Violence to Animals in Film: November 2015

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.

Searching for the Wrong-Eyed Jesus

Searching for the Wrong-Eyed Jesus. Andrew Douglas, 2005.

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Edition screened: Home Vision DVD, released 2006. English language. Runtime approximately 82 minutes.

Summary: No depictions of violence toward animals.

This exploration into small-town life in the deep south is at times surprisingly truthful, at other times conspicuously disingenuous. Douglas’s depiction is suspiciously void of racism and animal abuse, both cherished components of traditional rural culture.

The Searchers

The Searchers. John Ford, 1956.
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Edition screened: Warner Blu-ray, released 2006. English language. Runtime approximately 119 minutes.

Summary: Murdered animals.

Details:

1) Several cattle are found lying dead, killed by spears, 15:34-15:52.

2) John Wayne shoots one buffalo in a large herd and we see it fall dead at 1:09:42. He then fires insanely into the herd through 1:10:22, screaming something about ‘Guns Save Lives!’

3) A Native American camp has been raided, with dead horses lying about 1:11:20-1:11:38.

Sea of Love

Sea of Love. Harold Becker, 1989.

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Edition screened: Universal DVD released 1998. English language. Runtime approximately 153 minutes.

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

Scouting in Palestine

Scouting in Palestine (Sopralluoghi in Palestina per il vangelo secondo Matteo). Pier Paolo Pasolini, 1965.

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Edition screened: Included on Eureka! Masters of Cinema Blu-ray #33, The Gospel According to Matthew, released 2012. Italian language with English subtitles. Runtime approximately 54 minutes.

Summary: No depictions of violence or harm to animals.

While scouting locations around Palestine for the filming of The Gospel According to Matthew, Pasolini realized that he needed to shoot in Italy instead. The trip was valuable to the director for larger culturally preparatory reasons.

Score

Score. Radley Metzger, 1973.

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Edition screened: Cult Epics Blu-ray, released 2010. English language. Runtime approximately 92 minutes.

Summary: No particular depictions of violence toward animals. 2.5/5❤

The Science of Sleep

The Science of Sleep. Michel Gondry, 2006.

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Edition screened: Warner DVD, released 2007. English and French language with English subtitles. Runtime approximately 105 minutes.

Summary: No particular depictions of violence toward animals.

Scent of a Woman

Scent of a Woman. Martin Brest, 1992.

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Edition screened: Universal DVD, released 2003. English language. Runtime approximately 157 minutes.

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

The Scarlet Empress

The Scarlet Empress. Josef von Sternberg, 1934.

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Edition screened: Criterion Blu-ray #109 included in box set # 930 Dietrich & von Sternberg in Hollywood, released 2018. English language. Runtime approximately 104 minutes.

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

Scarface

Scarface. Brian De Palma, 1983.

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Edition screened: Universal Blu-ray, released 2011. English language. Runtime approximately 170 minutes.

Summary: No particular depictions of violence toward animals.

Saw III

Saw III. Darren Lynn Bousman, 2006.

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Edition screened: Included in Lions Gate Blu-ray set Saw: The Complete Movie Collection, released 2014. English language. Runtime approximately 108 minutes.

Summary: Grinding of pig carcasses.

Details: A slaughterhouse-style conveyor chain delivers partially rotted pig carcasses into a grinder, 58:39-1:02:22. The decaying carcasses are not particularly realistic, and the disgusting part is that the ground-up putrid remains are dumped on a man in the bottom of a cement pit. Plot action continues through all this, and we get several views of the carcasses falling off the conveyor and into the grinder.

Saw II

Saw II. Darren Lynn Bousman, 2005.

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Edition screened: Included in Lions Gate Blu-ray set Saw: The Complete Movie Collection, released 2014. English language. Runtime approximately 93 minutes.

Summary: No depictions of violence or harm to animals.

Saw

Saw. James Wan, 2004.

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Edition screened: Included in Lions Gate Blu-ray set Saw: The Complete Movie Collection, released 2014. English language. Runtime approximately 103 minutes.

Summary: No depictions of violence or harm to animals.

Saving Private Ryan

Saving Private Ryan. Steven Spielberg, 1998.

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Edition screened: Paramount Blu-ray, released 2010. English language. Runtime approximately 169 minutes.

Summary: Depictions of dead animals.

Details:

1) Dead fish and human bodies after the massacre on Omaha Beach, 27:52-28:25.

