Animal Cruelty in Movies

Uthur

What's worse - the pig killed with a sledgehammer in 'Weekend' or the ox hacked to pieces in 'Apocalypse Now'? How about the chickens having their heads blown off in 'the wild bunch'? Should any of these scenes have even been filmed? I would tend to think not. 'Weekend' is probably my least fav film ever because of that one scene.

BlitzKrieg

.......dude i'm not touching this topic with a 10 foot pole.

Agent Orange

The chickens were in 'Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid' but hey, same director.

And no, animals should never be harmed especially for a movie. In the case of Apocalypse Now, they just filmed some ritual that was taking place anyway. The chicken blasting is cut in the UK release of Pat Garrett.

For a truly rough viewing experience, check out Cannibal Holocaust. Muskrats are stabbed, turtles disembowled, and other unplesantness.

Uthur

"The chicken blasting is cut in the UK release of Pat Garrett"

C4 showed it uncut a year or two ago. Nearly put me off me tea.

Obviously these are art movies and not popular entertainment (Except maybe 'Pat Garrett') but surely there is a better way to make a point than to make the audience physically sick. Most of us have never worked in a slaughterhouse and would rather not thanks all the same.

lodgepole

This has come up in Lars von Trier's latest film. They needed a donkey to die on screen, so they went to a vet and asked if he had any that were due to be slaughtered. John C. Reilly quit because of it.

Cactus Col

there's no reason to do it these days, not when it can be faked so easily

ixoy

Originally posted by Lodgepole
This has come up in Lars von Trier's latest film. They needed a donkey to die on screen, so they went to a vet and asked if he had any that were due to be slaughtered. John C. Reilly quit because of it.

Really? Is this the second part of hiis U.S.A. trilogy that you're talking about it? It shouldn't shock me too much though - as much as I enjoyed Dogville, it still smacks of a director with pretentious notions.

Uthur

Yeah if Peter Jackson can make a twenty-foot talking tree seem credible, von Trier
can surely cgi a decent donkey death (gotta love that alliteration).

I'm no tree-hugging ultra-leftie by any means but maybe this type of thing should be illegal. If I wanted to see the reality of death I'd watch the news.

leeroybrown

Actual cruelty to animals during filming should be avoided whenever possible but in my view cutting something from a film purely on the grounds that the animals involved were harmed is rediculous.

As for Lars von Trier, he tends to be a bit wierd at times and would probably avoid visual effects in favour of animal harm in a lot of cases.

Karl Hungus

Originally posted by Lodgepole
This has come up in Lars von Trier's latest film. They needed a donkey to die on screen, so they went to a vet and asked if he had any that were due to be slaughtered. John C. Reilly quit because of it.

I heard about this, and I'm honestly not bothered by it in the least. There is a big difference there between filming the death of a animal that was going to be killed anyway, and killing it just for the film's sake, but people getting upset at the idea of actually seeing it are suffering from Ostritch syndrome methinks. Reguardless of whether it's filmed or not, said animal is still going to be killed.

lodgepole

Originally posted by Uthur
Yeah if Peter Jackson can make a twenty-foot talking tree seem credible, von Trier
can surely cgi a decent donkey death (gotta love that alliteration).

I'm no tree-hugging ultra-leftie by any means but maybe this type of thing should be illegal. If I wanted to see the reality of death I'd watch the news.

It should be noted that they tried using a model and he wasn't happy with the result. So they contacted a Swedish vet (its being filmed in Sweden) who supplied them with a donkey who was due to be put down. The donkey lived an extra two weeks due to being in the film.

Von Trier would not use CG in a film.

fizzynicenice

now heres a topic to tip-toe around, i always was a bit edgy round animal cruelty scenes but i find them to be alright if they are a neccesity of the story, and as long as no animals were hurt. But tact is required, think of it this way:
how many people do you know who have watched films with huge body counts, anything terminator, face off, under siege, and walked away saying how cool it was. and how many of these people would have been in uproar if there was even an off camera rape scene in it. Nobody died due to it, but thats not the point, some things are much too real for some people and require care. It may be art, but you must be aware of the consequences.

Thorbar

Slightly off topic but I remember reading that while filming the Shawshank Redemption they had an animal rights group on the scene and they protested that it would be cruel to the maggots to be fed to the crow. So they had to wait for the maggots to die naturally before filming feeding that to the crow. What I don't get is that every year millions of animals are given a fairly horrible life and and even nastier death to produce food yet people will go crazy the second an animal (which may have been due to die anyway) is harmed for a film. Is it the case that its bad because the animal is only be harmed for entertainment value or do you think we should outlaw meat eating as well?

Karl Hungus

Originally posted by Thorbar
Slightly off topic but I remember reading that while filming the Shawshank Redemption they had an animal rights group on the scene and they protested that it would be cruel to the maggots to be fed to the crow. So they had to wait for the maggots to die naturally before filming feeding that to the crow. What I don't get is that every year millions of animals are given a fairly horrible life and and even nastier death to produce food yet people will go crazy the second an animal (which may have been due to die anyway) is harmed for a film. Is it the case that its bad because the animal is only be harmed for entertainment value or do you think we should outlaw meat eating as well?

