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.

Sweeney Todd (Burton)

Sweeney Todd. Tim Burton, 2007.
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Edition screened: Warner DVD, released 2008. English language. Runtime approximately 116 minutes.

Summary: Insect smashing.

Details: While making pies and singing at Johnny Depp, Helena Bonham Carter flicks an insect to the floor and steps on it at 09:25, and smashes another with her rolling pin at 11:25. Cartoonish.
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The Sweet Hereafter

The Sweet Hereafter. Atom Egoyan, 1997.
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Edition screened: Included in Artificial Eye The Atom Egoyan Collection Blu-ray set, released 2013. English language. Runtime approximately 112 minutes.

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

Sweet Smell of Success. Alexander Mackendrick, 1957.
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Edition screened: Criterion Blu-ray #555, released 2011. English language. Runtime approximately 96 minutes.

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


Extra features on the Criterion Blu-ray include Dermont McQuarrie’s 1986 documentary, Mackendrick: The Man Who Walked Away, with no animal violence.
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Sweet Sugar

Sweet Sugar. Michel Levesque, 1972.
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Edition screened: Vinegar Syndrome Blu-Ray #171, released 2017. English language. Runtime approximately 86 minutes.

Summary: Abuse of cats; animal mutilation.

Details:
1) A cat in a small cage is injected (off screen) with a serum 42:00-42:11. The cat becomes violently upset, then numerous other caged cats are brought into the room. They agitated cats are roughy thrown over a barrier wall so they will attack prisoners on the other side, 43:00-43:40.
2) A mutilated cow head hangs from a rope, 55:40-56:59.
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The Swinging Cheerleaders

The Swinging Cheerleaders. Jack Hill, 1974.
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Edition screened: Arrow Blu-ray, released 2016. English language. Runtime approximately 91 minutes.


Summary: No depictions of violence or harm to animals.
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Sword of Vengeance

Sword of Vengeance (Lone Wolf and Cub: Sword of Vengeance/Kozure Ôkami: Kowokashi udekashi tsukamatsuru). Kenji Misumi, 1972.
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Edition screened: Included in Criterion Blu-ray box set #841, Lone Wolf and Cub, released 2016. Japanese language with English subtitles. Runtime approximately 83 minutes.

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

This is the first of six films in the original Lone Wolf and Cub series.

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Swordfish

Swordfish. Dominic Sena, 2001.
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Edition screened: Warner DVD, released 2004. English language. Runtime approximately 99 minutes.


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

Sworn to the Drum: A Tribute to Francisco Aguabella. Les Blank, 1995.
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Edition screened: Included in Criterion Blu-ray set #737 Les Blank: Always for Pleasure, released 2014. English language. Runtime approximately 34 minutes.


Criterion indexes the related 2014 making-of documentary A Master Percussionist after this title.
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Sybil

Sybil. Daniel Petrie, 1976.
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Edition screened: Warner 30th Anniversary Edition DVD, released 2006. English language. Runtime approximately 187 minutes.

Summary: Depictions of a decapitated cat.

Details:
1) A series of drawings illustrate Sybil’s nightmare involving a decapitated cat. Two drawings showing the dismembered animal are shown consecutively, 59:42 through 1:00:02. A third drawing is shown 1:00:25-1:00:34.

2) We share Sybil’s actual nightmare in which she is pursued by a decapitated cat. We first see the screeching cat in a trash can with only its head protruding. Following is a 1-second shot of a headless cat howling from a tree (2:08:30), and the head alone staring up from the floor of the barn loft (2:09:27-2:09:29).

1973 Bally Monte Carlo in one arcade, and other pinball machines in another arcade.

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Symbiopsychotaxiplasm

Symbiopsychotaxiplasm: Two Takes. William Greaves, 1968 & 2003.
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Edition screened: Criterion DVD #360, released 2006. English language. Cumulative runtime of two feature films approximately 174 minutes.

Summary: No depictions of violence or harm to animals in any material on either disc.

The Criterion DVD set includes Greaves’ original Symbiopsychotaxiplasm: Take One (1968, 75 minutes), along with Symbiopsychotaxiplasm: Take 2 1/2 (2003, 99 minutes). 
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Sympathy for the Devil (Godard)

Sympathy for the Devil (One Plus One). Jean-Luc Godard, 1968.
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Edition screened: Universal DVD, released 2003. English language. Runtime approximately 101 minutes.

Summary: No depictions of violence or harm to animals.

This film is approximately 50% live footage of the Rolling Stones rehearsing “Sympathy for the Devil” in studio, cut with fictional depictions of Black Panthers and ironic social protest.

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Symptoms

Symptoms. José Ramón Larraz, 1974.
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Edition screened: BFI ‘Flipside’ Blu-ray #32, released 2016. English language. Runtime approximately 92 minutes.

Summary: Dead game birds.

Details: 
1) There are approximately five quick images of game birds caught in traps or being carried dead, each of which is only about 1 second long and visually indistinct due to rain or darkness. Only one image is particularly gruesome, below:
2) The camera lingers on a dead white goose that hangs with blood draining from its slit throat, 25:58-26:08.

The BFI release includes several cast and crew interview along with two decent documentaries about Larraz and his films: On Vampyres and Other Symptoms (Celia Novis, 2011, 74 minutes) and From Barcelona to Tunbridge Wells: The Films of José Larraz (Andrew Starke & Pete Tombs, 1999, 24 minutes).


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Taboo (Stevens)

Taboo. Kirdy Stevens, 1980.
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Edition screened: Vinegar Syndrome Blu-ray #128, released 2016. English language. Runtime approximately 86 minutes.


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

Taboo II/Taboo III. Kirdy Stevens, 1982-1984.
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Edition screened: Vinegar Syndrome Blu-ray #142, released 2016. English language. Cumulative runtime approximately 190 minutes.

Summary: No depictions of violence or harm to animals in either feature.

Taboo II, 1982, approximately 97 minutes. 4/5❤
Taboo III, 1984, approximately 93 minutes. 3/5❤
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