Straw Dogs

Horrorphile

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Straw Dogs

August 9th 2010 03:31

At surface level a powerful study of violence both implicit and explicit, but under the bruised skin, Straw Dogs (1971) is a complex and disturbing morality play that poses far more questions than answers. It provokes and outrages, yet by the end offers only slight reward, leaving a bitter taste of copper, and the acid after burn of contempt. After the assault on the senses that is the siege of Trencher’s farm, empathy is left in a ruinous state, humanity has been torn asunder, and faith in relationships is left as fragile as eggshells.

Dustin Hoffman as David

Two years prior director Sam Peckinpah had delivered one of the great, uncompromising Westerns, The Wild Bunch (1969), a ruthless, indulgent portrait on male self-righteousness, bravado and violent machismo. It was a farrago of raw energy and moral corruption, and it polarised audiences. Peckinpah then took his dark fascination with the human spirit and society’s innate misanthropy to a deeper, more insular level. Straw Dogs would tear apart all notions of love and trust, of jealousy and desire, and of man’s acumen for violence.

Susan George as Amy

Based on the novel, The Siege of Trencher’s Farm by Gordon Williams and adapted for the screen by David Zulag Goodman and Peckinpah, Straw Dogs tells the story of meek and mild David Sumner (Dustin Hoffman), an American mathematician who, with his pretty young wife Amy (Susan George), has moved from the States back to Amy’s home of Wakely, a small village on the coast of England, where she grew up. They’ve bought an old farmhouse up on the hillside that needs repairing, so David has hired a few of the local handymen, so that he can concentrate on his treatise on celestial navigation (“astro-mathematic structures of stellar interiors”).

Straw Dogs Donald Webster, Del Henney, Ken Hutchison, Jim Norton

Riddaway (Donald Webster), Charlie (Del Henney), Norman (Ken Hutchison) and Chris (Jim Norton)

One of the builders is Charlie (Del Henney); an ex-lover of Amy’s who makes it very obvious he still carries a torch for her. Amy is flattered by his attention, but won’t stand for his sleazy behaviour. Charlie and his cohorts, Norman (Ken Hutchison) and Chris (Jim Norton) despise David, and challenge him by inferring he’s a milquetoast for abandoning his country in time of need (the Vietnam war). There’s tension between David and Amy as well, since David is so wrapped up in his equations and seems only to patronise Amy, leaving little time for genuine loving. Amy is restless, David is preoccupied. Frustration and neglect will soon collide.

Peter Vaughn as Tom

The nightmare screw tightens.

WARNING! CONTAINS SPOILERS!

There are many elements within Straw Dogs, it’s such a thematically rich and intelligent work, yet it is also darkly provocative, subversive even. The characters don’t fit any easy mold. They all drift within a morally gray area. Obviously there are some that are easily defined as villainous, but agendas are exposed that suggest not all intentions were blatantly evil. If only alternate decisions had been made, things wouldn't have turned out in the nightmarish and tragic way they do. It only ...

Straw Dogs Dustin Hoffman and Susan George

Before the storm

The most controversial part of Straw Dogs is the rape (which got the movie into a lot of trouble when it was first released and in the years following), or more precisely, Amy’s response to Charlie’s attempt at seduction. It is apparent Amy still harbours an attraction toward him, but he’s by no means the man who makes her laugh, as her husband does. Amy’s flaunting of her naked body, and not wearing a bra beneath her sweaters, has been driving Charlie (and his mates) wild with lust. After orchestrating a snipe hunt for David, where the men stick it to him in the bush, leaving him floundering on the hilltop waiting for pheasants and ducks to fly by, Charlie arrives back at the farmhouse and surprises Amy who invites him in for a drink. But it’s more than booze Charlie’s after.

An expression of moral ambiguity

He forces himself on Amy, she slaps him, he pulls her by the hair over the sofa where he pins her down and tears her robe and panties off. At this point the assault changes gear. It appears no longer to be rape, but consensual sex as they have intercourse and she caresses his face and they kiss. It began as a violation, but has become something far more complex. The image of Charlie is inter-cut with David, both men making love to her. But is Charlie providing a more passionate experience for Amy? “Hold me,” Amy whispers. Suddenly Norman is there in the room also, brandishing a shotgun. Amy isn’t aware as she lies on her stomach, her eyes closed in a state of post-coital satiation. Whilst Charlie holds Amy down, Norman sheds his pants and sodomises her. Amy screams in shock and pain. The first rape had been questionable in its outcome; the second violation is pure horror.

Straw Dogs Susan George and Dustin Hoffman

Out of reach

David arrives back, but Amy never tells him. In fact, David never founds out about the rape, which makes his act of defiance in the last third of the movie a curious stand. One would expect the drama to come from David seeking revenge, but Straw Dogs confounds this by having David respond to something more prosaic: one man’s house is his castle and should be protected at all costs. It is here that David’s failings as a husband and his strengths as a coward in turnaround are made explicit. He was witness to Charlie’s blatant interest in his wife, and he was too cowardly to confront the men about the killing of Amy’s pet cat, yet when David has brought the local pederast, Henry Niles (David Warner, in an uncredited role), into his home after accidentally hitting him with his car and the village lynch mob have come to collect him because local girl Janice (Sally Thomsett) is missing, presumed dead at the hands of Niles, David refuses to give him over. It is here where the siege takes place, and where David turns the tables on his attackers.

