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.

Head

Head. Bob Rafelson, 1968.

😸

Edition screened: Criterion Blu-ray #544, included in America Lost and Found: The BBS Story box set, released 2010. English language. Runtime approximately 85 minutes.


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


Head reminds us that The Monkees were not an emulation of The Beatles in general but of the film Help! specifically. Head surpasses individual episodes of The Monkees, but also bests Help! in many ways as Help! relies on stupendous music and some heart warming set pieces to compensate for an otherwise tedious watch. Like The Beatles’ precedent, Head makes hay of a youthful fanbase’s naïve understanding of psychedelia to disguise a series of unrelated skits as a trippy experience. While Help! dawdles around an absurd plot that absolutely begs for Mike Meyers, the superior direction of Head focuses on legitimate and timely social criticism softened with love beads and Lennonesque wordplay.


All members of The Beatles and The Monkees looked and spoke beautifully in the late 1960s, but the movie camera liked Ringo best among The Beatles, and similarly Micky Dolenz carries most of the acting and screen time in Head. Musical pieces show conclusively that Dolenz, Nesmith, and Tork play their instruments with ease, expertise, and panache and I can’t believe we’re still indulging that stupid discussion.


at
Labels: , , ,