Filmbot: This topic is covered on a thread about Satantango:
http://www.theauteurs.com/topics/237/comments
However, I have since seen the film, and did find the scene very realistic and too disturbing to watch, so I went to the end of the scene, where the cat’s death is tied in to something else (which I won’t reveal for those who have yet to see it). I am not sure whether the explanation on the previous thread is true (I have my doubts), so I suggest skipping this if it bothers you. I am a cat lover and currently have two cats, so anything of that nature is too much for me, personally. I highly recommend the film in all other respects and intend to purchase it, mindful of that scene.
Okay, thanks for the info. I’ll follow your suggestion
I hate seeing it in films..
the frog hat in 1900 is amazing.
there is something wonderfully romantic in the tragedy of animal abuse on film.
what a bunch of panty waists
While I don’t typically mind it in films, I think the makers of cannibal films are remiss for their thinking that the murder of animals is acceptable, especially because they add nothing, are cruel, and they take place in movies that are already exploitative and cannot justify their existence. I’d like to give Deodato something like the fairest estimation because he studied under Rossellini Roberto and was trying to make a real film (albeit a violent, unforgivable one with a VERY limited audience), and Cannibal Holocaust was, if nothing else, a brilliantly marketed film. I can think of no other movie that could possibly have had a better bit of press than critics and authorities believing the film to be factual; Deodato was arrested after the Cannibal Holocaust premiere and he had to produce the actors, who he had told to remain silent for a year following the film’s release, to prove he hadn’t killed them and left their bodies in Venezuela. Can’t buy that kinda press. But he went down that road and had his actors kill animals in the sickest, most indefensible manner. Then in the wake of his film, then came Eaten Alive and Cannibal Ferox. All of a sudden, not only was murdering animals (I saw murder because they were wasted and disposed of in a truly despicable manner. Granted I’m a vegan, but I don’t use the word murder everytime an animal is killed, I see the difference but use the word Murder purposefully in the case of movies like this) ok, but it was necessary to make a cannibal film. Umberto Lenzi murdered animals (explicitly, almost pornographically) because he was trying to one-up Deodato, which is neither acceptable, mature, or humane. The cycle of jealousy and violence is not something I can stand behind because they weren’t making art, they were making exploitation and these movies were chock full of racism, pointless nudity, and more misogyny than you can shake a stick at. Apocalypse Now? That bull got eaten. I Drink your Blood? Those rats were already dead. Cockfighter? The movie was about cockfighting, Monte Hellman didn’t invent the sport so he could pull the heads off of chickens. If you’re killing an animal that wasn’t about to get eaten by someone soon, your movie probably shouldn’t have been greenlit and you shouldn’t be in charge of a film. Nothing should suffer for you that can’t defend itself, help others with its demise, or recover.
well said scout, i picture you in a little blue uniform with a little yellow kerchief.
I know Brando was big in Apocalypse Now, but it’s a bit harsh comparing him to an ox.
ANDREI RUBLEV: “Most of the scenes involving cruelty toward animals were simulated. However, one scene depicts the real death of a horse. The horse falls from a flight of stairs and is then stabbed by a spear. To produce this image, the horse was shot in the neck and pushed from the stairs, then shot in the head afterward. This was done to avoid the possibility of harming a stunt horse. The horse was brought in from a slaughterhouse, killed on set, and then returned to the slaughterhouse for commercial consumption.”
If the horse wasn’t to be slaughtered anyway I would’ve had to rate this film lower than I did (which was 5 stars, in my top 10 films of all time).. There is no reason to kill an animal on set when it can be an INSINUATED death for the same effect. There is no reason to promote any film featuring real slaughter of animals.
As far as the cat in SATANTANGO— “Tarr has insisted that there was a veterinarian on the set at all times, and that the cat was under the vet’s supervision. Tarr has also said that the cat is now his pet.” I have to think about this one.. Why would there need to be a vet on set if they didn’t actually feed the cat “rat poisoning,” which, from what it looked could have been sugar or salt (which I hope it was). I’ll have to find out more information about this, for now, Satantango remains one of the best films I’ve ever seen.
I am aware the Fassbinder seems fairly comfortable showing scenes of animal slaughtering.. In 13 Moons the scenes were shot at a slaughterhouse, but in BERLIN ALEXANDERPLATZ I hear the slaughter was solely for the purpose of the film? If this is true you’ve got to be kidding me.. If he can simulate the killing of HUMANS at the end of the film he could damn well do it with animals.
