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.

Danger Pays

Danger Pays (Yabai koto nara zeni ni naru). Kô Nakahira, 1962.
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Edition screened: Included on Arrow Blu-ray Nikkatsu Diamond Guys Volume 2, released 2016. Japanese language with English subtitles. Runtime approximately 82 minutes.

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









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Dark Dreams

Dark Dreams. Roger Guermantes, 1971.
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Edition screened: Vinegar Syndrome DVD #188, released 2017. English language. Runtime approximately 74 minutes.


Summary: No particular depictions of violence or harm to animals. 2/5❤

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The Dark Mirror

The Dark Mirror. Robert Siodmak, 1946.
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Edition screened: Olive Blu-ray, released 2012. English language. Runtime approximately 85 minutes.


Summary: No depictions of violence or harm to animals.
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Dark Water (Nakata)

Dark Water (Honogurai mizu no soko kara). Hideo Nakata, 2002.
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Edition screened: Arrow Blu-ray, released 2016. Japanese language with English subtitles. Runtime approximately 101 minutes.


Summary: No depictions of violence or harm to animals.
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David (Dickson)

David. Paul Dickson, 1951.
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Edition screened: Included in the BFI 4-DVD set Shadows of Progress: Documentary Film in Post-War Britain 1951-1977, released 2013. English language. Runtime approximately 36 minutes.

Summary: No depictions of violence or harm to animals.

A superb and absorbing homage to the nurturing intellectualism of a Welsh coal miner and his similar coworkers.
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David Lean Directs Noël Coward

David Lean Directs Noël Coward. David Lean, 1942-1945.
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Edition screened: Criterion Blu-ray box set #603, released 2012. English language. Runtime approximately 407 minutes.

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

The Criterion package includes supplemental materials and four feature films:

This Happy Breed (1944)


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Dawson City: Frozen Time

Dawson City: Frozen Time. Bill Morrison, 2016.
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Edition screened: Kino Lorber Blu-ray, released 2017. English language with English subtitles. Runtime approximately 120 minutes.

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

The Kino release also includes Morrison’s 10-minute Dawson City: Postscript (2014), and sample fragments of formerly-lost films excavated from Dawson including:

British Canadian Pathé News, 81A (1919)
International News Vol. 1, Issue 52 (1919)
The Montreal Herald: Screen Magazine #7 (1919)
Pathé's Weekly #17 (1914)
The Butler and the Maid (1912, Thomas Alva Edison Company)
Brutality (1912, D.W. Griffith)
The Exquisite Thief (1919, Tod Browning)
The Girl of the Northern Woods (1910, Barry O’Neil)

Most of the film fragments run around 9 minutes. They are free of animal violence except The Girl of the Northern Woods, which has comedic action of a clownish woodsman with a brace of rabbits in front of a cabin displaying animal pelts.


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Day of Anger

Day of Anger (I giorni dell'ira). Tonino Valerii, 1967.
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Edition screened: Arrow Blu-ray, released 2015. Original Italian language with English subtitles or original English dub. Runtime approximately 111 minutes.

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

The Arrow package allows you to watch either the original Italian or the original English dub, either with English subtitles. I toggled between the options and found that the Italian language version included more dialogue. Not just more words, but entire meaningful exchanges that expanded the relationships between characters and the background of the plot conflict. If you choose to watch the English dub, I recommend you also turn on the English subtitles which match the more complete Italian dialogue rather than the skimpy English dialogue.

Also included is a slightly shorter version made for the American market.



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Day of Wrath

Day of Wrath (Vredens dag). Carl Theodor Dreyer, 1943.
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Edition screened: Included in BFI The Carl Theodor Dreyer Collection Blu-ray box set, released 2015. Danish language with English subtitles. Runtime approximately 97 minutes.

Summary: No depictions of violence or harm to animals.


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Dead End Drive-In

Dead End Drive-In. Brian Trenchard-Smith, 1986.
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Edition screened: Arrow Blu-ray, released 2016. English language. Runtime approximately 88 minutes.

Summary: A dead bird hangs on a fence.

Details: A large white bird is seen hanging on a wire fence, 44:48-44:30.  No blood, nothing graphic. Only the logic of the situation indicates that the bird must be dead.

The Arrow Blu-ray also includes Trenchard-Smith’s Hospitals Don’t Burn Down (1978).
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Dead or Alive


Dead or Alive (Dead or Alive: Hanzaisha). Takashi Miike, 1999.
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Edition screened: Included in Arrow Blu-ray set Dead or Alive Trilogy, released 2017. Japanese language with English subtitles. Runtime approximately 105 minutes.

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

















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Dead or Alive 2: Birds


Dead or Alive 2: Birds (Dead or Alive 2: Tôbôsha). Takashi Miike, 2000.
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Edition screened: Included in Arrow Blu-ray set Dead or Alive Trilogy, released 2017. Japanese language with English subtitles. Runtime approximately 97 minutes.

Summary: A dove is shot.

Details: Assassination of an amateur magician includes shooting the dove hidden in his coat. The dove tumbles out, dead and bleeding, 24:03-34:15.  We later see the corpse and the bird in a state of decomposition, 1:16:52-1:16:55.


















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Dead or Alive: Final

Dead or Alive: Final. Takashi Miike, 2002.
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Edition screened: Included in Arrow Blu-ray set Dead or Alive Trilogy, released 2017. Japanese language with English subtitles. Runtime approximately 89 minutes.

Summary: A bird is shot; a rat is dying.

