I started thinking about a thread on this subject after reading some of the discussion that ensued in Gordon's porn thread, but it was driven home to me a few hours ago as I tried watching The End of August at the Hotel Ozone and had to shut it off after half an hour because I found I couldn't stomach the scenes of what was clearly actual animal death.

"The Filmmaking Ethic" as I have dubbed it comes from an interview with Otar Iosseliani on the French R2 release of his Adieu, Plancher des Vaches! (Farewell, Home Sweet Home!). He describes what he deems a "true ethic" in his profession like so: "It means I cannot allow myself, just to please the camera, to cut down a tree, just because I want to film a tree being cut down." He goes onto talk about how when he was filming And Then There Was Light he had to find a location in Africa at which he could get permission to film where trees were actually being cut down. He takes it even further by saying he hates seeing Holocaust films where female extras' heads have been shaved because, as he asks, "What will the women do afterwards?"

He follows by saying, "Most of all, I can't stand intimate scenes in cinema," and uses this as a segue into talking about why he doesn't use close-ups, but I'd like to scale his comments back to the original analogy of the tree and go from there.

My question is, how much (if at all) does a filmmaker's "ethic" influence your feelings about their work? I'm talking specifically about things filmmakers do in the process of making their films -- i.e., the extracurricular activities of a Woody Allen or a Roman Polanski are not the concern here. Instead, I'm wondering whether it bothers you to know that to make that child at the beginning of Where is the Friend's House? cry so convincingly, Kiarostami tore up a book the boy liked and then turned the camera on him; whether it bothers you to watch the pig die in Godard's Weekend or watch the goat "fall" (in reality it was thrown) off the cliff in Bunuel's Land Without Bread; whether it sort of rubs you the wrong way that Gilliam cut down an entire forest and moved it to another location for The Brothers Grimm (and then burned it down for the film's climax); or whether it would bother you (to bring this back to the porn thread) to know that an actress didn't want to film a non-simulated sex scene until another $1 million was added to her salary.

It would also be interesting to hear whether a positive display of this "ethic" would alter your feelings, for example when it says in the end credits of Bertolucci's The Dreamers: "Indigenous trees have been planted to balance the carbon dioxide produced while making this film."

Also, does the quality of the film make an "unethical" act more acceptable? E.g., hypothetically, would it be easier to accept the actual beheading of a dog in a masterpiece by Bunuel than in a piece of crap by Michael Bay?

My own feelings on the matter are mixed. Weekend is my favorite Godard film, but I have a hard time accepting the necessity of actually killing that pig just to get a shot of a pig being killed. I usually skip this scene when I watch it now. Hopefully I'm stating the obvious, but something like the cannibalism at the end doesn't bother me because I know that Mireille Darc isn't actually eating Jean Yanne. And at present I find it impossible to accept what I saw in The End of August at the Hotel Ozone (a snake having its head crushed and skull twisted from its spine, a dog being shot and then howling in pain for a minute before someone else bops it on its head). I certainly understand the point of those scenes in the context of the film -- if they had been simulated I would have had no problem -- but it seems utterly backward to me for a filmmaker to say to the audience, "Look how violent and inhumane these characters are" by committing the very same acts that he wants the audience to be revolted by. So I guess on the whole I agree with Iosseliani's "ethic," though not to the extent of eliminating close-ups or intimate scenes.

I'm really interested to see a discussion on this one.

hmm, good topic...

some thoughts on your examples

pig in Weekend: did they throw the pig on a fire and roast it afterwards, have a little cook out for the cast & crew? would this make it more acceptable? Also, at what point do we as an audience break down that 4th wall and start wondering "gee...i wonder if X was real in that Y movie?" As far as cruelty? Well, its not as if they gutted the pig in a way were the animal was going to be struggling in pain for an extended period of time, this is nothing more than the practice of a butchershop worker happening outside of the butcher's shop. Is it any worse because its done for "art" and not the sole purpose of food related products? I don't really think so personally. But I think for me, its because the animal in question is one that is routinely slaughtered for whatever reasons, had it been say a cat or a dog, I think I'd feel different.