In terms of Franju’s “BLOOD OF THE BEASTS,” that was all shot from a slaughterhouse.. Whether they filmed it or not those animals would have been killed anyway, and the same way. All Franju was doing was exposing this.. That I am totally ok with, if anything, he nearly turned me into a vegetarian.
There you go, you’re still a carnivore. It takes a lot to shake people out of their complacency. Animals are slaughtered every day in our society. Like the lamb in Berlin Alexanderplatz. People are slaughtered every day in our society. It’s the outrage that’s become astonshing, not the babarism itself. In the scene, an old bearded man in a loincloth who is supposed to be God, I think, enters a slaughterhouse-like room and quickly cuts a lamb’s throat. Then he goes over to an open book and records the death.
In Satantango, the death of the little cat certainly looked real to me. I know you can train animals to “act” and do a lot of things on film, but to stage a death scene that’s more convincing than most people could do it? To be stiff and limp for half an hour or more? I don’t know, Bela. Maybe he’s stretching the definition of a pet. I love the film, and I feel that scene was excruciating but necessary.
Incidentally, the ox killing in Apocalypse Now was actually footage from a ceremony performed in one of the local villages. It wasn’t something that was staged specifically for the film.
After having finally seen a copy of Satantango, I believe the scenes with the cat had to be real – they were too difficult to watch and too authentic. I know there is the story here that Tarr claimed they “had a vet”, etc, but I think he only made this story up to appease the censors in countries like Great Britain, that did not allow the release of the film initially for this reason, as it had scenes of animal cruelty that contravened their own ethics for film depiction. I suggest skipping the scene with the cat – as it is too gruesome – if you love cats as I do. Makes you wonder at Tarr’s mentality and his own excuses and fabrications after the fact. Brings the whole topic into perspective.
I understand wanting to skip the scene with the cat — I paused it a lot and watched it half looking away, but here’s why it’s important. Estike, the little girl who tortures and kills the animal, has just been turned loose from a mental institution, though half the town believes she still belongs locked up. It’s only after she kills the cat (and starts carrying the body everywhere like a stuffed animal) that we learn why she is the way she is — she herself is neglected by her mother and tortured by her older brother. So, in an act of instant karma, she swallows some of the same rat poison she gave the cat and lays down, still clutching the cat’s body, and dies. As the youngest member of the village, i.e. its future, Estike is destroyed right before our eyes. She is also then used by the con man Irminias to make the adults in town feel so guilty that they turn over to him the money they have spent all year earning. She becomes the false martyr of a false prophet. And we learn the hard way that life is very cheap.
Are you aware of how many dogs and cats are euthanized every day in shelters? It’s not right, but saving up all one’s outrage for Tarr or Fassbinder is like killing the messenger. At least that cat in Satantango didn’t die in vain, like the ones in shelters — he or she filled you with outrage, and focused your attention on the plight of helpless animals.
Furthermore (boy, this subject really gets me going), there is what Plato called a false syllogism at work in the outrage I’m hearing on this thread. Many of you seem to be saying:
1- Bela Tarr tortures a cat to death in his movie
2- I love cats, I even own cats
3- Therefore, I hate that scene
When the true syllogism might just as well be-
1- Bela Tarr made me feel for the helplessness of cats and the awful brutality they are subject to
2- I am already a cat lover
3- Therefore, I appreciate that scene in that movie for reinforcing my own beliefs
What makes the first syllogism false is that it assumes Tarr hates cats, too. Or that loving cats means you never think about the bad things that happen to them every day.
Cause I sense runaway religiosity behind this kind of squeamishness. “God” kills an animal — bad enough but hey, it’s in the natural order, right? Artist plays God and kills an animal for his movie — whoah, Hell time, Damnation time. He had no right! Frankly the artist has a better reason for what he does. And if I thought showing actual human deaths/murders in films would put an end to murder in real life, I might even be for that, but I know it would only lead to exploitation.
