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.

Silent Avant-Garde: 21 Experiments with Silent Film & New Music

Silent Avant-Garde: 21 Experiments with Silent Film & New Music. Various directors, 1922-2022.

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Edition screened: Kino Lorber Blu-ray, released 2023. Individually scored, no dialogue tracks. Cumulative runtime approximately 188 minutes.


Summary: No particular depictions of violence or harm to animals in any of the films. 


Many of these important short films were released previously on Avant-Garde: Experimental Cinema of the 1920’s and 30’s and other Kino compilations, but there are some wonderful surprises in this volume and the new music is a treat. Included are:


1. The Twenty-Four Dollar Island (Robert Flaherty, 1925, 14 minutes.) New digital restoration. Music by Donald Sosin.


2. Mexican Footage (Sergei Eisenstein, 1930, 5 minutes.) New digital restoration. No music.


3. Anémic Cinéma (Marcel Duchamp, 1926, 7 minutes.) Music by Gustavo Matamoros.


4. Pas de deux (Al Brick, 1924, 4 minutes.) Music by Donald Sosin.


5. “Skyline Dance” montage sequence from Manhattan Cocktail. (Slavko Vorkapich, 1928. Music by John Alden Carpenter.


6. “The Money Machine” montage sequence from The Wolf of Wall Street. (Slavko Vorkapich, 1929). Music by John Alden Carpenter.


7. “Prohibition” montage sequence from Sins of the Fathers.(Slavko Vorkapich, 1928.) Music by John Alden Carpenter.


8. “The Furies” montage sequence from Crime of Passion. (Slavko Vorkapich, 1934.) Music by Ludwig van Beethoven.


9. A Bronx Morning (Jay Leyda, 1931, 14 minutes.) Music by Donald Sosin.


10. Look Park (Ralph Steiner, 1973, 10 minutes). New digital restoration. Music by Jacob Druckman, Jacques Offenbach.


11. The Life and Death of 9413, a Hollywood Extra (Robert Florey and Slavko Vorkapich, 1927, 14 minutes.) Music by Carlos Dominguez, Alex Lough.


12. HĂ€nde [Hands: The Life and Loves of the Gentler Sex] (Miklos Bandy and Stella F. Simon, 1927, 13 minutes.) Music by Marc Blitzstein.


13. Return to Reason (Man Ray, 1923, 2 minutes). New digital restoration. Music by George Antheil, performed by Guy Livingston; Paul Lehrman


14. Manhatta (Paul Strand and Charles Sheeler, 1921, 12 minutes.) Music by Donald Sosin.


15. Ballet MĂ©canique [Charlot prĂ©sente le ballet mĂ©canique] (Fernand LĂ©ger, 1924 & 1931, 13 minutes.) New digital restoration. Music by George Antheil, Charles Amirkhanian.


16. Hearts of Age (Orson Welles, 1934, 8 minutes.) Music by Donald Sosin.


17. Escape: Synchronomy No. 4 (Mary Ellen Bute and Theodore J. Nemeth, 1938, 4 minutes.) New digital restoration. Music by Johann Sebastian Bach, conducted by LĂ©opold Stokowski.


18. N.Y., N.Y. (Francis Thompson, 1949-1958, 15 minutes.) Music by Gene Forrell.


19. The Eclipse [Rose Hobart] (Joseph Cornell, 1936-1949), 21 minutes). New digital restoration. Music by Rafael Audinot, Alberto de Bru, Cuarteto Caney.


20. Tenga fe (Bruce Posner, 1906, 1922, 2022, 7 minutes.) New digital restoration. Music by Christian Wolff.


21. The Enchanted City (Warren A. Newcombe and Howard Estabrook, 1922), 12 minutes.) New digital restoration. Music by Donald Sosin.


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