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Straw Dogs (1971 film)

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Straw Dogs
Theatrical release poster
Directed bySam Peckinpah
Screenplay bySam Peckinpah
David Zelag Goodman
Produced byDaniel Melnick
StarringDustin Hoffman
Susan George
CinematographyJohn Coquillon
Edited byPaul Davies
Tony Lawson
Roger Spottiswoode
Music byJerry Fielding
Production
companies
Distributed byCinerama Releasing Corporation
Release dates
  • November 3, 1971 (1971-11-03) (UK)
  • December 29, 1971 (1971-12-29) (US)
Running time
118 minutes
113 minutes (Edited cut)
CountriesTemplate:Film UK
Template:Film US
LanguageEnglish
Budget$3,251,794
Box office$11,148,828

Straw Dogs is a 1971 psychological thriller directed by Sam Peckinpah and starring Dustin Hoffman and Susan George. The screenplay by Peckinpah and David Zelag Goodman is based upon the novel The Siege of Trencher's Farm by Gordon Williams.[1] The film's title derives from a discussion in the Tao Te Ching which likens the ancient Chinese ceremonial straw dog to forms without substance.

The film is noted for its violent concluding sequences and a complicated rape scene that critics point to as an example of Peckinpah's (and Hollywood's) debasement of women.[2] Released theatrically the same year as A Clockwork Orange, The French Connection, and Dirty Harry, the film sparked heated controversy over the perceived increase of violence in cinema.[3][4] Although controversial in 1971, Straw Dogs is considered by many to be one of Peckinpah's greatest films.[5] The film premiered in US cinemas on December 29, 1971. The remake was released on September 16, 2011.

Plot

David Sumner (Dustin Hoffman), a timid American mathematician, leaves the chaos of college anti-war protests to live with his young wife, Amy (Susan George), in her hometown of Wakely, a fictional village in Cornwall. Almost immediately, there is tension between the couple as David becomes immersed in his academic work and differing ideas regarding the nature of their relationship come to light: David wants the traditional division of tasks, with the man earning wages, and the wife satisfying his needs in the kitchen and bed. Amy wants greater participation from David if she is going to accept such a role: she wants him to perform all the traditionally male tasks, like fixing the toaster, but also to involve himself in her community.

Wakely locals, including rat catcher Chris Cawsey (Jim Norton), Norman Scutt (Ken Hutchison) and Riddaway (Donald Webster), who are doing repair work on the couple's isolated farmhouse, and Amy's former lover, Charlie Venner (Del Henney), show blatant resentment and suspicion toward David and his intellectual pursuits, taunting and harassing him. David discovers their cat strangled and hanging by a light chain in their bedroom closet. Amy claims the workmen did it to prove they could get into their bedroom and to intimidate David. She presses him to confront the villagers, but he refuses. David tries to win their friendship, and they invite him to go hunting in the woods the next day. During the hunting trip, the workmen take him to a remote forest meadow and leave him there, promising to drive the birds towards him. Having ditched David, Venner returns to the couple's farmhouse where he rapes Amy. Norman Scutt arrives, forces Venner by shotgun to hold Amy down, and he rapes her too.

After several hours, David realizes he's been tricked and returns home to find a disheveled and withdrawn Amy. She does not tell him about the rapes. The next day, David fires the construction men, claiming that they have not worked enough and wasted time. Later that week, they attend a church social where Amy becomes distraught after seeing the men who raped her. David and Amy leave the social early, and, while driving home through thick fog, they accidentally hit the local village idiot Henry Niles (David Warner), whom they take to their home. David phones the local pub about the accident. However, earlier that evening Niles had accidentally strangled a flirtatious young girl from the village, Janice Hedden (Sally Thomsett), and now her father, the town drunkard, Tom (Peter Vaughan), and the workmen looking for him are now alerted by the phone call to Niles's whereabouts.

Soon the drunken locals, including Amy's rapists, are pounding on the door of the Sumners' home. After a few minutes of their breaking the windows and hammering on the door, the local magistrate, Major John Scott (T. P. McKenna), arrives and after attempting to defuse the situation, is accidentally shot dead by Tom. At this point the father and the workmen agree that they cannot go back on what they have done, but only continue. David realizes that they will not allow anyone in the house to live and begins preparing to defend his home. First he heats two saucepans of cooking oil. Then, when one of the men attempts to unlock the window, he ties the man's hands together at knifepoint. As more men appear at another window, he scalds them with the boiling oil, temporarily incapacitating them. Then he lays down a large mantrap in his living room and sends Amy upstairs to hide.

When Tom and Cawsey enter and attempt to shoot him, he knocks the shotgun out of Tom's hands, causing it to fire and mangle the man's foot, mortally wounding him. He then engages in a fight with Cawsey, beating him to death with a fire poker. Finally, Charlie appears and holds David at gunpoint, but before he can shoot him, the two hear Amy screaming. As they both run upstairs, the fifth man, Scutt, is there. He tells Charlie to take David downstairs and kill him, so they can rape Amy again. Instead, Charlie shoots Scutt and David begins to fight Charlie. As they reach the living room, David, despite Amy's pleas not to, kills Charlie by springing the mantrap over his head, crushing his neck. As David looks at the carnage around him, he murmurs "Jesus, I got 'em all." He is then attacked by another villager and, losing the struggle, asks Amy to fetch the shotgun and shoot him. Amy hesitates before retrieving the weapon and shooting the villager.