The Goat in Land Without Bread: this is a little different, because, how often are goats being thrown to their death in every day society? While the slaughter of a pig can be excused because it is a routine occurence, I think this cannot be excused because it seems rather cruel. Likewise, the possibility that the fall didn't kill the goat on immediate impact, makes it even more likely that this was a cruel act. Had the goat been dead, and they threw it off the cliff, I wouldn't really mind at all personally. How would THAT be any different than using the corpse of an animal and turn it INTO art (taxidermy)? I'm sure that an arguement could be made, but i myself, wouldn't buy into it.

Gilliam cutting down trees: Again we need to know the specifics here. Did he just find a forest, decide to cut them down to use in a film and do it? That's unlikely, obviously he would have had to gain permission to do so. Did he replace the trees by planting new ones? (2-3 new trees for everyone cut down in case some of them dont make it i'd say!) A lot of times deforestation DOES need to be done (although not NEARLY the size that Curious King George would tell you), or perhaps the land owners were planning on building on the property anyway? At the same time, the arguement can be made about building ANY set that won't be reused...you're cutting down trees to make lumber to build the sets. Kurosawa would be guilty of this (Redbeard) big time!

The porn arguement: If a $1 million dollars is all it takes for an actress to literally whore herself out, well then, good for her I guess, because there's plenty of women around the world that don't have any choice but to whore themselves out, and they're not making ANYWHERE near that much. In that instance, I'd place the onus directly on the actress, if you've got principles, but you'll only abide by them until you're offered enough money to abandon them, than your principles ARE for sale, as are you as a person.


There are a lot of other questions that can be discussed in this, for example:

Is it OK to write a fictionalized account of an event where someone lost their life? Aren't you just exploiting their death?

One that that I encountered while scouting for a short film, was that there was an old house about 30 miles outside of town, that was supposedly haunted by the ghosts of a family who had been murdered by the jealous husband who caught his wife having an affair. The house had this very creepy atmosphere, haunted or not, and its architecture was very unique (nearly ever room had a pentagonal shape to it), we even found all of these headless mutilated dolls in the basement, and we thought it would be the perfect place to shoot a music video for this death metal band that had hired my friend and I to make for them, but then the question comes, how would the living members of said family feel if they somehow saw the video and recognized the house? Anyway, while we were getting everything planned out, the house caved in during a thunderstorm, and was later bull dozed, so that dilemma was answered for us

Personally, I feel that, if you are doing something to the extreme extent that the audience will be shocked out of the film, to the point where they are asking themselves "did they REALLY do that?" then you as an artist are breaking that fourth wall yourself and unless that is your intention (for Godard, he might not have minded it, but Bunuel and Gilliam probably would) I think thats a failure on the filmmaker's part.

As to wether or not a positive display of ethic would alter my feelings of a film...not really...I haven't seen the Dreamers yet, but if I saw a movie that was a total waste of my time and then found out that the donated all the money to charity, or planted a million trees, it wouldn't change my opinion of the film...I might think "well that's nice..." but I'd also think "too bad the film still sucked"

In fact, there are scenes within Weekend in which a butcher prepares the pig and apparently cooks it, and the actors in the film do eat quite a bit of meat. So if the pig that was killed is what they ate, then in that sense, yeah, the pig was used as a food source like normal. Moreover, the pig was probably destined to be slaughtered regardless of whether or not Godard put it in the film, so you could even argue that it's no different than Iosseliani's trees in And Then There Was Light. This is where the mixed feelings come in. I appear to have made a pretty good argument to myself, but I still can't watch the scene.

As regards Gilliam cutting down trees, yeah, I agree that more information is needed. I learned this in an audio interview, and Gilliam obviously didn't go into specifics because, well, if you've ever heard him speak he has a tendency to say about five million things at once and he doesn't tend to dwell on any specific aspect of production unless it's a fight he had with the studio.

