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.

Biograph Shorts (D.W. Griffith)

Biograph Shorts. D.W. Griffith, 1908-1913.
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Edition screened: Kino ‘Special Edition’ DVD set, released 2002. No dialogue track. Cumulative runtime approximately 362 minutes.

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

This 2-disc set from Kino’s “Griffith Masterworks” series includes the following 23 films:

Those Awful Hats (1909, approximately 3 minutes)
The Sealed Room (1909, approximately 11 minutes)
Corner in Wheat (1909, approximately 14 minutes)
The Unchanging Sea (1910, approximately 13 minutes)
His Trust (1910, approximately 14 minutes)
The New York Hat (1912, approximately 16 minutes)
An Unseen Enemy (1912, approximately 15 minutes)
The Mothering Heart (1913, approximately 23 minutes)
The Adventures of Dollie (1908, approximately 12 minutes)
The Usurer (1910, approximately 18 minutes)
Enoch Arden (1911, approximately 33 minutes)
The Miser’s Heart (1911, approximately 16 minutes)
The Musketeers of Pig Alley (1912, approximately 18 minutes)
The Burglar’s Dilemma (1912, approximately 15 minutes)
The Sunbeam (1912, approximately 15 minutes)
One Is Business, the Other Crime (1912, approximately 15 minutes)
The Painted Lady (1912, approximately 12 minutes)
Death’s Marathon (1913, approximately 15 minutes)
The Battle of Elderbush Gulch (1913, approximately 29 minutes)
The Last Drop of Water (1911, approximately 13 minutes)
Friends (1912, approximately 13 minutes)
The Lesser Evil (1909, approximately 3 minutes)
The Massacre (1912, approximately 3o minutes)
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