Learning on ScreenStraw Dogs
Parts 3 and 4 get to grips with the substance of the film itself, with a general discussion of “Key Themes and Ideas” followed by a “Key Scene Analysis” (the chapter titles may be generic for the series), the latter focusing, inevitably, on that rape scene. Simkin’s approach, here and throughout, is admirably even-handed: clearly impressed by Straw Dogs’ accomplishment as a work of art, he is also sensitive to the dangers of its eroticisation (as he claims) of the act of rape and the disturbing implications that may potentially be drawn from the depiction of its victim (Susan George). In his close scrutiny of the central sequence, Simkin discriminates carefully between the effects of each shot and cut, drawing out their manifold connotations and complexities with remarkable sensitivity. In his treatment of Peckinpah’s role, Simkin avoids both auteurist hero-worship and outright denunciation of the director’s often scandalous utterances and dubious intentions. Instead he demonstrates that the film’s achievement, for better or worse, was the result of complex collaboration, not only between its main creative participants but also with the studio executives and the censors whose input directly affected both the film’s “cut” and “uncut” versions (as Simkin shows, even the fullest available version was integrally affected by the censorship process).
… an invaluable resource and an instructive model of contextual and textual analysis.
If there is anything which disappoints it is perhaps the last section, which examines “The Legacy of Straw Dogs” through the way in which the BBFC’s decision ultimately to pass the film for video release in 2002 involved an apparent U-turn in interpreting it, and how this has been reflected in the censors’ subsequent deliberations over even less salubrious films, such as The Last House on the Left (1972), I Spit on Your Grave (1978) and their recent remakes (2009 and 2010, respectively). One might have preferred here a more overarching view of Straw Dogs itself in the light of the preceding discussion (the publication schedule probably prevented a comparison with its own 2011 remake), though the chapter as it stands nevertheless exhibits the same sharp insights and scrupulously weighed evaluations that characterise the book as a whole. Anyone interested in teaching on the film, as Simkin has over many years (experience which has surely enriched his understanding of it), will find this monograph an invaluable resource and an instructive model of contextual and textual analysis.
Sheldon Hall
Linked reviews:
Dr Sian Barber reviews A Clockwork Orange
Dr Brian Hoyle reviews The Devils