I should like to point out that I approach the filmmaking ethic the same way I approach my own vegetarianism, which is that I'm not going to flog myself or anyone else for failing to achieve perfection. I simply try to be as good as I can be. I don't think perfection is attainable, because if you follow the filmmaking ethic argument to its logical conclusion then eventually you start asking questions like, "Are films really worth the amount of energy that is expended in making them," and "Should we really be spending $70 million on a film when that money could go a long way to feed some starving people" (if I was being totally and completely honest I would have to say no, but $70 million is only going to come from a studio, and a studio isn't going to hand that kind of money out for anything other than a movie).

It applies to other arts as well. A bestselling author would start asking, "Should I really publish another book if it means cutting down a bunch of trees, displacing a bunch of animals or even an indigenous people, and causing all that pollution with the diesel engines on the bulldozers that haul all the wood?" I doubt most people would expect a writer to consider questions like that.

For a sort of filmmaker's reply to that (very interesting) comment, take a look at the new Rolf de Heer, Ten Canoes. (even more subtle than I expected.)

A good topic that I've thought about starting myself a few times. No time to write right now but I'm surprised no one has mentioned the horse falling off the stairs in Tarkovsky's andrei rublev. Maybe I don't know any of the details surrounding that scene but, as poignant as the imagery is, it has always taken me out of the film.

Bright eyes brings up a good question about is it OK to fictionalize account of someone's real death-- I never like seeing this, maybe for that reason i'm not a fan of oliver stone. Films like United 93, though I've never seen it, make me uneasy because it is fictionalizing a part of history that we really don't know much about, giving it a face for people to recognize-- to me it makes no difference whether or not the filmmakers are turning those passengers into heroes. Maybe I haven't fully developed this point of view yet, but it bothers me none the less.

I'd say to a large extent this kind of stuff really takes me out of the film. I enjoy Week-end a great deal, but the animal slaughter scenes felt really unnecessary for me. Likewise for Time of the Wolf, where I understood the point of showing the horse being killed, but it still jarred me out of the film. It just seems like a very much unnecessary intrusion of violent reality into the artifice of the film. It brings me out of the experience of the actual film and makes me think instead about the actual process by which the film was made.

Forget about Eisenstein silents, or Franju's Sangue de Bete!

Well, I would say Blood of the Beasts is quite a different case, since it's a documentary of actual activity at a slaughterhouse. There's a pretty clear difference between documenting something that's happening in the world as opposed to yourself killing an animal in order to film its death for the purposes of an otherwise fictional story. I realize this line can get a little hazy with some films, but Franju's film is, I think, unambiguously on one side of the line whereas Time of the Wolf and Week-end are on the other side.

I brought it up as mere advice to those who have a weak stomach for the sight of death. Regardless of the reasons for the filming (and trust me I understand the nuance of the filmmaking ethic on the line here of "murdering for the sake of entertainment"), many might find the excess of real animal death in BETE more disturbing than the poor singular snake who gets ripped apart in FANTOMAS for the sake of one little episode, or the horses in Eisenstien & Tarkovsky. That's all.

When I was watching the synapse release of thriller: a cruel picture (which contains penetration and a money shot) and listening to the commentary, It almost made me puke when I heard the producer tell me that the shot where they cut out the girls eye, was actually done on the corpse of a young girl who had comitted suicide that week, and he said it was great that she had done it, cause it added an authenticity to the film that got it noticed, And I had to get rid of the film based on that single shot, and the feelings I had that went with it, but the real sex stuff didnt bother me at all. but let's take Gaspar Noe, for example. In the film Irreversible, one of the reportedly "most walked out of" films released this century, Monica Bellucci gets anally raped for just over 10 minutes and then beaten to a pulp. The film is all digitally one shot, so the scene is never cut away from, and when the rapist pulls out, they've added a squishing sound and a CGI erect penis. a feature on the dvd, and Noe on the commentary, makes it very known that it is simulated, but it is easily some of the most shocking stuff I've ever seen, even compared to some actual death footage I watched on the internet in my youth. So my question is this, would it make it any more effective if he actually raped and beat her?

Is rape or physical assault not a crime if there is a bunch of people and standing around watching it on a monitor? where is the line drawn? Are we, as the audience, asking the art world to erase it?

