Customer Reviews

Straw Dogs

5 star:		(46)
4 star:		(31)
3 star:		(19)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(5)

 

 

People seem to love or hate this movie. I love it. Dustin Hoffman plays professor on "sabbatical" to write a book on astronomy and computers. There is some allusion to his having been driven to his sabbatical (or from his job) because of his refusal to take a stand over some undefined issue at his place of employment. In any case, he retreats to a farmhouse in rural England with his pretty wife, played by Susan George.

When some of the local underemployed thugs start bullying him--(The script and Peckinpah's direction of the actors hits bull's-eye here; having lived in England, I saw the same sort of behavior--punks all over, I guess, have mannerisms of bullying peculiar to their culture.)

The violent climax to this film is--you hate to say it--beautiful. It certainly isn't gorey by today's standards. This, perhaps, is what makes people so uncomfortable about this movie--their own reaction to the violence. Hoffman conveys wonderfully both the fear and the satisfaction his character is experiencing.

At one level, this film exists as a simple tale of revenge. At another level, the movie affirm's Peckinpah's vision of violence as a rite of manhood. Whether this rite is a regrettable one . . . well, that remains arguable, and this ambiguity is part of what makes this such a watchable, and re-watchable, movie.

Aside from the notoriety, and aside from the viciousness (the film leaves you most of all with a taste of viciousness in your mouth, a sour, bitter, metallic taste, akin to that feeling you get reading "The Tin Drum", the piece of metal stuck in the back of your throat), what you get from "Straw Dogs" is a manifestation of personal demons (specifically, Sam Peckinpah's personal demons, but also, both more generally and more acutely, masculine demons) and an exploration of a certain type of male sexuality.

To do the film justice, you need to plug your brain in. Which, on the surface, may not appear to be the case, because the story - what it is - is relatively simple. It's an English western.

David, a mathematician (Dustin Hoffman), is on sabbatical from the university where he teaches. He has left the states and returned with his wife Amy, (Susan George) to the tiny English village in which she grew up. From the word go, David has to contend with the fact that Amy has a history in the town. He also has to contend with the fact that she is younger than him, and bored. Her boredom serves as a distraction from the reason behind his sabbatical. Amy on the other hand has to live with a quiet, "odd" American who does not give her the attention she requires.

Within the town, there are various echoes at work: there is a character called Niles, played by David Warner, who has a known history of problems relating with women (to the extent that he has served time for undisclosed offences); there are the locals, who divide their time between procrastinating over work on David and Amy's roof, and leering at Amy (who periodically informs David about the effect she has on them, how they "lick her all over with their eyes"); and there is David himself, spending a little more time than he really should looking at teenager Sally Thomsett.

All of which feeds into the terrible rape scene (a scene of which Peckinpah is quoted as saying - in the excellent biography "If it moves . . . kill 'em" - "I wanted to film the best rape scene ever" - a line ripe with complexity and moral disorder): Amy is raped by Charlie, leader of the leering locals, who may or may not be her childhood sweetheart (two earlier scenes indicate that (a) something went on years earlier and (b) Charlie took it further then than Amy was happy with).

At some point during the awful protracted rape, for whatever reason (and there is something manifest at work in her face, palpably desire but desire for what - who knows?) she stops fighting and starts (ugly this, but true - this is what happens in the film:) - starts to participate. The participation is taken (by some) to be a playing out of a certain retrogressive masculine attitude (that all women - deep down etc etc etc). However you interpret it - and it does require interpretation, importantly - the participation is at the dark heart of "Straw Dogs"' notoriety. The fact that this is followed by the appearance of a second man, and a second rape, only compounds the difficulty - the cloudiness - that will inevitably surround any attempt to precisely articulate what is going on here.

At which point, the echoes become still more manifest: you have Niles, despised because of his weakness for young girls (and as such - in the context of the character's lives - a "bad" man), you have the men who rape Amy (a fact that remains undisclosed within the body of the film), men who later attempt to avenge themselves on Niles (in a vivid reworking of "Of Mice and Men"), and you have David - a man in whom, perhaps, all of these violent urges conflict.