Thank you Justin. That’s just about the best explanation of how I feel about most real animal deaths in films. As long as it seems to have purpose, doesn’t seem like exploitation, I don’t have that much of a problem with killing an animal. To skip the scene in Satantango is really stupid, if it is real or not (I would tend to trust the artist, but it did seem very realistic). It’s one of the most important scenes in the film, in fact without that scene the next 3 or 4 hours don’t happen in the film so, it may be said it is the most important scene because it is the catalyst for the entire second half of the film. Skipping the scene in this film would be akin to skipping the robbery scene in Bicycle Thieves because you think stealing is wrong.
I love cats, I love all animals, and in fact I’ve been a vegetarian for about 5 years (although this doesn’t really mean much, millions of animals are killed every year in the threshers that harvest wheat, and other vegetables, but at this point I can’t digest meat anymore). That doesn’t mean I’m not aware that cats normally live terrible lives, and Bela outlines this. Animals are tortured every single day for our convenience, and every single person that lives within our society (on the “grid,” as it were) is as guilty as anyone else. Outrage at this singular scene seems really disingenuous.
Thanks, Col. Dax. I mean, I wouldn’t say someone’s stupid if they legitimately can’t stand watching it. But Tarr understands the brutality of it, it’s not just for a lark.
No, I didn’t mean that they were stupid. I think I worded that really poorly. How about if someone misses that scene, then they miss an enormous chunk of the films basic plot, so, it seems a bit over-the-top to miss such a crucial scene for something that hasn’t been confirmed to be real. I can understand missing the stuff in Cannibal Holocaust, even Apocalypse Now, because we all know it’s real, and those scenes (especially in Cannibal Holocaust) contribute little if anything to the plot, so, it doesn’t seem as ridiculous to skip them. That’s what I was trying to convey. Sorry, sometimes I don’t think through the way I want something to be said.
It’s okay. Some people I know and like and really respect have had difficulty with that scene, and I understand it. I just think it helps to see which side Tarr is on — he’s not happy about what’s happening to the cat, neither is he happy about what’s happening to the little girl, the whole village, the whole life that these Hungarian peasants know.
Justin & Col. Dax: Thank you Justin for a clear and concise description of the importance of the cat scene in Satantango. I did half watch the scene (Like Justin) and got the context of its relation to the girl, that Justin defines as well as can be expressed. I knew before I saw the film that the scene was coming. I knew that scene could shake and rattle me, if the cat was indeed killed and tortured. I found the scene actually much worse than what I had imagined when I did view the film. I had to keep turning away and fast forwarding until the scene ended – the cat’s agony was too much for me. Yes, I am squeamish. I now understand better the context for the scene, but that doesn’t make it any easier for me to stomach or justify. Just because a person has a problem with the way a scene is handled or done, does not automatically negate their own criticism of it – the fact they didn’t sit down and watch it from beginning to end. If you need to skip it, you do. Doesn’t make you any less of a cinephile or any less of a lover of film as art. Perhaps it will affect your understanding of the film or the context, but I don’t see why all the moral outrage because someone happens to mention they can’t stomach a certain scene – which is, after all, an issue of personal tolerance to the subject matter.
I do think it is a fallacy to say the scene is justified because cats or animals are tortured, killed , and euthanized every single day. This fact does not mitigate, at all, the killing – in a very cruel and unpleasant way – of any living cat or animal for the sake of a film scene. I will put to you, Justin, this syllogism – since you seem fond of them:
X likes cats and doesn’t like to see them killed or tortured.
Y is a film that has a scene where a cat gets killed and tortured
X should not watch that scene
If this was so essential to the scene that Tarr had to kill and torture the cat to make the scene realistic (which it certainly looks as if he did to me), then I personally cannot condone causing pain, suffering, and death to the cat for the sake of the scene. To me, that is just animal cruelty – exactly the same as if it was done by anyone for any reason. This thread is discussing the topic of scenes where animals are tortured, killed, or slaughtered – on camera – and whether this is warranted. I think you both are missing the point completely why this is bothersome to some of us. You are trying to justify it for the sake of some higher ideal, in your own minds, of ‘artistic freedom’. Fair enough, but don’t lecture those of us who don’t want to see these scenes as if we were small children who are too naive to see the ways of the world. Sensitivity to real events of a disturbing nature is an individual thing.
We don’t need to be lectured or hectored for out own sensibilities – as if the way we feel or see things is some how wrong or ill-conceived. I feel just as strongly on this issue as others and don’t like being talked down to for my own emotional reaction to a film or subject matter – as if I wasn’t aware of the broader issues. I know all the arguments backwards and forwards. Let us respect our differences when it comes to what any of us is willing to see in any work of art or film. Don’t belittle us for it.