I think it's because a lot of people really do have their heads stuck in the sand about these things, in a manner of speaking, or that killing for meat is just deemed acceptable because it's just something that happens on an extremely regular basis. I think people can be very ignorant, two-faced and quite frankly, incomprehensibly thick about the whole issue.

Personally, I think cruelty to animals should be mandatory for all films.

ferdi

isnt there some close link between people who enjoy cruelty to animals and psychopathic tendencies? - yes.

on a different note - why can i watch 20 movies, i can see (potentially) 1000s of people dying but i probably wont see 1 single animal die?

Archvillain

chances are you won't see thousands of people actually being killed for the sake of the film. unless you know some very select film clubs. Having said that, there are a vast number of actors i would pay to watch gutted on screen. Politicians too. Business people too. Sport personalities too. Common celebrities too. and so forth.

AngelofFire

I dont agree with the harming of animals in order to serve the artistic and profiterial ends of fim making.It should be outlawed. With advances in modelmaking and CGI there is no excuse for it these days.

MarcusGarvey

Originally posted by Karl Hungus
There is a big difference there between filming the death of a animal that was going to be killed anyway

The same can be argued for snuff films then. "Sure we're all going to die at some point anyway".

lodgepole

Originally posted by MarcusGarvey
The same can be argued for snuff films then. "Sure we're all going to die at some point anyway".

That's completely different. The animal in question was going to be put down by a vet (for an unknown reason, no article has printed it).

A worthwhile comparison would be the filming of the death of a terminally ill person for use within a film. That raises several issues, one of which is how we view animals rights as opposed to human's rights.

Karl Hungus

Originally posted by MarcusGarvey
The same can be argued for snuff films then. "Sure we're all going to die at some point anyway".

That's just a downright retarded statement, especially when you miss quote me, and take said quote completely out of context.

Here's the original context:

There is a big difference there between filming the death of a animal that was going to be killed anyway, and killing it just for the film's sake

And this perfectly invalidates your comparison with snuff films, seeing as a person would have to be killed prematurely just for the sake of such a film. So kindly don't act a complete knob, and resort to taking things out of context, and misquotation to get your already invalid arguement across.

Seeing as there's nobody that I know of who's natural death has been used in a film, I can't really make any comparison here with a donkey, so your argument still falls to peices on that level.

MarcusGarvey

There is never a need to get personal when arguing something. Makes you look childish dear and people only see your purile bullying tactics and fail to hear your point whether it was good or not.

I think people can be very ignorant, two-faced and quite frankly, incomprehensibly thick about the whole issue.

Time for some self-reflection there.

Back to the topic and not getting a hard-on cos you called me a retard:


Wow, the donkey got an extra two weeks to live, how fucking humane. It still did not die a natural death. It was condemned to a non-natural death because it was going to die anyway. Killing it a year before they guessed it was going to drop or ten minutes is still not a natural death. It's a termination.

Terminating a life is terminating a life. Just because something is going to die real soon or is on death-row in a Vets does not cheapen or invalidate that life.

Karl Hungus

Originally posted by MarcusGarvey
Back to the topic and not getting a hard-on cos you called me a retard:

Christ!

That's just a downright retarded statement

There's certainly no reason to miss-quote me AGAIN and MAKE IT personal yourself, then whinge about it.

FFS, if you want to hold a discussion, at least try to argue against what I'm actually saying in the first place!

lodgepole

Originally posted by MarcusGarvey
Wow, the donkey got an extra two weeks to live, how fucking humane. It still did not die a natural death. It was condemned to a non-natural death because it was going to die anyway. Killing it a year before they guessed it was going to drop or ten minutes is still not a natural death. It's a termination.

Terminating a life is terminating a life. Just because something is going to die real soon or is on death-row in a Vets does not cheapen or invalidate that life.

Two things...

1) We do not know why the animal was to be put down in real life... But it was to be terminated regardless of the film, as many animals are every week.

2) We do not know the context in which the animal died in the film. That is, whether or not they ran him over with a bus, or if the scene involved the humane (and legal) slaughtering of a donkey by a vet.

fizzynicenice

woo-hoo keep arguing, this is so interesting. yum!

bizmark

Their animals it hardly matters if their killed tbh

MarcusGarvey

Originally posted by bizmark
Their animals it hardly matters if their killed tbh

Tut tut Mr B. Troll a bit better/a little less obvious than that will you ?

bizmark

Remove my name from your post ffs :rolleyes:

and its not a troll i personaly dont care

MarcusGarvey

If you don't care then why are you posting about it ?

( I removed your name even though a few million people have the same christian name. But maybe I shouldn't have cared ?)

bizmark

Am i not allowed a view on a subject if it differes from yours marcus ?