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 Shout

The Shout. Jerzy Skolimowski, 1978.
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Edition screened: Network Blu-ray, released 2014. English language. Runtime approximately 86 minutes.

Summary: A smashed bee and animal victims of Alan Bates’ killer shout.

Details:
1) Alan Bates squashes a bee against a window pane, 27:47-27:49.
2) A shepherd and his flock fall over dead after hearing Bates’s shout.
3) Bates finds and picks up a seagull that suffered the same fate, 51:08-51:16.

This intelligent, literary movie is a treat for the patient viewer tolerant of films made during a more sophisticated era. The common comparison to Don’t Look Now is fitting, as they share similar textures and tension. In a brief interview included on the Network BD, The Shout’s producer discloses that Nicolas Roeg was in fact first choice for director of The Shout.
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