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.

Rome: Open City

Rome: Open City (Roma, città aperta). Roberto Rossellini, 1945.

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Edition screened: Criterion DVD #497, included in the box set #500 Roberto Rossellini’s War Trilogy, released 2009. Italian language with English subtitles. Runtime approximately 103 minutes.


Summary: Offscreen killing of two sheep, with one seen dead. Thank you to our friend Ed for this excellent citation:


Around 59:10- 59:47 German soldiers bring two sheep on ropes into a café telling the innkeeper they have brought meat and noting they will butcher the animals themselves. “Yes, you people specialize in that,” the innkeeper says. At 1:00:59, there is the offscreen sound of a gunshot. Several characters go to investigate. As they look through shutters, one says “Poor creatures” and we see the soldiers in a courtyard standing above the sheep. Both sheep are shorn and one is lying on the ground, presumably dead. A soldier approaches the other sheep and puts a gun against it. We hear a shot as the camera cuts to the characters watching through the windows at 1:01:11.


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The Shining

The Shining. Stanley Kubrick, 1980.

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Edition screened: Warner Blu-ray, released 2007. English language. Runtime approximately 144 minutes.


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


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Shogun’s Joy of Torture

Shogun’s Joy of Torture (Tokugawa onna keibatsu-shi). Teruo Ishii, 1968.

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Edition screened: Arrow Blu-ray, released 2021. Japanese language with English subtitles. Runtime approximately 85 minutes.


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


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Twist Craze

Twist Craze. Allan David, 1961.

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Edition screened: Included in Arrow Blu-ray set Weird Wisconsin: The Bill Rebane Collection, released 2021. English language. Runtime approximately 9 minutes.


Summary: No animals or references to animals in the film.


An enjoyable short in which likable young dancers and musicians introduce an up-scale middle-aged crowd to The Twist. The performance takes place in a dinner club that features a small swimming pool in front of the stage.


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Two Street Artists: Jérôme Mesnager & Miss.Tic

Two Street Artists: Jérôme Mesnager & Miss.Tic. Agnès Varda, 2012.

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Edition screened: Included in Criterion Blu-ray box set The Complete Films of Agnès Varda (disc 6) released 2020. French language with English subtitles. Runtime approximately 6 minutes.


Summary: No depictions of violence or harm to animals.


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Viva Varda!

Viva Varda! Agnès Varda, 1970.

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Edition screened: Included in Criterion Blu-ray box set The Complete Films of Agnès Varda (disc 6) released 2020. English and French language with English subtitles. Runtime approximately 9 minutes.


Summary: No depictions of violence or harm to animals.


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Women Are Naturally Creative: Agnès Varda

Women Are Naturally Creative (Les femmes sont de nature créatives: Agnès Varda). Katja Raganelli, 1977.

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Edition screened: Included in Criterion Blu-ray box set The Complete Films of Agnès Varda (disc 7) released 2020. French language with English subtitles. Runtime approximately 47 minutes.


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


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Women Reply: Our Bodies, Our Sex

Women Reply: Our Bodies, Our Sex (Réponse de femmes: Notre corps, notre sexe). Agnès Varda, 1975.

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Edition screened: Included in Criterion Blu-ray box set The Complete Films of Agnès Varda (disc 7) released 2020. French language with English subtitles. Runtime approximately 8 minutes.


Summary: No depictions of violence or harm to animals.


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Wrong Turn 6: Last Resort

Wrong Turn 6: Last Resort. Valeri Milev, 2014.

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Edition screened: 20th Century Fox Blu-ray, released 2014. English language. Runtime approximately 90 minutes.


Summary: Graphic killing of a deer.


Details:

1) Beginning around 31:30, we have parallel action of one bow hunter shooting a deer while a second bow hunter shoots a police officer. The scenes are intercut. The deer is shot and lies bleeding at 31:58, with subsequent scenes of struggling and the look of death in its eyes until the hunter slits its throat at 33:44. The slain deer is left abandoned in the forest.

2) A person is hunched over the deer carcass and eating it, 34:28-34:44.

3) The hunter has a flashback to killing the deer, in which all the graphic scenes are reviewed 43:57-44:2o.


I found this last film in the Wrong Turn franchise to be the worst, having the least attractive actresses, the most unlikable cast of victims, the stupidest plot, and this graphic murder of an animal.



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Zatoichi and the Doomed Man

Zatoichi and the Doomed Man (Zatōichi sakate-giri). Kazuo Mori, 1965.

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Edition screened: In Criterion Blu-ray box set #679 Zatoichi: The Blind Swordsman, released 2013. Japanese language with English subtitles. Runtime approximately 77 minutes.


Summary: Killing of a moth.


Details: Ichi slices a moth in two as a demonstration of his swordsmanship, 23:58


The eleventh film in the Zatoichi series.


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