The film culminates in a series of extremely violent (and ridiculous) altercations, veering wildly between extremes (shotguns firing off left, right and centre, characters riding tricycles and playing bagpipe records, mantraps, boiling fat, fire, pokers, broken glass, wire). But the central relationship - the whole dynamic of the film - between David and Amy continues to fight definition, remaining ultimately unresolved and unclear.

In the end, aside of everything else (aside of the fact that this film lingers with you, you do not watch "Straw Dogs" and leave it at that, those "Straw Dogs" take up residence with you, for a while), you have the fact that this film would not get made today - the Dustin Hoffman character is too complex and too unsympathetic, and there are too many (coldly intellectual) questions raised by what goes on.

It is dissatisfying but intentionally so: this is Peckinpah's "Salo": it demonstrates that resolution is the most ugly abstraction, that what gets wrapped up leaves the viewer with no space for thought: that which is left open, is that which remains discussed. At the end, almost a week after last watching the film, I am reminded of what Ian McEwan wrote in his novel "Black Dogs": "...I came face to face with evil. I didn't quite know it at the time, but I sensed it in my fear - these animals were the creations of debased imaginations, of perverted spirits no amount of social theory could account for. And . . .when conditions are right . . . a terrible cruelty, a viciousness against life erupts, and everyone is surprised by the depth of hatred within . . . (But) This is what I know: Human nature, the human heart, the spirit, the soul, the consciousness itself - call it what you like - in the end, it's all we've got to work with. It has to develop and expand, or the sum of our misery will never diminish."

That is - at last - "Straw Dogs"' role: to develop, to expand, to show us what can be, what needn't be, but what is, and hope that something else (not necessarily finer) but something else, prevails.

Straw Dogs is a controversial film. Some people hated it, others loved it. The fact is that Sam Peckinpah was a controversial man: in his films, violence was a necessary test that every man had to face in order to prove his manhood. Peckinpah was a hard man, and his vision of life and humanity is shown in Straw Dogs, you may agree with him or not, but you will have to accept the basic concept: in the heart of every coward, burns a beast, a straw dog. And Peckinpah says in his movie that when you are caught in a dangerous situation, you change, and you are capable to kill or do anything in order to survive. No one did it better than this filmmaker, maybe Boorman with Deliverance, but Straw Dogs is a cruel testimony of the cruelty that common men are capable to do.Hoffman is terrific, and in the end, when his house and wife are in danger, his whole coward character changes, and he turns into a explosive and brutal murderer. Susan George carries on a difficult part, the scene of the rape is one of the most shocking and complex images of the seventies.In the end, you will understand why the tagline says that in the eyes of every coward burns a straw dog.

I remember hearing Charlton Heston once remark about Sam Peckinpah that the man had a great career and vision but then sadly "started blowing off heads." Heston may be right in his analysis of Peckinpah's dedication to dramatic violence, as one need look no further than the closing sequences of the seminal "Wild Bunch" to see a death toll of truly shocking proportions. This director's proclivity for bloody violence, usually shown in slow motion to ratchet up the effect, doesn't find as much expression in the 1971 psychological thriller "Straw Dogs." There are a few nasty encounters with a shotgun peppered throughout the final twenty or thirty minutes of this atmospheric picture, but nary a head leaves its shoulders here. Starring Dustin Hoffman, a few years after his stint in "The Graduate," and a fresh-faced Susan George, "Straw Dogs" spends more time setting up a pervasive sense of doom than concerning itself with a huge body count. Actually, this movie's restraint is surprising for a Peckinpah picture. Then again, I haven't seen a lot of Sammy's films, so perhaps this movie falls into a period when the director felt a need for moderation.