2) The swollen bodies of dead cattle in a French pasture are used as cover by American soldiers advancing on a German bunker, 1:27:08-1:28:16.

The writers and director should be complimented for not indulging in the pointless shooting of domestic animals common in war films.

Saturday Night and Sunday Morning

Saturday Night and Sunday Morning. Karel Reisz, 1960.

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Edition screened: BFI Blu-ray, released 2009. English language. Runtime approximately 89 minutes.

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

This superb adaptation of Alan Sillitoe’s short novel is a defining example of Kitchen Sink Realism.

The Saragossa Manuscript

The Saragossa Manuscript (Rekopis znaleziony w Saragossie). Jerzy Wojciech Has, 1965.

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Edition screened: Zebra/DMMS Blu-ray, released 2014. Polish language with English subtitles. Runtime approximately 183 minutes.

Summary: A few scenes include hanging butchered pigs in the background, but there is no gore or depictions of butchering (30:56-32:30, and 3:01:00-3:01:11).

What a doozie. Like many films, this thing called the plot (from the Middle English plod: having a heavy gate) is a bit burdensome. But the detailed set designs, fabulous score, and dreamy images make the plod through the plot a joy.

Saraband

Saraband. Ingmar Bergman, 2003.

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Edition screened: Included in Criterion Blu-ray set Ingmar Bergman’s Cinema, released 2018. Swedish language with English subtitles. Approximately 111 minutes.

Summary: No depictions of violence toward animals.

Saraband and the ‘Theatrical version’ of Scenes from a Marriage share disc #8 of 30 in Ingmar Bergman’s Cinema (parts of ‘Centerpiece 1’).

Santa sangre

Santa sangre. Alejandro Jodorowsky, 1989.

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Edition screened: Severin Blu-ray, released 2011. English language. Runtime approximately 123 minutes.

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

Details:

1) A crowd of circus performers gathers mournfully at 22:00 as a young elephant lies dying. The depiction of blood coming from the elephant’s trunk is very sad, but the narrative suggests no cruelty to the elephant, only compassion.

2) At 26:00 the elephant’s funeral procession concludes with the huge and ornately decorated coffin being slid off of a wagon and down a bank into the garbage dump. Waiting peasants swarm the coffin, rip away the lid, and begin to butcher the carcass. We do not see the butchering as it takes place inside the large coffin, and the several pieces of meat thrown out are not particularly graphic or identifiable. But the violence implied by contrasting the somber circus mourners with the rabid peasants is effectively shocking.

3) A hallucinatory scene at 1:21:00 shows a man in an abandoned wooden church, the floor filled with chickens. Suddenly many more (real, live) chickens are dropped from an unseen height into the room. Some clearly are badly injured when they hit the floor, with some dying while the scene concludes. A very distressing transgression.

Santa sangre retains the No Guts No Glory conceptual aesthetic of Jodorowsky’s earlier films, but as a product of the late 80s rather than the early 70s it is more narrative and less intellectually demanding.

Sanshô dayû

Sanshô dayû (Sansho the Bailiff). Kenji Mizoguchi, 1954.

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Edition screened: Eureka! Masters of Cinema Blu-ray #37 in box set Late Mizoguchi: Eight Films 1951-1956, released 2013. Japanese language with English subtitles. Runtime approximately 125 minutes.

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

Salon Kitty

Salon Kitty (Madam Kitty). Tinto Brass, 1976.

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Edition screened: Argent Blu-ray, released 2011. Italian language with English subtitles. Runtime approximately 133 minutes.

Summary: Graphic slaughter and mutilation of a pig.

Details: A one-minute slaughterhouse scene begins at 8:30. The vignette goes far beyond butchering, as a living pig squeals in pain while it is slit open and then mutilated. The butchers laugh, hoot, and have pantomimed sex-play with its entrails. There are no special effects here.

This scene is queued by a medical lecture in which a Nazi professor asks who first discovered the biological superiority of the master race. A student answers “Adolf Hitler,” and the film cuts abruptly to the slaughterhouse scene with some of the butchers dressed as Nazi officers. The slaughter scene ends with a loud pig snort and abruptly cuts to an elegant Nazi banquet. The director’s intent is obvious but regrettable in its delivery. Except for this one-minute torture sequence, the remainder of Salon Kitty plays out like a sexually explicit sequel to Cabaret, with plenty of campy posturing, bawdy stage shows, and weird Nazi lingerie. While not one of the world’s great films, there is far more plot and general interest here than in much of Brass’s catalogue. For those interested in viewing, I provide this schedule of the opening scenes:

1) The opening title sequence is a cabaret routine.