This was really a great idea for a thread Kirkinson, and your initial post, a fine pitch! These are issues that I have also thought about a lot, and, I think that in order to not write a book in this thread, I will add just a few thoughts to begin with:

One logical extreme in this discussion would be “snuff filmâ€

A fine question, but I think you're overlooking that Bellucci agreed to perform this scene. So whether it had actual penetration or not, the scene cannot be considered rape. In this case it cannot be considered a crime not because a camera is present, and not because a bunch of professionals are watching it, but because it is not legally a crime. Morally? If an actress wishes to simulate a brutal rape and beating and does not seem otherwise exploited are we really to feel outraged?

Now, whether the scene is aesthetically earned by the movie is another question; the morals of asking someone to view such a scene are more complex. There is a difference between being morally offended at the inclusion of a scene in a movie as something to be viewed and being morally offended at the process of its making.

Also we should consider the various types of violence. Thus far it has been only physical (simulated or not). How about emotional violence? Certainly the simulated emotional violence in some films equals or surpasses that of the more visceral physical kind in others. Is the physical violence simulated by an actor or actress more offensive or possibly immoral than simulated emotional violence? Are we to condemn one over the other? I think one is probably easier to shrug off than the other because we understand the emotional violence to be part of a written screenplay, and because it is wholly intertwined with the "characters" who we understand to be different from the actors; yet cinematic physical violence often pushes itself so far into "realism" that it can be taken for true rather than acted suffering. Nevertheless, we should answer why one might be acceptable and the other not since the distinction between the two is really very slim.

I think especially the second part of this is difficult for any filmmaker to really account for. I think most would agree that Gaspar Noe did not intend for the rape scene in Irreversible to be remotely arousing, and for most (I hope) it's certainly not, but who knows, there are probably people out there who've masturbated to it. Noe has no control over how his images are received, interpreted, or "used." It's all he can do to simply make the film in the manner he sees fit, to not do anything on his part to encourage or welcome such an interpretation, but what if that's not enough to deter someone?

Remember also the scene in Winterbottom's 24 Hour Party People where some National Front kids show up to a Joy Division show, clearly not understanding the irony involved. There are always going to be the nuts in the audience who take things the wrong way and come up with potentially harmful interpretations. I don't see how we should allow them to take art hostage, however.



I've asked myself this question a many times, in particular when watching something like Cannibal Holocaust, which has real animal killings. I think the most direct way of dealing with this is simply not to support it with your wallet. Once you've removed that most direct line of support, should you still not watch it? I'm not sure. Like it or not, the images exist, and the animals are dead. Is our refusal harmful as well? Can images of suffering be redeemed?

This latter possibility is part of Godard's project in the Histoire(s) du Cinema and in other video essays from around the same time (Je Vous Salue Sarajevo, L'origine du XXIe siecle). The latter film uses, for instance, footage from a porn video of a man pissing in a woman's mouth, as she gags and chokes. In the context of Godard's video, it is an iconic image of suffering and injustice, of men's power to exploit, of women's plight. There is a sense in which we are there to bear witness to this suffering, not just turn our gaze elsewhere. Forget the cynical reasons it was filmed for initially, in Godard's hands it becomes something much different. Of course, to bring things back around to the start of this discussion, it would indeed be a different matter had Godard himself staged this scene. But, as the images already exist, should we not put them to use somehow?

The early years of William Friedkin immediately came to mind reading the comments here. For example, on The Exorcist, Friedkin had special effects genius, Marcel Vercoutere pull the harnessed Ellen Burstyn to hard, that she ended up with a slipped disc, after Burstyn complained that she was being pulled to hard previously. I feel that such behaviour on the part of Friedkin was really irresponsible, as much of what he got up to the set of that film was, such as firing real guns to get authentic shocked reactions from the actors. But the results were phenomenal and I feel that the film retains its considerable power all these years later, whereas in the hands of a less bold and brazen director, the film would have been little more than a modern day Hammer horror yarn. It doesn't justify the unethical conduct, but then I have a lot of conflicting feelings regarding morality/ethics in art, as you might have guessed!