David Sumner (Hoffman) and his British wife Amy (George) decide to rent a cottage in England while David works on writing a book. The village the two decide to live in has intimate connections with Amy Sumner, who lived there before meeting and marrying the bookish David. A gang of local thugs, who the Sumners hire to repair the roof of the cottage's barn, well remembers Amy. One of the guys actually had a relationship with this mouthy woman, a link that bodes ill for the amiable but wimpy David. Even worse, the goons have the support of the primary troublemaker in town, a man who even the local constable tiptoes around. The Brits resent David's slightly arrogant manner, his nerdy appearance, and the fact that he goes home with one of their own every night. Disrespect for David takes mild forms at first, usually in the form of funny looks or comments muttered under the breath, but soon the tension between the men and the Sumners escalates into the murder of a pet cat and intimidation on the road leading into the village. David rationalizes away the threats by stating that the problem will simply "go away" if he ignores it. His wife, who seems to know more about how things work in town, urges David to confront the local men. The tension becomes palpable as Sumner must deal not only with the hostility of the local populace but with his wife's strident calls for action as well. It soon gets to the point where Amy questions David's manhood over his meek manners and sycophantic behavior.

Things go from bad to worse when Amy's former boyfriend, who sees David's simpering personality as a sign of weakness, decides to reassert his claim to Amy. In a scene that led to a ban on the film in Great Britain for three decades, the gang lures David away from the house so Amy's former beau can pay her a visit. The subsequent scenes are tough to watch, not necessarily because of their brutality but due to Amy's response to part of the proceedings. Not until another goon steps in does Amy show great resistance to what has happened, leading a viewer to believe that David's wife actually encouraged this sleazy rendezvous. Peckinpah seems to want us to think so, since Amy casts aspersions on David's manhood immediately before this incident. Surprisingly, Amy's misfortune is not the final straw that breaks the dog's back. Instead, a local criminal accidentally kills a local girl affiliated with the same village dregs making David's life miserable. Subsequent events find David providing sanctuary for this criminal as the thugs lay siege to the Sumner cottage. The result: a meek, educated man regresses into an animal capable of incredible violence.

"Straw Dogs" moves at a glacial pace as Peckinpah builds tension through the encounters between the Sumners and the locals. The performances are generally good, with Hoffman standing out as the harassed mathematician who wants to leave well enough alone and finish his work. David Warner, a personal favorite, does a good job as the mentally challenged criminal Henry Niles. Unfortunately, Warner doesn't appear onscreen as much as I would have liked. The thugs are, well, thugs. Susan George, on the other hand, grates as Amy Sumner. I hated her character, a woman who is quick to push David into confrontation, calls into question his manhood when he resists her efforts, and then essentially stands back in the end by letting him face the goons all by himself. Amy's reacquaintance with her former boyfriend creates a sense of ambiguity on the part of the viewer towards Amy Sumner: on one level, you hate her for "enjoying" the crime, but on the other hand you feel for her when things go further than she anticipated. But you feel sorry only to a point, and perhaps that is what Peckinpah intended. I cannot help but think this director created the Amy character in order to express a deep-seated misogyny.

Overall, I liked "Straw Dogs," but I wouldn't watch it again soon. I unfortunately watched the Anchor Bay DVD version, but a Criterion disc has since emerged sporting lots of extras that might shine a spotlight or two on the inner workings of the film. If you want to watch this picture, you should probably get that disc. Obviously, there won't be a Peckinpah commentary on the DVD (he's been dead for years), but Criterion does a good job with its releases. For me, I think I'll stick to "The Wild Bunch" and "The Getaway" in the future.

The first contemporary film made by Sam Peckinpah, whose five previous movies were all westerns, STRAW DOGS, in its study of how one seemingly mild-mannered man (in this case Dustin Hoffman) can be driven to defend himself through extreme violence, can, in my belief, be classified as a sociological and psychological horror film.

Released in late 1971, at the same time as Stanley Kubrick's A CLOCKWORK ORANGE, STRAW DOGS caused an enormous amount of debate on both sides of the Atlantic concerning not only its violence, but also the horrific rape scene involving Hoffman's wife (Susan George), which got the film banned in England, where Peckinpah made it. Both Kubrick's and Peckinpah's films differ from each other, in that Kubrick's is a more political allegory and Peckinpah's is philosophical--and yet both films are, in their own ways, masterpieces.