David is driving Niles to town when the latter turns and says, "I don't know my way home." David smiles and replies, "That's okay. I don't either."

Cast

Production

Sam Peckinpah's two previous films, The Wild Bunch and The Ballad of Cable Hogue, had been made for Warner Bros.-Seven Arts.[6] His connection with the company ended after the chaotic filming of Cable Hogue wrapped 19 days over schedule and $3 million over budget. Left with a limited number of directing jobs, Peckinpah was forced to travel to England to direct Straw Dogs. Produced by Daniel Melnick, who had previously worked with Peckinpah on his 1966 television film Noon Wine, the screenplay was based on the novel The Siege of Trencher's Farm by Gordon Williams.[7]

Peckinpah's adaptation of the novel drew inspiration from Robert Ardrey's books African Genesis and The Territorial Imperative, which argued that man was essentially a carnivore who instinctively battled over control of territory. A significant difference between the novel and the movie is the Sumner couple have a daughter who is also trapped in the farmhouse. Peckinpah removed the daughter and rewrote the character of Amy Sumner as a younger and more liberated woman.[8] The film was shot on location at St Buryan, Cornwall.[9]

Beau Bridges, Stacy Keach, Sidney Poitier, Jack Nicholson, and Donald Sutherland were considered for the lead role of David Sumner before Dustin Hoffman was cast.[10] Hoffman agreed to do the film because he was intrigued by the character, a pacifist unaware of his feelings and potential for violence that were the very same feelings he abhorred in society.[11] Judy Geeson, Jacqueline Bisset, Diana Rigg, Helen Mirren, Carol White, Charlotte Rampling, and Hayley Mills were considered for the role of Amy before Susan George was finally selected.[12] Hoffman disagreed with the casting, as he felt his character would never marry such a "Lolita-ish" kind of girl. Peckinpah insisted on George, an unknown actress at that time.[13]

Reception

Straw Dogs received generally positive reviews; review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes currently holds a 91% 'fresh' rating. Roger Ebert gave the film two stars out of four, while Leonard Maltin gave it three-and-a-half stars out of four.[14]

Controversy

The film was controversial on its 1971 release, mostly because of the prolonged rape scene that is the film's centerpiece. Critics accused director Peckinpah of glamorizing and eroticising rape and of engaging in misogynistic sadism and male chauvinism,[2][15] especially disturbed by the scene's intended ambiguity—after initially resisting, Amy appears to enjoy parts of the first rape, kissing and holding her attacker, although she later has traumatic flashbacks. It's claimed the enactment purposely catered to entrenched appetites for desired victim behaviour and reinforces rape myths.[16] Another criticism is that all the main female characters depict straight women as perverse with every appearance of Janice and Amy used to highlight excessive sexuality. [17] Many reviewers take an antifeminist stance on the scene with some denying that the first assault was rape despite the clear legal grounding.[18] Some of Peckinpah's defenders claim the scene was unambiguously horrifying, that Amy's trauma was "truthfully" portrayed.[2]

The violence provoked strong reactions, many critics seeing an endorsement of violence as redemption, and the film as fascist celebration of violence and vigilantism, while others see it as anti-violence, noting the bleak ending consequent to the violence.[3] Director Peckinpah defended Straw Dogs as an exploration (not an endorsement) of violence, that was purging him of obsessions with violence resulting from human inability to communicate; that David is the story's true villain — deliberately, yet subconsciously, provoking the violence, his concluding homicidal rampage is his true self.[3]

Censorship

The studio edited the first rape scene before releasing the film in the United States, to earn an R rating from the MPAA.[19]

In 1984, Straw Dogs gained more notoriety in the UK after the British Board of Film Classification banned it per the newly-introduced Video Recordings Act, because of Amy's violent rape.[20] The film had been released theatrically in the United Kingdom, gaining an 'X' rating in 1971, and an 18 rating for the cut version in 1995. In 1999, a partially cut version of Straw Dogs again was refused a license, the BBFC objecting to what it considered "the clear indication that Amy comes to enjoy being raped".[21]

On July 1, 2002, Straw Dogs finally was certified unedited on VHS and DVD.[1] This version was uncut, and therefore included the second rape scene, in which the BBFC's opinion "Amy is clearly demonstrated not to enjoy the act of violation".[22] The BBFC noted that:

The cuts made for American distribution, which were made to reduce the duration of the sequence, therefore tended paradoxically to compound the difficulty with the first rape, leaving the audience with the impression that Amy enjoyed the experience. The Board took the view in 1999 that the pre-cut version eroticised the rape and therefore raised concerns with the Video Recordings Act about promoting harmful activity. The version considered in 2002 is substantially the original uncut version of the film, restoring much of the unambiguously unpleasant second rape. The ambiguity of the first rape is given context by the second rape, which now makes it quite clear that sexual assault is not something that Amy ultimately welcomes.