Fair enough. I wasn’t trying to talk down to you or anyone else. I tried to say that I understand your reaction. I don’t think anyone is sick enough to watch Satantango to get off on the cat scene. The film is too forbidding and meticulous in its style; it weeds out the adrenalin junkies or the sickos long before. That’s another way in which you see that Tarr is serious.
What about the chickens in Pink Flamingos, in the scene where Crackers is stuffing them inbetween him and his girlfriend during sex? I’m pretty sure he breaks the neck of at least one of them, and the chickens are pecking the girlfriend’s thighs until they’re bloody. Maybe you hate that scene, too, but because it’s absurdist, I bet it gets more of a pass than Tarr’s scene, which is extremely serious and knows itself to be serious. In Tarr we feel the weight of life and death, life taken, the unbearable misery behind that. At least it wasn’t in any way silly or meant to be “thrilling.”
I think this does cut to the heart of why film is so powerful, in that it records life. It shows death at work, as Cocteau said. If I could open up the debate a little, one of the reasons why Jason Robards’ performance in Magnolia is so moving is that he really was dying of cancer. To a certain extent, he wasn’t “acting,” at least not in terms of being so emaciated, so hoarse, so out of breath.
Well, Bob I do understand what you’re saying, and think I came off as much more reactionary then I would have wanted. I’m sorry if I seemed to be belittling you, I really am, that was not my intention. I feel really bad about the way I wrote my first response, and if I could re-write it I would. If you feel the scene is too much for you to handle then you have an absolute right to skip it, I just think that it’s such an important scene I wouldn’t miss it.
As I have said, though, in purely realistic terms we all contribute to animal cruelty, whether we choose to admit it or not. Unless you’re living off the grid, which your use of a computer proves you are not, then you, and I, and Justin, and every other person is guilty of supporting the extremely cruel death of animals in slaughterhouses, and in wheat threshers, among many other places. The fact that Bela Tarr shows us how cruel one can be to an animal (she continuously says something like, “I’m bigger than you” (hence all our feelings of superiorty towards animals)), and how one small little girl can be driven to this, and how during you can feel disgusted, as you did, or enraged at the little girl (as I did), and then feel completely sympathetic for her at her death is simply fantastic. It’s an extreme scene both in its content and its absolute importance to the film.
I just find it unnecessary to kill an animal for art (domesticated at that— which you won’t be eating) when it can be avoided. The cat’s death could have been insinuated after shoving its head dipped in regular old milk.. Or, they could have found an already deceased cat from a shelter or vet and used that for the purpose of having the girl carry it around (for ten minutes or whatever the cat’s life was worth to them). If you can simulate the girls death, you should be able to do it for the animal too..
In society (at least in America) we look down upon those who abuse their pets.. So Tarr gets a free pass because he films it?
(spoilers***) regarding the girls death; My only gripe was that I didn’t feel sympathetic toward her.. I’m sure some people felt the same way.
Anyway, this has been an interesting thread and makes for a heated debate.
Recently I saw Man Push Car by Ramin Bahrani, and there is also a scene that deals with the death of a cat. Our main character has picked up a stray kitten off the streets and takes it in to care for it. Little does he realize kittens that young cannot digest milk yet, and are (apparently) suppose to be fed water out of a dropper and have its tummy rubbed for digestion. The kitten ends up dying and buried.. No animals were harmed in the making of this film, and the point was delivered just as strong and convincingly. We see him put a bowl of milk down, the cat touches it or something along that line with its nose and they smoothly cut. When the cat is dead, the shot is probably of it sleeping, but you can’t tell the difference. When they bury it we see him place a bag (which was probably filled with a towel or something) into the self-dug grave and our imaginations do the rest..
Yea, I guess we don’t even know if the cat actually died or not.. So there’s no point arguing this specific topic— but does make an interesting “general” discussion.
Maybe we should give Tarr the benefit of the doubt and assume that he did use “film tricks” to simulate the cat’s death.
Well, the death’s in Satantango, and Man Push Cart (I’m glad you saw it let you know what you thought of it) are completely different. I think in both films they are appropiate because they fit the parameters of the film. In Man Push Cart the death of the kitty is sad, and is preventable, but the death is also because the owner didn’t know how to take care of the little kitty, it’s not really his fault. The death of the cat in Satantango is directly because the youngest owner is a cruel, evil, and deeply disturbed, and neglected child.