Details:
1) A stray bullet hits a bird high in the sky as a quick animated gag, 9:12.
2) A rat lies on its side, breathing heavily, apparently dying, 40:40-40:45.













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Dead or Alive Trilogy

Dead or Alive Trilogy. Takashi Miike, 1999-2002.
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Edition screened: Arrow Blu-ray set, released 2017. Japanese language with English subtitles. Cumulative runtime approximately 291 minutes.

The Arrow release includes a substantial amount of bonus material plus the three films in Miike’s series. The second and third films in the series contain some quick scenes of violence to animals. Click individual titles for details


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Deadly Embrace

Deadly Embrace. David DeCoteau (as Ellen Cabot), 1989.
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Edition screened: On Vinegar Syndrome Blu-ray #138 Murder Weapon & Deadly Embrace, released 2016. English language. Runtime approximately 82 minutes.


Summary: No depictions of violence or harm to animals. 3/5❤
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Deadpool (Miller)

Deadpool. Tim Miller, 2016.
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Edition screened: 20th-Century Fox Blu-ray, released 2016. English language. Runtime approximately 108 minutes.

Summary: No depictions of violence or harm to animals.

About 20 minutes into the film, an arcade scene has a 1969 Williams Joust, a 1982 Gottlieb Haunted House, and a 1980 Gottlieb Circus, and a 1995 Gottlieb Strikes N’ Spares. 
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Death Machines

Death Machines. Paul Kyriazi, 1976.
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Edition screened: Vinegar Syndrome Blu-ray #143, released 2016. English language. Runtime approximately 93 minutes.


Summary: No depictions of violence or harm to animals.
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Death May Be Your Santa Claus

Death May Be Your Santa Claus. Frankie Dymon, Jr., 1968
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Edition screened: Included on BFI ‘Flipside’ Blu-ray #16 Joanna, released 2011. English language. Runtime approximately 37 minutes.

Summary: No depictions of violence or harm to animals.


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Deathrow Gameshow

Deathrow Gameshow. Mark Pirro, 1987.
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Edition screened: Vinegar Syndrome Blu-ray #139, released 2016. English language. Runtime approximately 83 minutes.

Summary: No depictions of violence or harm to animals.

Deathrow Gameshow is boringly atrocious in every way. No portion of the script is even a little bit funny or clever, the alleged horror elements are just clownish characters pretending to be electrocuted by vibrating and making screwy faces, and the sight gags fail limply to imitate Airplane!-style silliness. Robyn Blythe’s portrayal of an attractive up-scale social protester is by far the best performance and the most enjoyable part of the film. The last half of the movie is almost impossible to sit through due to a mafia gangster character who dominates most scenes with repulsive physical comedy.

The Vinegar Syndrome release also includes two early comedy shorts by Pirro, Buns (1978, 21 minutes) and The Spy Who Did It Better (1979, 46 minutes), both free of animal violence.
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The Deep

The Deep. Peter Yates, 1977.
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Edition screened: Columbia TriStar Blu-ray, released 2010. English language. Runtime approximately 124 minutes.

Summary: Voodoo porn for violent white people.

Details:
1) A small fish is chomped in half by an enormous moray eel with enormous teeth, 47:19-47:24.
2) Nick Nolte finds a black cat eviscerated and nailed to a door at 51:30. Robert Shaw pontificates and manhandles it through 51:57.
3) Writhing Voodoo costumes restrain Jacqueline Bisset on a bed while they doodle on her nekked torso with a bloody chicken foot. This is intercut with scenes of Nick Nolte battling his way to get to her room because Crap! He’s missing it! 55:17-56:19.

1976 Bally Captain Fantastic pinball machine in the bar.

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Dekalog and Other Television Works

Dekalog and Other Television Works. Krzysztof Kieślowski, 1974-1988.
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Edition screened: Arrow Blu-ray box set, released 2016. Polish language with English subtitles. Runtime of feature presentations approximately 862 minutes.

Summary: Some thematic depictions of dead animals. See individual titles for details.

This superb box set from Arrow includes Kieślowski films made for television:
First Love (1974)
Personnel (1975)
The Calm (1976)

And valuable analyses by leading film scholars:
Still Alive (2006 Maria Zmarz-Koczanowicz, 86 minutes)
KKTV (2016 Michael Brooke, 75 minutes)
Dekalog: An Appreciation (2016 Tony Rayns, 78 minutes)

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Demon Wind

Demon Wind. Charles Philip Moore, 1984.
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Edition screened: Vinegar Syndrome Blu-ray #190, released 2017. English language. Runtime approximately 98 minutes.


Summary: No depictions of violence or harm to animals.

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Demonlover

Demonlover. Olivier Assayas, 2002.
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Edition screened: Lionsgate “Unrated Director’s Cut” released 2004. French language with English subtitles. Runtime approximately 116 minutes.

Summary: No depictions of violence or harm to animals.


Bonus material on this 2-DVD set includes the 30-minute  featurette The Making of the Soundtrack With Sonic Youth.
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Deranged

Deranged (Deranged: The Confessions of a Necrophile). Jeff Gillen and Alan Ormsby, 1974.
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Edition screened: Arrow Blu-ray, released 2013. English language. Runtime approximately 83 minutes.


Summary: No depictions of violence or harm to animals.
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Description of a Struggle

Description of a Struggle (Description d'un combat). Chris Marker, 1960.
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Edition screened: Included in Soda Blu-ray/DVD set Chris Marker Collection, released 2014. English language. Runtime approximately 60 minutes.


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