Violence to Animals in Film

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.

Black Mirror: White Christmas

Black Mirror: White Christmas. Carl Tibbets, 2014.

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Edition screened: Included in Channel 4 DVD box set Charlie Brooker’s Black Mirror Series 1, 2 and Special, released 2015. English language. Runtime approximately 74 minutes.

No depictions of violence or harm to animals.

As of this posting, “White Christmas” may or may not be considered the first episode of a third series of Black Mirror.

Black Mirror: Second Series

Black Mirror: Second Series. Various directors, 2013.

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Edition screened: Included in Channel 4 DVD box set Charlie Brooker’s Black Mirror Series 1, 2 and Special, released 2015. English language. Runtime approximately 133 minutes.

Summary: No depictions of violence or harm to animals.

The second series of Black Mirror includes the three episodes:

“Be Right Back” (Owen Harris, dir.)

“White Bear” (Carl Tibbetts, dir.)

“The Waldo Moment” (Bryn Higgins, dir.)

Black Mirror: First Series

Black Mirror: First Series. Various directors, 2011.

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Edition screened: Included in Channel 4 DVD box set Charlie Brooker’s Black Mirror Series 1, 2 and Special, released 2015. English language. Runtime approximately 153 minutes.

Summary: No depictions of violence or harm to animals.

The first series of Black Mirror includes the three episodes:

“The National Anthem” (Otto Bathurst, dir.) - Manipulative use of an animal, yes. Harm to that animal, no.

“Fifteen Million Merits” (Euros Lyn, dir.)

“The Entire HIstory of You” (Brian Welsch, dir.)

The Big Heat

The Big Heat. Fritz Lang, 1953.

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Edition screened: Columbia TriStar DVD, released 2001. English language. Runtime approximately 89 minutes.

Summary: No depictions of violence or harm to animals.

A excellent crime drama with fine acting and unusual female characterizations.

In Which We Serve

In Which We Serve. Noël Coward and David Lean, 1942.

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Edition screened: Criterion #604, included in 4-Blu-ray set # 603 David Lean Directs Noël Coward, released 2012. English language. Runtime approximately 114 minutes.

Summary: No depictions of violence or harm to animals.

In the Border States

In the Border States. D.W. Griffith, 1910.

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Edition screened: Included on Kino Blu-ray The Birth of a Nation, released 2011. English intertitles, no dialogue track. Runtime approximately 16 minutes.

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

Island of Lost Souls

Island of Lost Souls. Erle C. Kenton, 1932.

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Edition screened: Criterion Blu-ray #586, released 2011. English language. Runtime approximately 70 minutes.

This quality adaptation of the H.G. Wells’ story has an underpinning in animal experimentation, but the film contains no depictions of violence or harm to animals.

Island of Lost Souls is a more gripping and provocative viewing experience than I expected; really quite entertaining and thought provoking. The Criterion release includes several interviews that aid one’s appreciation of the film, and an especially intelligent interview with founding members of Devo in which they explain Island of Lost Souls’ influence on the band. Devo’s 1976 short film In the Beginning Was the End: The Truth About De-Evolution also is provided.

In the Beginning Was the End: The Truth About De-Evolution

In the Beginning Was the End: The Truth About De-Evolution. Chuck Statler, 1976.

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Edition screened: Included on Criterion Blu-ray #586 Island of Lost Souls, released 2011. English language. Runtime approximately 10 minutes.

Summary: No depictions of violence or harm to animals.

This music video film and the accompanying interview with Devo leaders Gerald Casale and Mark Mothersbaugh helps us better understand the political and sociological underpinnings of these intelligent artists.

The Human Centipede 2 [Full Sequence]

The Human Centipede 2 [Full Sequence]. Tom Six, 2011.

😿😿

Edition screened: Monster Pictures 4-disc Special Ltd Edition Dual Format SteelBook, released 2012. English language. Runtime approximately 91 minutes.

Summary: Feeding live animals to a centipede.

Details:

1) A tiny fetal-looking animal, perhaps a newborn rodent, is lifted from a jar of grasshoppers by tweezers and given to a centipede, 16:34-16:50.

2) A grasshopper similarly is taken from the jar and dispatched, 51:22-51:40.

The Monster Pictures steelbook package also includes The Human Centipede [First Sequence].

The Human Centipede [First Sequence]

The Human Centipede [First Sequence]. Tom Six, 2009.

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Edition screened: Monster Pictures 4-disc Special Ltd Edition Dual Format SteelBook, released 2012. English language. Runtime approximately 92 minutes.

Summary: No depictions of violence or harm to animals.

The Monster Pictures steelbook package also includes The Human Centipede 2 [Full Sequence].

@ BL

The House with Closed Shutters

The House with Closed Shutters. D.W. Griffith, 1910.

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Edition screened: Included on Kino Blu-ray The Birth of a Nation, released 2011. English intertitles, no dialogue track. Runtime approximately 17 minutes.

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

House of Games

House of Games. David Mamet, 1987.

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Edition screened: Criterion DVD #399, released 2007. English language. Runtime approximately 102 minutes.