Peckinpah, in a stroke of pure genius, with the exception of the hideous rape scene, holds off on his typical slow-motion violence until the climactic siege, where Hoffman has to protect a mental patient (David Warner) from a band of drunk hooligans. This sequence is still nerve-shattering and violent, brilliantly edited, shot, and acted, with Peter Vaughan making for one of the most frightening heavies ever.

Besides the acting, the other fine points of STRAW DOGS are the ominous cinematography of John Coquillon, who also shot the low-budget 1968 British horror film THE WITCHFINDER GENERAL, and a brilliantly haunting Stravinsky/Herrmann-influenced music score by Peckinpah's favorite composer Jerry Fielding. STRAW DOGS is not an easy movie to watch or to like, but for those so inclined, it is very much worth seeing.

Reading the reviews of this film, it is obvious that, hate it or love it, people just do not get it. They buy into the simplistic story of a pacifist pushed to the limit by thugs forcing themselves on his home and wife. In other words, through a violent rite of passage he becomes a real man. Now, some people hate the film for this, others applaud it. But it's just wrong, folks. The problem, I believe, is that this film has been around for thirty years and has been so thoroughly misunderstood for that time that people go into viewing it with the preconceived notion of the story outlined above, and, all due respect to Sam Peckinpah, if you aren't paying close attention to the nuances you will come out of it with the same idea. But, as I said a moment ago, this is not the story, and the nuances are what make this film brilliant, not the "rape good, feminist bad, so long as the nerd wins" story that does not exist.
David Sumner (Dustin Hoffman) is the bad guy of this film. He is egotistical, overly-intellectual, condescending, rude, and emotionally cold to all of humanity and above all his wife. Not only that, but he is a pathologically repressed time bomb, refusing to acknowledge his considerable flaws until they explode at the end of the film (the film is in fact a nightmare vision of such a pathological personality on the brink of collapse).
Amy, his long-suffering wife, is mostly interpreted as Peckinpah's misogynist fantasy of a sex kitten who asks to be raped and enjoys it, while behaving as a bitch towards her nebbish husband. This is wrong, and I don't know what film people have been watching 'cause I do not see that at all. Amy's seemingly petty digs at David (changing his equations, defacing his chalkboard, etc.) are all preceded by some meanness on his part, such as abusing her cat or cutting her down intellectually at every opportunity ("Hey, you're not so dumb," and "I love you, Amy, but I want you to leave me alone"). The film centers on her increasing suffering at being around an emotionally distant and cold husband and the local hooligans.
Which brings me to the most misunderstood part: the rape. She does not ask for this rape, as many think. She does not flirt with the workmen; when she sees them leering at her torn stockings she reacts with disgust and anger; even her brief flashing is hardly inviting...her look is one of cold anger, not enticing sexuality. For the majority of the rape she is clearly not enjoying it...if you watch the montage carefully, it not only highlights her emotional suffering above all but also her association of her husband with her rapist, further underscoring the alienation between them, the similarities between David and the surface "villains," and her psychological torment. The brief sexual response she offers is ambiguous, I admit, but given its context it is a perplexing reaction, sort of the result of her anguish, rather than an indicator that she was digging what was happening.
Finally we have the end, what so many people see as David's "rite of passage" to manhood by beating up the gang of thugs. He is still in a corner here; his grand moral principle of taking responsibility for Henry Niles is undercut when he cannot give any reason for such a responsibility; and watch the camera angle when he proclaims that he will not allow violence against the house: it is from an extremely high, steep angle, visually undermining his moral declaration. This is because it is an empty statement; he identifies with the strongly-built, "solid" house and does not want it breached because, in his mind, it is his own psyche under attack. He has done so well at shielding himself from the world, distancing himself from all humanity (that is why they left the States) that he will use any means necessary to keep intruders out.
In the end, of course, the house is violated, his wife is finally completely alienated (note how, when she tries to aid the intruders, he treats her in the same brutal manner that Charlie, the rapist, did), and the world he knew has been destroyed. This is actually an extremely meloncholy and hopeless film; neither David nor Amy can hope to go back to their old lives. David's abandoning of her to drive Niles back is indictive of this, and on the car ride he admits he is lost himself.
I hope this is helpful in untangling, as Danny DeVito in "Death to Smoochy" would call it, "this web of sh*t." The movie does not glorify violence; rather, it shows it as the horrific result of one man's emotional detachment and pathological repression of every difficulty in his life. It is a tragedy.

