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.

The Wages of Fear

The Wages of Fear (Le Salaire de la peur). Henri-Georges Clouzot, 1953.
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Edition screened: BFI Blu-ray, released 2017. French language with English subtitles. Runtime approximately 152 minutes.

Summary: Torturing of insects and abuse of a dog.

Details:
1) The opening of the film after the title sequence is a close-up of several cockroaches tied together with string, pulling in opposing directions. A boy who has tied them together picks the strings up with a stick 2:20-2:28.
2) An ice cream vendor leaves his nice dog unattended and tied to his wagon for a moment. A fat ugly man whips a few rocks at the dog at close range. The dog yips when hit and the man comments “I hate mutts.” 3:44-3:52.

The Wages of Fear, an exceptionally fine, tense drama, is setup by these two scenes of typical animal cruelty. Many films open with a close-up of insects in conflict or in peril, most referencing Buñuel’s L’Âge d’or and intended to remind viewers of the true scale and worth of humanity in the world. In this case “the world” is an impoverished South American village filled with drunks, drifters, and desperate locals. The only thing that possibly could make life worse would be the presence of an American oil company that further tightens the noose by exploiting the desperation of the townspeople . . . [cue ugly white man who throws rocks at the ice cream dog].

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