Locked and loaded

Amy insists David release Niles to Tom Heddon (Pweter Vaughn), the father of Janice and the local drunk. Heddon has arrived at Trencher’s farm with Charlie, Norman, Chris, and Tom (Donald Webster) to have justice served. David is adamant they won’t be getting Niles until police get there. The local magistrate John Scott (T.P. McKenna) finally arrives, only to be shot dead in a confrontation with Heddon outside. Everything is going horribly pear-shaped, to say the least.

Broken man

Amy is hysterical, David is transforming, becoming less human, more animal; less logical, more instinctual. But the most telling and the most distressing point is not made until the very end. Having dispatched all of the attackers in numerous violent ways David tells Amy to stay in the house while he drives Henry Niles down to the village, even though he can’t be sure all the attackers are dead. As they drive through the impenetrable darkness Niles says, “I don’t know my way home.” “That’s okay,” David replies with an askew smile, “I don’t know either …”

Shattered woman

Straw Dogs deals with game-playing and the strategy of battle as metaphors and symbolism. We see Amy playing chess in bed, David working on his elaborate mathematical equations on his huge chalkboard, David and Amy fool around as if on a perpetual one-on-one game of their own making, David taunting the cat by throwing fruit at it, there’s the snipe hunt David is coerced into going on, and of course, the final siege, which is a series of confrontations and dispatches. There’s also the strange voyeurism that involves Janice and her brother Bobby (Len Jones), spying on David and Amy. Janice has a crush on David, but she ends up manipulating Henry Niles, as if on some strange death wish.

There’s also a thematic element concerning immaturity and its potent fragility in relationship to experience and innocence. “You act like you’re 14,” teases David to Amy, “I am!” she replies with a cheeky laugh. Charlie, Norman and Chris all act like they’re adolescents, bragging and cajoling each other. Henry Niles is a man-child. And of course David and Amy are cocooned in a bubble of immaturity as well.

Peckinpah’s direction is superb, helped by atmospheric cinematography from British cameraman John Coquillon. The editing is brilliant, especially the inter-cutting during the church social gathering which highlights Amy’s paranoia and trauma, and also during the siege (three editors, plus an editorial consultant were employed on the movie). The score, mostly sombre brass and woodwind, captures a suitably terse mood.

The performances are all first rate. Hoffman is at the top of his game (and only a couple of features into his career) playing the emotionally retarded stranger in a strange land, while Susan George matches him with her delicate balance of vulnerability and assertiveness. The support cast can’t be singled out, they’re all great.

Straw Dogs is a difficult movie; but for all the best reasons. It provokes intelligent discussion and debate, it presents the moral quagmire of human frailty, it slaps you in the face, slashes you and leaves you scarred. Straw Dogs releases demons with blood on their hands.

“Heaven and earth are not humane, and regard the people as straw dogs.” --- Chinese platitude

NB: Hollywood is currently in production with a remake set in the North American deep South due for release next year. David’s character has been changed from a mathematician to that of a LA screenwriter. I know nothing of the director, but I like that Alexander Skarsgaard (Eric in True Blood) has been cast in the role of Charlie. James Woods has also been cast, but it’s unsure as whom (perhaps the Heddon role?). Whether or not the remake will possess anywhere near the same level of power and potency as the original we’ll have to wait and see, but I ain’t holding out much hope.

For some reason the trailer I want to upload comes up as that annoying "really long link" so click here for the trailer.

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Posted By: Bryn - Category: movie reviews

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Comments

5 Comments. [ Add A Comment ]

Comment by David O'Connell

August 9th 2010 12:24

Screen Fanatic

I remember seeing that first poster years ago Bryn, way before I'd ever seen the film and it always stayed with me. The first thing I remember about finally seeing it was how different it was to what I was expecting - the locals especially are just such a loathsome, uncouth lot, like a bunch of untamed animals and it was a hell of a shock. It was at an age when I was really too young to be watching stuff like this, I have to add, but it left quite an impression - I definitely was a bit mentally scarred. I've never actually seen it since and always wondered how it'd look to me now. Jerry Fielding's score is really fantastic; he was a really great collaborator of Peckinpah's at that time and his music works it way into your consciousness even if the bleak atonality of it never quite translates into a truly satisfying listen on its own.

Comment by JohnDoe

August 9th 2010 14:54

Film & TV on DVD

Bringing out the classics I see

Fantastic review of one of Peckinpah's finest moments.

Still packs a punch all these years later and you are so right about the underlying themes getting more complex with age.

I fear the remake, I hate James Marsden (David) and Kate Bosworth (Amy) who take the leads. Seems like terrible casting to me, shame that Ed Norton wasn't cast in the role of David. He would have been perfect.

Comment by Bryn

August 10th 2010 02:08

Horrorphile

Thanks JD, was hanging for praise from you. Yes, I don't like the central casting either. So Ed Norton was first considered? Yes, he would've been perfect. Of course the interesting thing will be how the director chooses to have Kate respond to Charlie, if you know what I mean. Because that's where the content becomes most interesting, and most subversive.

Comment by Bryn

August 10th 2010 02:11

Horrorphile

David, you should definitely check it out again, especially as a remake is about to be unleashed. It holds up very well indeed, especially as a 1971 movie, many of which still hold on to much of the 60s aesthetics and sensibilities, which Straw Dogs doesn't. Your experience sounds like the one I had with Scum