The concept of 'Power' in 'Art' is something that interests me. There are many, many 'great' films that I greatly admire, which nevertheless are totally lacking in 'Power'. The Wizard of Oz, a 'family' film from 1939, with musical numbers and "glorious Technicolor", for me, has many 'powerful' moments; whereas something like Boogie Nights (a fine film) an 'adults only' film from 1998, now seems to lack strength, for a better word, so it cannot be a question of risque, taboo or 'controversial' content. The Wizard of Oz, for good or ill, taps into our Unconscious with bold, direct imagery and asks far more interesting, disturbing questions of the viewer than the 'exotic' documentary-esque 'world of porn' that Boogie Nights presents.

Power in works of art is an elusive element. A sentence or passage in a book, whether it be fiction or non-fiction (which are redundant terms as far as I am concerned) or a singular image in an painting, piece of sculpture/architecture or indeed in a movie can convey a message or idea that cannot be re-articulated by the subject in a concise way. Music is the medium that conveys the most power, I feel and more directly than all other mediums. The 'vital energies' of creation are most nakedly present in the music of Beethoven, though much have they either been unappreciated or bastardized in recent years. This mighty artist recognised this himself, better than anyone: "Music is a higher revelation than all wisdom and philosophy, it is the wine of a new procreation, and I am Bacchus who presses out this glorious wine for men and makes them drunk with the spirit," and the Dionysian power of his music will never be equalled and is something that Cinema can never approach. In many respects, Cinema is a superficial medium, in which the high energies of creation are greatly diminished when frozen in time and space; a filmmaker could have an incredible disturbing, enlightening dream or waking vision, but when he or she tried to express that vision, it would be almost certainly have lost its initial and immediate power. The higher realms of Music are not constricted by such re-creative interims; as long as the composer follows his creative processes to conclusion and writes the notes down, then it is then simply a matter of obtaining musicians of appropriate skill and musical-emotional understanding.

Cinema is the medium with the most rules. Music has no rules and questions of ethics or morality no longer come into it, though they used to in times of pervading puritanism. In a novel, one may write of a dog being shot - an image is presented economically and without an interferance or staging. In an animated film, like The Plague Dogs (1982) Richard Adams' follow-up to Watership Down, also directed by Martin Rosen, animal cruelty is presented quite vividly and is quite disturbing. Had the film been live action, it would have caused vehement public outrage. Sam Fuller's, White Dog was also due to be released that year, but Paramount got scared and I can't blame them, even though it is a powerful and thought-provoking film and does not feature excessive trauma to the dog(s).

Monte Hellman's remarkable 1974 film, Cock Fighter is a whole other story. I think I am right in saying that all but two states in the USA allowed cock fighting at the time the film was made and the fights in film are real, bloody and provoke a variety of conflicting emotions in me, though ultimately, I feel that the film is honest, powerful and quite moving in the depiction of a man possessed with a Zen-like focus in a world devoid of rationality and wisdom. The birds are pure will in whatever they do and in the fighting, at no point do they 'quit'; they have no concept of what they are doing, though they feel the pain, which is ultimately of no value either the winner or loser, as it is with us humans - the victorious bird gains nothing from his 'win' or the opponent's 'loss'. It's a great story, though highly unconventional, but worth telling and faking the fights would have been nigh impossible with those budgets and schedules.

The animal cruelty in Dario Argento's films is a whole other matter. The pins being stuck into a live lizard and the fighting dogs (were they baited?) in Profondo Rosso do not serve the narrative, though they do add considerable visceral power to the film, but the lizard killing is something that has always bothered me. The blowing up of the lizard in Peckinpah's, The Ballad of Cable Hogue really shocked me when I first saw it on TV back in the early 90s, but seeing it again on DVD, in slow-motion, revealed that it was already dead when they squibbed it, though I'm not sure if they found a dead specimen or captured a live one and gassed it, or what. In the opening of Pat Garrett & Billy the Kid, though, they definitely killed real live hens, in what is a shocking scene.