Sam Pecknpah followed his extremely violent and critically acclaimed 'The Wild Bunch' with the even more violent 'Straw Dogs', which didn't sit as well with the critics; in fact, 'Straw Dogs' was shocking enough to be banned in the UK where it was filmed, although in the US it was released with an X rating. Critics attacked it as being overtly violent and sexual, and entirely missed the message Peckinpah was making. Three and a half decades later, though, it's easier to appreciate 'Straw Dogs' for the groundbreaking creation that it was, and its influence can clearly be seen in the works of such contemporary directors as David Fincher, David Lynch and Todd Solondz, among others.

With hindsight, it's hard to miss the fact that the sexual and violent content of 'Straw Dogs' isn't a whole lot more shocking than that of Kubrick's 'A Clockwork Orange', released that very same month. 'A Clockwork Orange' also created its own share of controversy, of course; yet somehow it was more rapidly recognized as the masterpiece it is by critics than 'Straw Dogs'. In part, I think that's due to the fact that while 'A Clockwork Orange' is an ultra-violent surreal fantasy from its very beginning, 'Straw Dogs' seems entirely innocent at first, like a very realistic and light-hearted drama, and the violence builds gradually throughout the film. That sense of realism, which 'A Clockwork Orange' never pretends to, makes 'Straw Dogs' much more difficult to take as an analogy; it cries out to be taken at face value, which makes it much more difficult to swallow.

Dustin Hoffman was never an actor to fear controversy, and 'Straw Dogs' catches him right at the peak of his best years as an actor, after 'The Graduate', 'Midnight Cowboy' and 'Little Big Man', and before 'Lenny', 'Papillon' and 'All The President's Men'. His performance is as amazing as in any of these, and again Hoffman proves his rare range, as well as his sensitivity; his performance carries the film to true excellence, and perhaps that's the other reason that the film was a bit more difficult to take than 'A Clockwork Orange' - to take nothing away from the wonderful Malcolm McDowell, what 'A Clockwork Orange' simply didn't have was a protagonist for the viewer to identify with, and therefore, like I stated before, it was easier to take as an analogy, and Alex functioned more as a symbolic and iconic character than as a real human being. David Sumner, on the other hand, is a remarkably realistic and convincing character, and one that is very easy to relate to, which makes the change that comes over him towards the end of the film all the more shocking. Again, it is that building up of tension that makes 'Straw Dogs' such a powerful experience.

'Straw Dogs' is a film that creates controversy and disagreements, and so it should. It's easy to create controversy with sex and violence; but many years later that initial shock fades, and the real test is whether or not the film stands the trial of time and still manages to shock and engross. Like 'A Clockwork Orange', 'Straw Dogs' stands that test. Love it or hate it, it's hard to deny that it's an important and influential film, and it's essential viewing for any film lover.

