuted. No other films in the set include any particular depictions of violence or harm to animals.

This Blu-ray set includes:

The Film of Her. 1996, approximately 12 minutes. English language.
A romanticized account of the real discovery and saving of a vast collection of early film documents in the National Archives. Among the antique images is a 5-second clip (2:48-2:53) from Edison Film Company’s Electrocuting an Elephant, a 1903 document of the execution of Coney Island’s ‘Topsy’.

City Walk. 1999, approximately 6 minutes. No dialogue track, score by Michael Gordon.

Ghost Trip. 2000, approximately 23 minutes. English language.

Decasia: The State of Decay. 2002, approximately 67 minutes. No dialogue track, score by Michael Gordon.

The Mesmerist. 2003, approximately 16 minutes. English intertitles, no dialogue track, score by Bill Frisell.

Light Is Calling. 2004, approximately 8 minutes. No dialogue track, score by Michael Gordon.

Outerborough. 2005, approximately 9 minutes. No dialogue track, score by Todd Reynolds.

Porch. 2006, approximately 9 minutes. No dialogue track, English language score by Julia Wolfe, David Lang, et al.

The Highwater Trilogy. 2006, approximately 31 minutes. No dialogue track, English language score by David Lang and Michael Gordon.

Who By Water. 2007, approximately 18 minutes. No dialogue track, score by Michael Gordon.

Spark of Being. 2010, approximately 67 minutes. No dialogue track, score by Dave Douglas.

Release. 2010, approximately 13 minutes. No dialogue track.

Just Ancient Loops. 2012, approximately 26 minutes. No dialogue track.

Re:Awakenings. 2013, approximately 18 minutes. English intertitles, score by Philip Glass.

The Great Flood. 2013, approximately 78 minutes. English intertitles, score by Bill Frisell.

Beyond Zero: 1914-1918. 2014, approximately 41 minutes. English Language, score by Kronos quartet.

Back to the Soil. 2014, approximately 18 minutes. English subtitles, score by David Lang.

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