Moving away from animal cruelty, alteration or destruction of vegetation for the sake of Cinema can be even more irrational. Antonioni painting the trees in The Red Desert and Blow-Up is something that one would not realise without reading about, though it has always struck me as a dubious practice to achieve something that the viewer would not appreciate. I have read numourous articles where the author seems to be impressed by these maverick techniques. The inclusion of genuine execution footage in an unknown African country in The Passenger is perplexing in addition to being shocking initially, but on subsequent viewings, its subversive power is revealed to be approriate.

The question always is: Which images are appropriate for a film? And if the filmmaker deems a violent image to be appropriate, they then have to figure out how to present it. In the digital age, the filmmaker doesn't need to trip up horses, shoot live birds, blow up real lizards or paint tree or fields or whatnot, but in them olden days of movie-making, the tricks were physical and laborious, but non-consential human cruelty, animal cruelty, destruction of nature or pollution, etc. can never be justified, frankly, but its easy to pass judgment on the ignorance of our predecessors. The bottom line for the filmmmaker is: If I cannot execute what is in the script in a humane and non-destructive manner, then I should re-write the script. If I cannot get an actor who can cope with this scene, then I either need to re-write the scene or replace the actor.

Making movies is about fakery, magic, theatrics, though realism also has its place; but if people or animals are getting hurt or nature is getting fucked over in some way then at least one person isn't doing their job right.

This thread is branching out into so many interesting directions that it is almost unfair. Here is wishing we could all get together over a few mugs of mocha-java and continue this discussion. We would probably never finish, or come close to any definitive answers, but it would certainly be fun and stimulating. In spirit at least, I herewith extend the invitation… drinks on me

Gordon, you talk of “powerâ€

This is a really interesting discussion. I don't have any answers, but I've got some more questions to throw into the mix:

If our ability to ethically judge a film is dependent upon knowledge of the circumstances of its production (e.g. was that animal death real or faked, did the actors fully consent to their treatment in this scene, is that real sex or simulated?), how do we judge films about which no such information is available? Should we assume that what we think we're seeing is what actually happened? This seems like an extremely slippery slope. Should we give all films the benefit of the doubt, however appalling the apparent circumstances of production, until we know for sure what went down on set?

Snuff - what about the grey areas where actual human deaths caught on film (but not demanded as part of the filmmaking process) are used? There are at least two such examples in the Criterion Collection.

If a film is a great work of art, does that excuse unethical behaviour? Or does it make it worse? Should 'art' carry a greater ethical burden? Do we have to make that horrible decision whether the end justifies the means? After all, there is a continuum of bad behaviour here, from directorial arrogance to snuff, and a certain amount of it is probably necessary to make interesting films. Is verbal abuse and intimidation OK - even where it might legally constitute assault - but burning ants (not a crime, as far as I know) morally wrong?

An interesting example to consider might be Pialat's A nos amours, a great film in which the power of what's on screen is largely driven by an intense rehearsal and production process that wound some actors, at least, past breaking point. When Pialat's character 'comes back from the dead' at the end of the film, without warning his actors, and proceeds to verbally abuse them (in character) to the point where Evelyne Ker attacks him (out of character), is this ethical? Does it make a difference that he's the recipient of the violence? When Ker struck Bonnaire off-camera, was that Pialat's fault? Or should we only judge what ends up on screen?

Which films?

Yeah, I'd be interested to know that too. I have to say, though, that if you're talking about documentary examples, I don't have much trouble with virtually anything being shown in a documentary context if it seems important to the film. Here, we're not talking about filmmakers doing harm themselves for the sake of a film, but simply filming something that is happening in the world -- or in some cases using existing newsreel footage of something happening. I can think of the case of deaths during war documentaries, perhaps (although I can't think of any obvious examples at the moment), or the shooting of the giraffe in Chris Marker's Sans Soleil. I think that's an interesting case, because if I saw that scene in a fiction film where it seemed as though the director had staged it, it would have repelled me, possibly to the point of turning off the film. But since it's clear that Marker probably filmed a hunting expedition that would have killed the giraffe anyway, it doesn't bother me in quite the same way. Or, I should say, it bothers me because of the content of the scene (and I'm sure Marker intends us to be bothered and provoked by it), but not because of any perceived ethical failing in the process of production.

