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.

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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