2) Immediately following is a naked male Nazi gymnastics scene, intercut with dialogue establishing the plot to follow.

3) Immediately following the embarrassing gymnastics is the silly Nazi medical lecture which cuts to the slaughter scene as described above.

With that schedule in mind, watch what you want of the opening scenes, bail out during the lecture, and skip ahead to the 9:45 mark to miss the cruel slaughter and begin with the real plot and eroticism of the film.

Salomé

Salomé. Clive Barker, 1973.

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Edition screened: Included in the Arrow Blu-ray set Hellraiser: The Scarlet Box, released 2015. No dialogue track. Runtime approximately 18 minutes.

Summary: No depictions of violence or harm to animals.

Salesman

Salesman. David Maysles, Albert Maysles, and Charlotte Zwerin, 1968.

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Edition screened: Criterion DVD #122, released 2001. English language. Runtime approximately 91 minutes.

Summary: No depictions of violence or harm to animals.

The Criterion DVD also includes a 31-minute television interview by Jack Kroll with David and Albert Maysles from 1968.

Sadomania

Sadomania (Hellhole Women / Hölle der Lust). Jesús “Jess” Franco, 1981.
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Edition screened: Blue Underground DVD, released 2004. English language with some Spanish language with English subtitles. Runtime approximately 102 minutes.

Summary: No particular depictions of violence or harm to animals. 2.5/5❤

Room in Rome

Room in Rome (Habitación en Roma). Julio Medem, 2010.

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Edition screened: Optimum Blu-ray, released 2010. English language. Runtime approximately 107 minutes.

Summary: No depictions of violence or harm to animals. 3/5❤

This is a film about two very attractive women who have just met and share one night of sex and friendship in an up-scale hotel room. There is a great deal of nudity but nothing shocking or pornographic.

While there is much to enjoy visually, this potential enjoyment is greatly thwarted, just missing the apparent target of annihilation, by the world’s most unsexy background music. Shrill non-lexical coloratura comes in way too often, way too loud, and lasts way too long. Although the dialogue is in English, the girls speak softly and carry big Russian and Mediterranean accents as attractive women should, requiring a rather high listening volume. Then just as they flop down on the bed or reach for a treat, in comes the howling vocals evoking the eroticism of an Avon catalogue. With over 90 minutes of intimate images of beautiful nude women, Room in Rome is guaranteed to keep your right hand occupied riding the volume control.

Monty Python and the Holy Grail

Monty Python and the Holy Grail. Terry Gilliam and Terry Jones, 1975.

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Edition screened: Columbia TriStar 2-DVD Special Edition, released 2001. English language. Runtime approximately 91 minutes.

Summary: Comedic depictions of beating a cat.

A cat, clearly stuffed, is beaten against a stone wall in the background with accompanying yowl sound effects, 7:45-7:57.

There are other moments of broad visual comedy involving animals, but nothing cruel or violent.

Her

Her. Spike Jonze, 2014.

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Edition screened: Warner Blu-ray, released 2014. English language. Runtime approximately 126 minutes.

Summary: No depictions of violence or harm to animals.

Hellraiser: The Scarlet Box

Hellraiser: The Scarlet Box. Clive Barker, Tony Randel, and Anthony Hickox, 1973-1992.

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Edition screened: Included in the Arrow Blu-ray set Hellraiser: The Scarlet Box, released 2015. English language. Cumulative runtime of features films approximately 346 minutes.

Summary: Some titles include depictions of torture to animals.

Arrow’s deluxe Scarlet Box includes generous supplemental material along with the films:

Salomé (1973)

The Forbidden (1978)

Hellraiser (1987)

Hellbound: Hellraiser II (1988)

Hellraiser III: Hell on Earth (1992)

Hellraiser III: Hell on Earth

Hellraiser III: Hell on Earth. Anthony Hickox, 1992.

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Edition screened: Included in the Arrow Blu-ray set Hellraiser: The Scarlet Box, released 2015. English language. Runtime approximately 93 minutes.

Summary: No depictions of violence or harm to animals.

Hellraiser

Hellraiser. Clive Barker, 1987.