In this case, the thought process remains focused on the events and people depicted in the film itself, rather than on aspects of the production process. That's why similar examples of animal slaughter in fiction films are so counter-productive. When we see the pig killed in Week-end or the horse killed in Time of the Wolf, we're reminded that this is happening on a set, that actors are doing this stuff, and it pulls us out of the film's reality into the broader reality of what was really happening during film production. Now, granted, that sounds like the kind of effect that Godard in particular would love to create -- he's always reminding us of film artifice -- but I'm not sure he intends it to happen in that particular place or in that particular way. And Haneke, certainly, wishes to do anything but remind us that there's a film crew there; this film is such an intense, immersive experience that I doubt he'd intentionally pull us out of his created world like that.

This obviously gets into a lot of gray areas, though, not least of which is trying to determine the intent of the film in question. But as hard as that can be to determine conclusively, it's important to think about intent in any case like this. Getting back to documentaries for a moment, I think there will certainly always be a clear reason for showing any real filmed death on screen -- whether it's the implied anti-hunting statement in that Sans Soleil scene or an anti-war message or a desire to expose the cruelty of the perpetrators of the death. Think of the famous photo of the Vietcong commando being shot in the head by a South Vietnamese army officer. There's definitely a weighty ethical and moral responsibility implied whenever such images are to be shown, but as long as filmmakers are aware of that responsibility and don't throw such images around frivolously, it can be very important that these things are seen.

This is another very interesting case. As I posted recently, I was absolutely blown away by the film, but I do have a few ethical qualms about Pialat's methods (paradoxically: even though his methods seem absolutely essential to making the film as powerful as it is). During the film, I was occasionally shocked by the seemingly "real" violence happening on screen, and sometimes wondered/worried how much of it was really happening in the studio. When Pialat hits Sandrine Bonnaire in the face, that was an incredible jolt and a remarkably effective scene, but I found myself wondering if (as it certainly seemed) he really did hit her and about the ethicality of such real on-set violence. Of course, as it turns out from reading and viewing the supporting materials, most of the violence in the film really did happen, and Pialat seemed to create an atmosphere of such emotional overload that such violence was acceptable to the actors and even iniatiated by them. Now, none of the actors seems to be lastingly hurt (either physically or emotionally) by the filming, so I'm inclined in this case to simply accept that Pialat was an especially demanding filmmaker, and that any actors working with him realized this and were willing to extend themselves into his emotionally vulnerable, violent territory.

Gimme Shelter, famously, and General Idi Amin Dada. Can't think of any others, off the top of my head, but here's another moral quandary: do you count shots of killings where you can't see the bodies (e.g. footage of aerial bombings), or shots of bodies where you don't see the killings? There are probably examples of both in Hearts and Minds. How about 'found' snuff footage, like the self-immolation news footage in Persona?

Death interests me greatly. It has done for as long as I can remember. Children are obsessed with dying, death and 'being' dead. Children ask the most interesting questions regarding death and sometimes they seem on the verge of creating their own mythology regarding death. François Boyer's / René Clément's Jeux interdits is quite extraordinary; one of the great unconventional stories/films from the child's point of view. I mentioned the real-life execution footage in Antonioni's, The Passenger - and remember that this was at the time of Franco's Spain, with the protagonists on the run in that country. It is an incredibly shocking and unexpected moment, but wholey appropriate, I feel. But the idea of showing an accidental or staged death of an animal in a feature film repells me. Even deaths in the news media have to be treated appropriately. Wasn't their a silent film that showed the death of an extra? Horrible. Oh, I just remembered the obscenely negligent accident on John Landis' segment of The Twilight Zone: The Movie, which I have seen the footage of, much to my regret; curiosity is a fickle aspect of consciousness. That whole segment, if not the whole film should not have been released, quite frankly. If you search Google, you'll find a few sites that have in-depth info on the insanity of that sequence; Landis was fucking WAY over the white line, if you pardon the pun, on that set. The guy should have been jailed or at the very least, never allowed to work again - which would have been fine by me. Look at how his wild-man approach and style altered considerably after 1983. Discussion on Landis' ethics on The Twilight Zone: The Movie could stretch this thread to over 10 pages, frankly. The ultimate example of a director out of control on a film, surely.