Summary: No depictions of violence or harm to animals.

Bar scene about 41 minutes in has a 1979 Stern Meteor and a 1979 Stern Hot Hand.

The Home-Made Car

The Home-Made Car. James Hill, 1963.

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Edition screened: Included on BFI Flipside Blu-ray #017 Lunch Hour, released 2011. English language. Runtime approximately 28 minutes.

No particular depictions of violence toward animals in this promotion film for British Petroleum.

The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies

The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies. Peter Jackson, 2014.

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Edition screened: Warner ‘Two-Disc Special Edition’ DVD, released 2015. English language. Runtime approximately 169 minutes.

Summary: Combat killing of fantasy animals.

Like the other films in Jackson’s The Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit trilogies, various animals are depicted as killed in combat situations that are clearly computer animated. Most of these animals are menacing fantasy creatures that bear human riders, usually killed by spear or bow. Their deaths come quickly and there are no Zack Snyder-style silly blood sprays or gratuitous gore.

The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug

The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug. Peter Jackson, 2013.

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Edition screened: Warner ‘Two-Disc Special Edition’ DVD, released 2014. English language. Runtime approximately 170 minutes.

Summary: Combat killing of fantasy animals.

Like the other films in Jackson’s The Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit trilogies, various animals are depicted as killed in combat situations that are clearly computer animated. Most of these animals are menacing fantasy creatures that bear human riders, usually killed by spear or bow. Their deaths come quickly and there are no Zack Snyder-style silly blood sprays or gratuitous gore.

The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey

The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey. Peter Jackson, 2012.

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Edition screened: Warner ‘Two-Disc Special Edition’ DVD, released 2013. English language. Runtime approximately 169 minutes.

Summary: Woodland animals dying from an evil magical contamination; combat killing of fantasy animals.

1) A sympathetic montage shows rabbits and foxes lying dead or dying in the woods, 51:39-51:44.

2) This disaster focuses on Sebastian the hedgehog who is taken back to the wizard’s home for treatment, but still appears to be dying 52:01-53:38. Sebastian is revived at 54:18.

Like the other films in Jackson’s The Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit trilogies, various animals are depicted as killed in combat situations that are clearly computer animated. Most of these animals are menacing fantasy creatures that bear human riders, usually killed by spear or bow. Their deaths come quickly and there are no Zack Snyder-style silly blood sprays or gratuitous gore.

His Trust Fulfilled

His Trust Fulfilled. D.W. Griffith, 1910.

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Edition screened: Included on Kino Blu-ray The Birth of a Nation, released 2011. English intertitles, no dialogue track. Runtime approximately 11 minutes.

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

His Trust

His Trust. D.W. Griffith, 1910.

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Edition screened: Included on Kino Blu-ray The Birth of a Nation, released 2011. English intertitles, no dialogue track. Runtime approximately 14 minutes.

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

Gone with the Wind

Gone with the Wind. Victor Fleming, 1939.

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Edition screened: Warner ‘Four-Disc Collector’s Edition’ DVD set, released 2004. English language. Runtime approximately 232 minutes.

Summary: The last rooster in Atlanta is jovially menaced by a crotchety old domestic with a hatchet. No killing is depicted …

… but then, in one of cinema’s most thought provoking, unique, and witty gestures, Fleming cuts from the rooster in the barnyard to the remnants of a baked carcass on a serving plate. Can you even grasp the magnitude of such conceptual design? Setting aside the seventy or so other well-known films both earlier and later that do exactly the same thing, this moment of directorial prowess is evidence enough that they don’t make ’em like that anymore. Oh, Jim Naysayer, GWTW truly is every sensitive soul’s favorite film, setting a standard of visual poetry that makes the angel sweep.

@ BL

Giuseppina

Giuseppina. James Hill, 1959.

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Edition screened: Included on BFI Flipside Blu-ray #017 Lunch Hour, released 2011. English language. Runtime approximately 32 minutes.

No particular depictions of violence toward animals in this promotion film for British Petroleum.

The Game

The Game. David Fincher, 1997.

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Edition screened: Criterion Blu-ray #620, released 2012. English language. Runtime approximately 128 minutes.

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

The Fugitive

The Fugitive. D.W. Griffith, 1910.

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Edition screened: Included on Kino Blu-ray The Birth of a Nation, released 2011. English intertitles, no dialogue track. Runtime approximately 17 minutes.

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

Fight Club

Fight Club. David Fincher, 1999.

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Edition screened: 20th Century Fox ‘10th Anniversary Edition’ Blu-ray, released 2009. English language. Runtime approximately 139 minutes.

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

Early Bergman

Early Bergman. Ingmar Bergman and Alf Sjöberg, 1944-1949.

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Edition screened: Criterion Eclipse Series #1 DVD set, released 2007. Swedish language with English subtitles. Collective runtime approximately 474 minutes.

A snake is senselessly tortured in Thirst. The other films in this 1st volume in Criterion’s Eclipse Series contains no animal violence,:

Torment (1944)

Crisis (1946)

Port of Call (1948)

Thirst (1949)

To Joy (1949)

Don’t Say a Word

Don’t Say a Word. Gary Fleder, 2001.