Remake

Main article: Straw Dogs (2011 film)

Rod Lurie wrote and directed a remake of Straw Dogs which was scheduled for release on February 25, 2011, but was pushed back to September 16, 2011. It stars James Marsden as David Sumner (now a Hollywood screenwriter), Kate Bosworth as Amy, Alexander Skarsgård as Charlie[23], James Woods as Tom Heddon, Dominic Purcell as Jeremy Niles, Willa Holland as Janice Heddon[24], Walton Goggins[25], Rhys Coiro[26] and Laz Alonso.[27] The film began shooting on August 16, 2009 in Shreveport[24][28] and Vivian, Louisiana.[29]

References

  1. ^ a b "Internet Movie Database, Straw Dogs". imdb.com. Retrieved 2007-10-23.
  2. ^ a b c Weddle, David (1994). If They Move...Kill 'Em!. Grove Press. pp. 399–400. ISBN 0-8021-3776-8.
  3. ^ a b c Simmons, Garner (1982). Peckinpah, A Portrait in Montage. University of Texas Press. pp. 137–138. ISBN 0-292-76493-6.
  4. ^ "Salon.com article, "Eyes Opening Up" by [[Michael Sragow]]". salon.com. Retrieved 2007-10-24. {{cite web}}: URL–wikilink conflict (help)
  5. ^ Weddle, David (1994). If They Move...Kill 'Em!. Grove Press. p. 12. ISBN 0-8021-3776-8.
  6. ^ "Internet Movie Database, Sam Peckinpah". imdb.com. Retrieved 2007-10-23.
  7. ^ Weddle, David (1994). If They Move...Kill 'Em!. Grove Press. pp. 391–393. ISBN 0-8021-3776-8.
  8. ^ Weddle, David (1994). If They Move...Kill 'Em!. Grove Press. pp. 396–397. ISBN 0-8021-3776-8.
  9. ^ "Internet Movie Database profile of Straw Dogs". imdb.com. Retrieved 2007-10-23.
  10. ^ Weddle, David (1994). If They Move...Kill 'Em!. Grove Press. p. 403. ISBN 0-8021-3776-8.
  11. ^ Simmons, Garner (1982). Peckinpah, A Portrait in Montage. University of Texas Press. p. 125. ISBN 0-292-76493-6.
  12. ^ Weddle, David (1994). If They Move...Kill 'Em!. Grove Press. p. 410. ISBN 0-8021-3776-8.
  13. ^ Simmons, Garner (1982). Peckinpah, A Portrait in Montage. University of Texas Press. p. 126. ISBN 0-292-76493-6.
  14. ^ Straw Dogs at Rotten Tomatoes
  15. ^ Weddle, David (1994). If They Move...Kill 'Em!. Grove Press. pp. 25, 426–428. ISBN 0-8021-3776-8.
  16. ^ Melanie Williams (2005). Secrets and laws: collected essays in law, lives and literature Psychology Press, pp. 71 (or more). ISBN 1-84472-018-7, ISBN 978-1-84472-018-7
  17. ^ Linda Ruth Williams (1995). Straw Dogs: Women can only misbehave Sight & Sound Vol.5 Nº 2, pp. 26, 27 (or more). ISSN 0037-4806
  18. ^ Melanie Williams (2005). Secrets and laws: collected essays in law, lives and literature Psychology Press, pp. 68, 69 (or more). ISBN 1-84472-018-7, ISBN 978-1-84472-018-7
  19. ^ Simmons, Garner (1982). Peckinpah, A Portrait in Montage. University of Texas Press. p. 137. ISBN 0-292-76493-6.
  20. ^ "Internet Movie Database, Trivia for Straw Dogs". imdb.com. Retrieved 2007-10-23.
  21. ^ "The BBFC has refused a certificate for a video version of this 1971 film". 1999-06-02.
  22. ^ "BBFC passes STRAW DOGS uncut on video". 2002-07-01.
  23. ^ http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/hr/content_display/news/e3ia13021641b2079d28e25a9afbf40d376. {{cite news}}: Missing or empty |title= (help); Unknown parameter |deadurl= ignored (|url-status= suggested) (help) [dead link]
  24. ^ a b Michael Fleming (2009-08-16). "Cast set for 'Straw Dogs' remake". Variety. Retrieved 2009-09-21.
  25. ^ Justin Kroll (2009-08-11). "Walton Goggins". Variety. Retrieved 2009-09-21.
  26. ^ Justin Chang (2009-08-23). "Rhys Coiro". Variety. Retrieved 2009-09-21.
  27. ^ Justin Kroll (2009-09-02). "Laz Alonso". Variety. Retrieved 2009-09-21.
  28. ^ Straw Dogs (2010) @ Comingsoon.net
  29. ^ "Sony Screen Gems' Violent Confrontation with 'Straw Dogs' Delayed". BloodyDisgusting.
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