This is a movie that immediately ignited a firestorm of controversy so that even in 1971 many critics and viewers approached it with preconceptions. They expected to be outraged. As a result they totally misunderstood the film and read things into it that are simply not there.
And there is of course Peckinpah’s reputation as an apostle of cinematic violence. In fact the violence in this movie only matters insofar as it has an impact on the emotional states of the characters. And Peckinpah goes out of his way to avoid presenting the violence as being in any way heroic or admirable or justified. This is a very anti-heroic movie. The violence is squalid and nasty and petty and disgusting and absurd. Peckinpah wants us to be horrified and disgusted. It’s not easy to present extreme violence without making it exciting but more than anyone other director who has tried doing this Peckinpah succeeds in making violence very very unattractive.
There is no hero in this movie. Despite what you may have heard this is not the story of a man pushed beyond endurance who finally overcomes his fears and fights back and becomes a righteous avenger.
David is a middle-class intellectual and like so many of that breed he despises anyone who isn’t a middle-class intellectual. He considers the locals to be barely human and they are immediately aware of this. He is also a coward and they are also immediately aware of this. He antagonises the locals.
Peckinpah saw this movie as the story of a marriage. A failed marriage. Amy loves David but she knows that he despises her as an intellectual inferior. He is petty and vindictive. Amy also knows that he is a coward. The marriage is clearly heading for the rocks.
Right at the start the couple have an encounter with Charlie Venner (Del Henney). Charlie and David hate each on sight. Charlie and Amy have a history. The reason they broke up is one of the many things that Peckinpah keeps deliberately vague.
David has hired four young men from the village to repair the barn. Despite what you may have heard about the movie Amy is not flirtatious.
And then comes the most important scene in the film. David arrives home and she doesn’t tell him what has happened. This is crucial because it means that none of David’s later actions are motivated by a desire for revenge. She doesn’t tell him because she now feels so estranged from him that she doesn’t see the point. She assumes that if she tells him he will let her down again.
Three minor characters now become important. Henry Niles (David Warner) is suspected of having an unhealthy interest in the young village girls. Once again Peckinpah keeps things deliberately vague. Is Henry dangerous or just odd?
In this movie the social breakdown is almost complete. Those whose duty it is to protect the vulnerable are ineffectual. The forces of law and order, represented by the magistrate Major Scott (T.P. McKenna) are impotent. Fathers fail their daughters, husbands fail their wives.
The story of Henry Niles will intersect with that of David and Amy.
Then comes the climax - the pitched battle at the farmhouse. But there’s nothing heroic about it. It’s just a mob of drunken louts led by Tom Heddon battling a crazy man. David does fight and fights viciously but Peckinpah undercuts any admiration we may feel for him. He is not a weakling who suddenly discovers reserves of courage and nobility. It’s just that his anger that has been festering inside him for years suddenly explodes. It’s a battle that is more farcical than heroic.
Peter Vaughan is outrageous but effective. David Warner has the right mix of creepiness and vulnerability. Sally Thomsett is excellent in what is actually a rather tricky and ambiguous role.
Mention must be made of the frenetic editing. A single very brief scene can include literally hundreds of cuts. Images succeed each other at dizzying speed. There are also wild camera angles and in almost every way Peckinpah is totally reinventing the language of cinema. This is a technically revolutionary film.
Straw Dogs is one of Peckinpah’s two best movies, the other being Junior Bonner. Both tend to be unjustly overshadowed by his more famous films. Straw Dogs is very highly recommended
Dee, in your good write-up of STRAW DOGS(1971) you've given me a lot of good points to chew on. This movie has been praised and damned by many over the last 55 years. It's very much a violent psychological primal horror thriller. Its gruesome finale has one blood-curdling killing after another, filmed with ingenuity and unbridled fury. Director Sam Peckinpah gives us more than one way to kill without using a gun. Although, there is a lot more to the movie than the violent ending and of course the controversial double rape scene. I agree with your observation that, "Peckinpah goes out of his way to avoid presenting the violence as being in any way heroic or admirable or justified." I think Peckinpah succeeded in taking the romance out of a killing.