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Edition screened: 20th Century Fox DVD, released 2002. English language. Runtime approximately 113 minutes.

Summary: No depictions of violence or harm to animals.

A Day in the Life

A Day in the Life: Four Portraits of Post-War Britain. John Krish, 1953-1964.

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Edition screened: BFI Blu-ray, released 2011. English language. Cumulative runtime approximately 146 minutes.

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

This BFI compilation includes 6 short documentaries about English life in the 1950s and 60s. Mr. Marsh Comes to School is a vocational film aimed at teenagers, but the others are enjoyable, often nostalgic, exposés of a disappearing world. I Want to Go to School is a documentary about the students and teachers in a constructive, nurturing Model School, depressing because it deviates so drastically from sad reality.

The Elephant Will Never Forget (1953, 11 minutes)

I Want To Go to School (1959, 30 minutes)

They Took Us to the Sea (1961, 21 minutes)

Mr. Marsh Comes to School (1961, 28 minutes)

Our School (1962, 28 minutes)

I Think They Call Him John [I Think His Name Is John] (1964, 28 minutes)

The Curious Case of Benjamin Button

The Curious Case of Benjamin Button. David Fincher, 2008.

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Edition screened: Criterion Blu-ray #476, released 2008. English language. Runtime approximately 165 minutes.

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

Crisis

Crisis. Ingmar Bergman, 1946.

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Edition screened: Included in Criterion Eclipse Series 1: Early Bergman 5-DVD set, released 2007; also included in Criterion Blu-ray box set Ingmar Bergman’s Cinema, released 2018. Swedish language with English subtitles. Runtime approximately 93 minutes.

Summary: No depictions of violence or harm to animals.

Crisis is on disc #2 of 30 in Ingmar Bergman’s Cinema (part of ‘Opening Night’). A superbly written early Bergman film, enjoyable and effective in every way.

@ BL

A Christmas Family Tragedy

A Christmas Family Tragedy: Legends of the 1929 Lawson Family Murders. Matt Hodges, 2006.

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Edition screened: Facets DVD, released 2006. English language. Runtime approximately 75 minutes.

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

Le Chant du styrène

Le Chant du styrène. Alain Resnais, 1959.

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Edition screened: Included on Criterion Blu-ray #478 Last Year at Marienbad, released 2009. French language with English subtitles. Runtime approximately 19 minutes.

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

Caligula

Caligula. Tinto Brass and Bob Guccione, 1979.

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Edition screened: Arrow “Unlimited Edition” Blu-ray, released 2012. English language. Runtime approximately 156 minutes.

Summary: A sacrificed lamb lies on an altar under a rented party tent (1:10:57-1:10:42). 1.5/5❤

Notice that Caligula is not tagged as ‘sexy’. I might introduce the tag ‘remotely entertaining’ so I can not use it also.

Brief Encounter

Brief Encounter. David Lean, 1945.

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Edition screened: Criterion #76, included in 4-Blu-ray set # 603 David Lean Directs Noël Coward, released 2012. English language. Runtime approximately 86 minutes.

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

Black Sun

Black Sun. Gary Tarn, 2005.

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Edition screened: Second Run DVD #32, released 2007. English language. Runtime approximately 70 minutes.

Summary: No depictions of violence or harm to animals.

The Birth of a Nation

The Birth of a Nation. D.W. Griffith, 1915.

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Edition screened: Kino ‘2011 Restoration’ Blu-ray, released 2011. English intertitles, no dialogue track. Runtime approximately 193 minutes.

Summary: Depictions of animal abuse.

Details:

1) A dog is handled roughly and tossed about, 1:47:14-1:47:38.

2) A Clansman and the horse he is riding both appear to be shot, 2:06:38-2:07:03.

3) Two more Clansmen and their horses appear to be shot, 3:03:10-3:03:17.

The Kino Blu-ray also includes these related early films by Griffith, all free of any violence to animals:

In the Border States (1910, 16 min.)
The House With Closed Shutters (1910, 17 min.)
The Fugitive (1910, 17 min.)
His Trust (1910, 14 min.)
His Trust Fulfilled (1910, 11 min.)
Swords and Hearts (1911, 16 min.)
The Battle (1911, 17 min.)

The Battle

The Battle. D.W. Griffith, 1911.

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Edition screened: Included on Kino Blu-ray The Birth of a Nation, released 2011. English intertitles, no dialogue track. Runtime approximately 17 minutes.

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

Bad Guy

Bad Guy (Nabbeun namja). Kim Ki-Duk, 2001.

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Edition screened: LifeSize DVD, released 2005. Korean language with English subtitles. Runtime approximately 100 minutes.

Summary: No depictions of violence or harm to animals.

Toute la mémoire du monde

Toute la mémoire du monde. Alain Resnais, 1956.

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Edition screened: Included on Criterion Blu-ray #478 Last Year at Marienbad, released 2009. French language with English subtitles. Runtime approximately 21 minutes.

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

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