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Straw Dogs is a 1971 film directed by Sam Peckinpah. Dustin Hoffman and Susan George play the lead roles. David Warner, although uncredited, is also featured. The screenplay is based on the novel The Siege of Trencher's Farm by Gordon Williams. The film was released theatrically in the US the same year as A Clockwork Orange, The French Connection, and Dirty Harry, sparking a heated controversy over apparently excessive violence in films.
Title
Many ceremonies in ancient China, during the time of Lao Zi, incorporated the use of dogs woven out of grass. These effigies were revered and respected during the ritual, but afterward, discarded and burnt. PlotThe film tells the story of an American mathematician, David Sumner (Dustin Hoffman), and his British wife, Amy (Susan George), who move to Amy's home town in Cornwall, United Kingdom to escape crime and violence in the United States. Spoiler warning: Plot and/or ending details follow.
They face increasing levels of harassment by the local residents who kill the Sumners' cat, intimidate David, and finally, unbeknownst to David, subject Amy to a brutal double rape. When Henry Niles (David Warner), a local man with a mild mental disability (portrayed in the film as a child molester who accidentally murders a teenage girl who made advances toward him), is given sanctuary in the Sumners' house, the locals attempt to break in and subject him to mob justice. Forced into action, the normally cowardly David embarks on a spree of violence in which he savagely murders the local mob. In the final scene, he drives Henry back to the village. Henry turns to David and says, "I don't know the way home." David replies, "That's OK...I don't either." Reception
The violence in the film in general also aroused strong reactions. Many critics saw the film as an endorsement of violence as a redemptive act and the film as a fascistic celebration of violence and vigilantism. Other critics saw the film as an anti-violence story, pointing out the empty bleakness with which the film ends. Peckinpah himself defended the film as an exploration rather than an endorsement of violence, claiming that he was working out his own obsessions with violence as a result of human interaction and inability to communicate. He also claimed that the character of David was, in fact, the villain of the film, who deliberately, if subconsciously, brings the violence down upon himself. According to Peckinpah, the homicidal rampage at the end of the film is actually an expression of David's true, repressed self. The film remains very divisive among critics and audiences, though even its detractors have largely come to admit its importance and artistry; the film has come to be seen, for better or worse, as something of a modern classic. CensorshipThe movie gained further notoriety in the UK after it was banned in 1984 by the British Board of Film Classification under the then newly introduced Video Recordings Act due to a scene of sexual violence in which Amy Sumner is raped. A portion of the scene had already been cut by the studio prior to the film's US release in order to obtain an R rating from the MPAA. The film was again refused a license in 1999, after the distributors refused to cut the problematic scene. The film was finally certified uncut for video and DVD release on July 1, 2002. The film was screened on Channel 4 in 2003. RemakeProduction company Screen Gems is doing a remake in 2008, set in the United States, written by Reed Steiner and directed by Rod Lurie.[1]
Trivia
Spoilers end here.
Notes
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