Gordo-- you're on fire bro. Great posts. I'm filled with ideas viz jumping in here but I'm feeling very lazy lately-- been playing a lot of... music. Thereby relating strongly to McMurphy's thoughts viz music vs. film. When I start playing heavy my interest in film wanes heavy. This despite the fact that music is fully audible and interacting with the onscreen images. But they rarely gel in a way that is more moving beyond listening to music in a darkened room where your feelings soar and are not steered by a limited, earthbound melodrama.

This is one of the most interesting threads we've had on Criterion Forum in a long time.

Gordon,

I also retain knowledge of the production of "Twilight Zone: The Movie" and the tragedy. When I was a young genre buff (pre-teen) I watched a long documentary on the entire ordeal, which went from the shoot to the trails and the aftermath, and it's always stuck with me. They showed parts of the actual footage, and you really don't see too much...the blade goes under the water and debris from the bodies start to come up...maybe it got a whole lot worse after that though.

Granted, John Landis, who was on something of a roll there with "Kentucky Fried Movie," "Animal House," and "American Werewolf," has made nothing but pure mediocrity since then, which is a testament to how much this seriously ruined his career. But to say he should've been jailed and never allowed to work again is going too far, I think. Yes, Landis was over the line, but so are a lot of directors. Illegally using those kids after hours was breaking the law, but how did he know this was going to happen? This was just a horrible, freak accident.

As for the film itself, the Morrow segment really was nothing to shout about in the first place (it wasn't even an original TZ segment, he wrote it for the film), but now it doesn't even make a whole lot of sense because (just as they did with "Brainstorm" after Natalie Wood's death) they had no ending and they had to use footage from earlier for the conclusion...in the end, the only reason this segment was retained is largely as a tribute to Morrow and the kids.

However, I think that, by a mile, the "It's a Good Life" segment is Joe Dante's greatest work...really quite a lovely piece. The prologue is also fun, and the Jerry Goldsmith score is wonderful, so I also disagree about them not releasing it. Ultimately Landis should've just filmed a different segment from the beginning.

As for the rest of the thread:

How about the slaughter house scene in Fassbinder's "In a Year of 13 Moons?" I wasn't really bothered by it (my tolerence for such things is rather high, even if I don't completely agree, or agree with at all, with what I might be seeing), but it was pretty disgusting. The cows were alread dead.

"The End of August at the Hotel Ozone" does sound like it goes too far, but I haven't seen it so I can't comment.

Gordon, the lizard in "Deep Red" looks fake, I'm surprised it's real.

I was very impressed with "Irreversible," which (SPOILER) I believe more than justifies the brutal, intense rape scene with the contrast demonstated in the later sex scene between Bellucci and her husband, where they end up in the same position while making love, which is uncomfortable and sad to watch, but also deeply critical to what Noe is saying with the entire film. It also deals with the role of fate in tragedy, how we see how events just spontaneously unfold that eventually led to the rape (like how the friend's car broke down and they had to take the subway, or Vincent Cassel flirting with the other women). And Noe ends the film...so beautifully, with the Beethoven piece and the swirling camera and the all the hope...hope that seems eternal, but we already know what followed, and there's nothing we can do to stop it, except watch the happiness. A moving, intense film.

It's quite scary how often you pull thoughts from my mind... I wonder if the intent to make the film in reverse was there right from the beginning, or if it was something decided later on in the production...it might be very interesting to see a first time viewer react to the film if it was re-edited into chronological order.

Steve,

Although an interesting thought, it was never meant to be in chronological order. The point of the film is that no matter what we are shown after the rape, the rape has already happened, her rape and death has been pre-determined and is irreversible, we can only go backwards and see how the day led her into the tunnel. The rape scene is harrowing, and the entire first half hour is very hard to sit through...and when Noe reveals such a hopeful and lovely hour from the same day, it's almost as devastating.