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Edition screened: Included in the Arrow Blu-ray set Hellraiser: The Scarlet Box, released 2015. English language. Runtime approximately 93 minutes.

Summary: Depictions of rats tortured.

Details:

1) A man eats a handful of crickets in a pet store, 44:30-44:50.

2) Depiction of two live rats nailed to a wall, twitching and bleeding, 50:45-50:50.

3) A rat is flayed open with a knife, 52:25-52:34.

Hellbound: Hellraiser II

Hellbound: Hellraiser II. Tony Randel, 1988.

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Edition screened: Included in the Arrow Blu-ray set Hellraiser: The Scarlet Box, released 2015. English language. Runtime approximately 99 minutes.

Summary: Very quick depiction of a dissected pet.

Details: Intercut into a montage of quick images are several very short flashes of a teenage boy dissecting a cat(?) pinned to a board, 1:03:42-1:03:50.

Hell on Earth (Joyce)

Hell on Earth. Paul Joyce, 2002.

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Edition screened: Included on BFI DVD The Devils, released 2012. English language. Runtime approximately 48 minutes.

Summary: No depictions of violence or harm to animals.

This documentary discusses the creative design and filming of The Devils, and explores the two blasphemous scenes cut from all distributed versions of the film to date.

Hard To Be a God

Hard To Be a God (Trudno byt bogom). Aleksey German, 2013.

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Edition screened: Arrow Blu-ray, released 2015. Russian language with English subtitles. Runtime approximately 177 minutes.

Summary: Displays of dead animals.

Details:

1) Backgrounds frequently include animal carcasses hanging from architecture or in storage rooms.

2) The camera strolls down a hallway with 15 or so dead rabbits suspended by their feet from the ceiling, apparently waiting food preparation, 1:04-08-1:04-20.

3) Numerous hanged dogs (wolves?) are present in a storage room 1:23:00-1:32:02. Important dialogue takes place in this claustrophobic space that contains many jumbled things.

4) Another dog or wolf carcass as the film nears its close 2:47:57-2:48:10, and at a final campfire 2:52:40-2:53:18.

Bonus Points! …

Bonus Points? With three hours of dead animals hanging from almost every ceiling? Bonus Points?

This is an unusual film that merits unusual consideration. Our genius director has created a fictionalized quasi-medieval environment of filth and hardship. The scenery of Hard To Be a God is filled with outhouse pits, leeches, birth defects … and animals presumably killed for food or dead for other reasons.

I object greatly to Bernardo Bertolucci’s glorification of ‘unspoiled’ 20^th-century Europeans reveling in mutilating live animals and throwing the entrails around in joyous celebration, and specifically that Bertolucci wants us to identify with those celebrants as salt of the earth folks, our precious bon vivant ancestors.

I object greatly to Les Blank’s glorification of low-income southerners mutilating animals and clowning around with their quivering carcasses as normal good-old-days happy times before dang blasted ‘political correctness’ ruined everything that was good about the U.S. of A., dang blast it.

I object greatly to the gratuitous Hunting Porn so frequently forced into films, designed to make us feel that these are great guys, real men, regular fellas just like our husbands and neighbors who compensate for their repressed tendencies in exactly the same way.

I have great respect for Aleksey German’s refreshing ability to simply depict the reality of dead animals in a landscape, without forcing in irrelevant scenes of painful slaughter and mutilation. Hard To Be a God does not even include the expected scenes of spit-roasting and drumstick wrenching. And why should it? The more appropriate question is: Why are such scenes forced into so many movies? Be aware of the unflattering condescension usually shoved at us.

While I am astounded by the absence of animal cruelty in Hard To Be a God, that absence is not a didactic point or theme. The film is a visual circus, often hilarious, sometimes confusing, always captivating. The young genius film scholar Daniel Bird provides an excellent introduction and explanation in The History of the Arkanar Massacre, included on the Arrow Blu-ray.

The Gospel According to Matthew

The Gospel According to Matthew (Il vangelo secondo Matteo). Pier Paolo Pasolini, 1964.

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Edition screened: Eureka! Masters of Cinema Blu-ray #33, released 2012. Italian language with English subtitles. Runtime approximately 127 minutes.

Summary: No depictions of violence or harm to animals.

Ghost Town

Ghost Town. David Koepp, 2008.

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Edition screened: Dreamworks, released 2008. Runtime approximately 92 minutes.

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

I found Gervais’s delivery funny as usual.

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