Hopefully the next showings will have the documentary about making the film. Peter Jackson is interviewed, and at one point he mentions a particular scene and points out that almost all the men in that scene were dead 30 minutes later. I have no desire to see most of these films. I absolutely refuse to see any more films by Lars von Trier and Michael Hanke, who are just sadists trying to torture an audience, and I'm not a masochist.
Is this about David and Catherine Birnie? A despicable couple, only caught when one victim managed to escape by good fortune. David and Catherine Birnie - Wikipedia
John, you nailed it. According to the story line, the setting for the movie is Perth, Australia in 1987: Hounds of Love (2016) - IMDb At the wikipedia link you provided, it says the Birnies were an Australian couple from Perth, Western Australia. Their "year of carnage" was actually 1986, but I take it that the fifth woman kidnapped, who escaped and is portrayed in the movie, would have been abducted in 1987. The escape of the 5th abductee in the movie parallels in important points the description of the escape described in the wikipedia article. Yikes. Glad they got caught. Despite the disturbing subject matter, the movie is well made and actors are first rate.
My vet practice, in Booragoon, was just near where all this carnage happened - just prior to when I moved from Melbourne to Perth. Echoes of the terrible Moors murders. RIP all the victims. Rot in prison to the perpetrators.
In a way, Sweet Smell Of Success. The two leads - Lancaster and Curtis - portray human scum, two of the darkest movie characters I have ever seen in my life. Because I've known such people and the consequences of what they've done (though none of them were journalists), this movie REALLY hit home. At first, I could still laugh. At the end, I was deeply moved and shocked. An unforgettable movie and a sinister masterpiece.
There are reasons why it was banned on home video for 18 years in the UK. I teach it every year. Some years ago I wrote a book about it. 6 million or something in the amazon chart. Get it while it's hot! https://www.amazon.com/Straw-Dogs-C...dogs&qid=1552310152&s=gateway&sr=8-2-fkmrnull Still can't make up my mind whether or not the BBFC should have upheld their ban on it.
I met Susan a few years ago. When we launched the book series, leading with this and a book about Clockwork Orange, we did a screening of Straw Dogs at the Barbican cinema followed by a Q&A - me, Susan, Katy Haber (Peckinpah's assistant on the movie, later his partner and co-producer). It was a pleasure to meet them both, even though we had some disagreements about the movie! Susan decided to sit out the screening itself and came in for the Q&A after. A memorable night.
I'm an appreciator of Sam Peckinpah's films, but Straw Dogs is the most difficult for me to watch. I would assume it has divided the film community, and stirred up plenty of debate over the years. Thank you for the recommendation of your book.........I may give it a go.
You're welcome. Hopefully you can track down a cheap, used copy! Academic book prices are crazy. In the US, the key controversial scene was quite heavily cut in order to avoid an X certificate - at the time considered the kiss of death at the box office. The uncut UK version (well, less heavily cut - they had already had one pass at it, negotiating with the censors before officially submitting the final edit) was passed by the BBFC, but caused a lot of outrage (and UK critics had up to that point been supportive of SP). Then the legislation around home video in the mid 80s gave BBFC secretary James Ferman the opportunity to have it withdrawn. It would not be re-released on home video until after his retirement in 1999.
It's a good movie, but very tame by today's standards. The infamous scene that was considered so shocking/controversial upon release wouldn't even be given a second thought if it appeared in a modern film.
“come and see” i noticed it was only entioned twice here, in 2016 ..... if there are to be more films about war .... let them be as disturbing as this masterpiece.
Breaking the Waves Breaking the Waves is a 1996 drama film directed and written by Lars von Trier and starring Emily Watson. Set in the Scottish Highlands in the early 1970s, it is about an unusual young woman and of the love she has for her husband, who asks her to have sex with other men when he becomes immobilized from a work accident. The film is an international co-production led by von Trier's Danish company Zentropa. It is the first film in Trier's Golden Heart Trilogy which also includes The Idiots (1998) and Dancer in the Dark (2000). Roger Ebert's review.
I quite enjoyed the movie. What is disturbing is how the poor "freaks" were exploited throughout their lives. Here is the "creepy" ending that most people know.
If we are talking about the scene in the middle rather than the scene at the end (when I work out how to do spoilers I will be less cryptic), if a company presented a shot for shot remake to our censors the BBFC, they would have kittens. It would transgress all their rules. I still don’t buy their explanation for lifting an 18 year ban on it on home video. There are good reasons why Rod Lurie completely reconfigured the scene when he remade the film.
Yes I'm referring to the scene in the middle. I remember the first time I saw the movie.. all I could think was "THAT's the big controversial scene?" It was so tame that I thought maybe I was watching a censored version (turns out I wasn't). I guess I'm just incredibly hard to shock, having seen similar scenes a hundred times worse in other movies.
Spoiler: spolier In the US, the film was originally released in 1971 with some cuts to the first rape and with the second rape virtually entirely excised. In the UK, since the film was first withdrawn from home video circulation in the 1980s, the controversy has been about the way the scene might be read as eroticising rape and endorsing the male rape myth that a woman may mean yes when she says no. If you watch the scene with that in mind, I think the reason for the ban is probably self-evident. The issue is not that it is a violent scene (the BBFC generally has no problem with rape scenes that are violent and not erotic - Irreversible being a classic example), it's because the character of Amy at first resists and then responds positively to the attack. Rod Lurie, who directed the remake, took great exception to it (and I tend to agree with him). His version of the scene is very different. He got himself in hot water when in early interviews he took aim at Peckinpah's approach, and asserted, "Amy is not going to be smiling during the rape scene in my film", or words to that effect.