What makes the violence so powerful is the source of it. And the source of it all is Susan George. She is a beautiful and sexy blonde who all the rural lads remember from her youth and they are all jealous of Dustin Hoffman who is the American who has won her. Susan George and Dustin Hoffman seem a hopeless mismatch and she seems to know it before he does. She is just an English country girl and she resents that he is trying to make her in to a female version of himself, ie a more intellectual, responsiblespectacle wearing chess player. What she has that he underestimates the worth of is sensual appeal. And when he doesn't pay attention she advertises to any man near by just to prove she has it.
The way Peckinpah sets up the Hoffman/George relationship it is almost assured to lead to trouble. Instead of having Hoffman and George fight it out between themselves Peckinpah has them wage their war through the hired hands which are little more than hoods recognizing the opportunities when they present themselves.
George has a past with one of the lads and she does not exactly resist his advances and this is just more proof that things are not all well in her marriage. Though things go much much further than she had perhaps anticipated.
The atmosphere of the movie is great. The village is tiny, just a pub and a few houses. And the stone English country house that Hoffman and George rent for the year is like a small castle and decorated with weapons. The final confrontation is country manor warfare at its most intense. The final result is cathartic but feels more like an exhilerated confusion than a clear resolution.
Acting wise Hoffman is magnificent but George is also great displaying a wide range of moods and motivations.
Other movies have shown more violence than this one but still the violence in this one is of a very particular type, the type that Peckinpah suggests is seething below the surface of many man/woman relationships. Whether you agree with Peckinpahs assessment or not the movie is a charged and memorable one.

The packaging for this DVD shows the futility of banning the film. The slogan `Banned in the UK' can be used the world over as a means of selling the film. It is assumed that the film will consequently be ultra-violent, but this is a misconception. This film is not banned because of its gruesome conclusion, but solely because of the rape scene. I recently saw an interview with the British censor who explained his reasoning. He argued that the scene is unacceptable because it advocates the `male myth' that a woman will enjoy rape. The film could have been distributed with some cuts, but the studio, quite rightly, turned down this option. The absurdity of the censor's position is that there are other films freely available which have rape scenes which show a woman apparently enjoying rape, including Doctor Zhivago and High Plains Drifter. Moreover, Susan George's character in Straw Dogs can hardly be said to have enjoyed the experience in the end. She is left distraught and broken. It is a great pity that this film is banned in Britain, for it is a film of great artistic worth. It is not as if this is some cheap little sordid film, rather it one of the key works of a great director. I found the film interesting because it develops its story in a gradual way allowing time for characters to develop. The final dénouement has all the more power because of this build up. It is worth noting that there is some confusion regarding the setting of this film. It is supposed to be Cornwall, in the Southwest of England. This is clear from the accents of the British actors. This DVD has no extras, but at least it shows the film in its complete version. The picture quality is fine and only the sound is a little unclear at times. This DVD is well worth getting, and well worth importing if you live in Britain.

This review refers to the VHS Collector's Edition, Widescreen Presentation released by Anchor Bay......

You may or may not be familiar with the films of Sam Peckinpah,If you have found yourself here I suspect you are. Peckinpah's films(The Wild Bunch, Pat Garret and Billy the Kid) are usually violent and controversial but brillant and captivating. This film is all those things, but this is not a western (his ususal genre), this is set in rural England in the early 70's.
David Sumner (Dustin Hoffman), a brillant mathematician, and pacifist is married to Amy (Susan George), she is young beautiful, sexy,and childlike. To get away from the violent atmoshpere occuring in the States, they moved to her family home in rural England. They employ some local antagonists, all of which seem to be the unemployable types, to do handy work around the property. Of course the men all knew Amy from before and still lust after her. Amy does not do much in the way of disuading them, in fact the more David works and spends time away from her, the more flirtatious she becomes with the group.
A deadly cat and mouse game ensues between the workers and David. He is forced to protect his home and his wife. When they try to break into his house, it becomes a battle of wills. At first David goes about methodically and logically securing his house but eventually he must turn to violence to accomplish this goal. The scene becomes very suspenseful and violent. DON"T watch this one alone!
As I mentioned there are some very violent scenes and there also are some scenes of rape, this would not be for the sensitive viewer. But if you like Peckinpah you will want to see this one for sure.
This edition is widescreen(1.77:1), and has be digitally mastered. The sound and picture are very good. It came in a hard plastic casing.
Go For It..........Laurie