It wouldn’t make as much sense to insinuate death (I’m not exactly certain I completely understand what you mean by this, maybe you can expound) here because you wouldn’t get the same effect. It would be as if Oshima had made In the Realm of the Senses without unsimulated sex, I’m sure he could have done it, but the film would have been much less impactful (I’m not saying Tarr actually killed the cat, I’m still operating under the assumption that he didn’t, but just that the scene looked extremely realistic (like the human death scenes in Cannibal Holocaust)). For us not to see the child’s very despicable, and unacceptable behaviour is for us to miss the entire point that Tarr is making. What made me so sympathetic for this child is that this activity seemed like recreation for her, this was all she had to do, and was as tortured by her brother as the cat was by her. Tarr is making a cyclical connection, people that do something like this have it done to them (in some sense, not necessarily in a literal one). There is a reason, and we should search for the reason behind the action, and not just completely condemn the action itself.
In the same regard, for Ramin Bahrani to show a very realistic death in Man Push Cart wouldn’t make sense. For one it would cost more money (the entire film was shot for as cheaply as it could have been, from what I’ve heard), and two it was unecessary in the film. You just need to see the kitty look, “dead” for about half a second, then we just need to see him riding in a taxi with his poor little kitten, and then we need a short, and believable explanation. That’s it. That fits the content in the film, and underlines the tragedy that is this character (he tries as hard as he possibly can, he’s nice, and caring, but it’s still not enough).
Both have the perfect deaths of these animals captured, it’s correct for each film respectively.
Right, and it’s heartbreaking how she can’t let go of the dead cat. Now that she’s killed it she loves it and carries it around everywhere. And she dies with it. But my god, what happens to the people in that movie. If Tarr made any mistake, it’s that the cat gets people so worked up that they become blind to the fact that these poor people suffer the torments of the damned and are so constantly fucked over. No one wins in that movie except Irminias and his bosses in the secret police. When you hear the cruel way he describes these people who have just given him all their money to the police agents for their secret dossiers (“terrible body odor; if she failed to have sex with every man in the village it was not from lack of trying,” etc.), I just felt like, Okay this is total hell. We’re in hell. And sure enough God himself (Peter Berling) will soon be as dead as a doornail.
Justin: why people get so worked up about the cat rather than the people, simply because you cannot compare a real (once again.. debatable) to hypothetical death.
As Col. Dax pointed out between Satantango and Man Push Cart— two different worlds, incomparable.
Sadly, Irimias’ ridicule was somewhat truthful; the doctor was an inept, obese, boozer, the kraners (or Schmidt’s, I forget) suspicious and un-trusting (well actually, they all were), etc. etc. None of the characters were necessarily “likeable.” They all fell victim to Irimias and allowed themselves to be lead down the road of subversion and manipulation.
Also, another possible reason in general why people feel more sympathetic toward animals, is the fact that they are for the most part (especially domesticated cats) defenseless. In this specific situation, the cat was forced into a agonizing death, as oppose to the villagers, where it was ultimately the their blindness, and fear toward Irimias which led to their destruction.
Either way, this is all theoretical and we don’t know what the truth is.. So lets just leave it at that I guess— Unlike Berlin Alexanderplatz, which I would certainly not promote no matter how good it is, Satantango gets the benefit of the doubt.
But the human villagers are childlike and defenseless, too — that’s what Tarr is saying. They are defenseless in their boundless and superstitious trust. And they certainly do not get what they bargained for in Irminias.
I agree, as I said they all fell victim to Irimias and allowed themselves to be lead down the road of subversion and manipulation. Superstitious is the perfect word to describe their trust between each other, all the easier making them convinced by Irimias’ lies. There is quite a considerable difference between “literally” defenseless— the cat, and mentally weak type defenseless. Irimias didn’t physically grab them by the hair and shove their faces into rat poison, and then steal their money.. *Spoilers**, they even had the opportunity to get their money back, only to be manipulated by Irimias back into guilt.
filmbot
That’s what has kept me from watching Sátántangó. I’ve heard there’s a scene where a cat is killed. For those of you who already saw it, Is it real? and how disturbing is that part?