ReplyDeleteSTRAW DOGS is a tough watch for me personally because of the controversial double rape scene. I didn't first view this horror thriller until 1987 on late night television by way of Chicago, Illinois' WGN Channel 9, and a lot was cut for TV viewing. In the mid 1990's I viewed it on a rental VHS tape, but it was the 113-minute version not the longer 118-minute version which had more of the double rape scene and the finale violence. The trimmed and rearranged footage of the rape sequence (especially parts of the second violent assault) of the 113-minute version was repulsive enough, but the 118-minute version was more so. I finally viewed the longer version on YouTube, which has only been up for 5 months. To me it's still a dangerous endorsement of the male "rape myth" that women secretly enjoy being raped. Yes, the “no means yes” implications are here, and Susan George in interviews says, "Amy at one point found it pleasurable. It was in the script, and that's how I played it." Also, she has said that it was, "the way Sam Peckinpah wished it to be interpreted.” Now, with the depictions of two rapes we have implications of the shocking idea of "good" rape(the first) and "bad" rape(the second). Personally, this is appalling to me to the inth degree. Is STRAW DOGS art or exploitation? This has been debated back and forth ever since its 1971 release, and I think it all depends on the eye of the beholder. Sam Peckinpah set out to film the best rape scene ever put on film, and its filmed and edited with considerable skill. Getting back to the eye of the beholder, this filmed scene of the violent crime of rape will either excite or disgust the viewer. Are there some out there who will be both excited and disgusted, probably. Needless to say, it disgusts me. Is there more to this movie? Yes, there is and a lot of questions can be asked and discussed.
Dee, as you say, "This is a movie that immediately ignited a firestorm of controversy." Yes, it did and still does. STRAW DOGS is a movie that once seen in its entirety can never be forgotten.
For me the most crucial scene is not that controversial scene but the scene in which Amy does not tell David what happened. She has realised that there is no point. She has realised that she has no husband. He is utterly useless to her.
DeleteI think Peckinpah is very much on Amy’s side, and very much not on David’s side.
Dee, I tend to agree with you about Sam Peckinpah being on Amy's(Susan George) side. In a later interview he did describe David(Dustin Hoffman) as being the bad guy of the story. Emotionally Peckinpah was probably influenced more by his mother Fern Louise Church Peckinpah than his father David Peckinpah. Sam Peckinpah's younger sister had this to say about Sam's emotionally make up, “Mother, fortunately and unfortunately, was the most powerful figure in his life… He got his creativity from her, though I’m certain he would have denied it. Sam was basically a woman, emotionally. I think of a man as being systematic in his reasoning, to come to a certain point. Sam would get to the answer emotionally—the way he felt about it, the way he visualized it. I think he was embarrassed by it because in our family, ‘By God, the men are men!’ " This quote comes from David Weddle's IF THEY MOVE.. KILL 'EM!: THE LIFE AND TIMES OF SAM PECKINPAH(1994).
ReplyDeleteAnd I suspect that Dustin Hoffman was aware of Peckinpah’s intention to portray David as the bad guy. It’s not a standard Hoffman jumpy neurotic performance. There’s an edge of nastiness. David is a coward but like many cowards he has a cruel streak towards those he perceives as powerless. He’s quite nasty towards Amy.
DeleteDavid makes it clear that he despises the villagers but his contempt is compounded of fear and hate. He would treat them with cruelty if he thought he could get away with it.
Given Hoffman’s legendary obsessiveness about getting inside his characters I suspect that he would have discussed all this stuff with Peckinpah.
Once we understand that David is the bad guy Hoffman’s performance becomes very impressive.
Dee, good points about David Sumner's(Dustin Hoffman) role as a bad guy. Yes, Hoffman discussed his role with Sam Peckinpah and Hoffman went to the president of ABC Pictures Martin Baum and tried to have Peckinpah fired as director, but Baum said no dice.
ReplyDeleteI agree that Susan George and Dustin Hoffman were impressive in their roles. George has always spoken highly of STRAW DOGS, even though she did walk away refusing to do the second rape scene. Producer Daniel Melnick brought her back and she and Peckinpah came to an agreement. George would do the scene how she wanted it done by just filming her facial and eye expressions.