35 Years Later, Infamous Flop Still Bad

This year marks the 35th anniversary of "Heaven's Gate," the infamous cinematic flop that bankrupted the United Artists studio. While there seems to be a growing urge among critics to rehabilitate the film's reputation, I must reluctantly side with the original consensus. Director Michael Chimino's vision of class struggle on the American West is an absolute snoozefest, despite increasingly topical subject matter. Moreover, animal abuse involved in production has been completely lost in discussion of the movie's legacy. Meanwhile, the film's narrative highlights the historic entanglement of violence against humans and animals.

It's hard to overemphasize what a critical and commercial disaster "Heaven's Gate" was upon its release in 1980. The film was initially provided a $12-million budget, but this grew to a then-astronomic total of $44 million, due to Cimino's endless retakes and insistence on historical authenticity, among other things. In the end, "Heaven's Gate" recouped a mere $3.4 million at the box office, while receiving a critical drubbing. In the New York Times, Vincent Canby likened it to a "forced four-hour walking tour of one's own living room."

As mentioned, in recent years there has been a noticeable trend among critics to reevaluate the film more favorably. For instance, in 2011, Time Out London staff named it the 12th greatest western of all time. The following year, in the New York Times, Dennis Lim argued that "present-day viewers may well find that time has been kind to 'Heaven’s Gate,'" describing the film as an "elegiac rethinking of the myths of the West and the western." Writing for the Guardian in 2013, Peter Bradshaw called it a "spectacular western epic," both "colossally ambitious and mysteriously moving." Despite my sincere desire to join this positive reassessment, I can't honestly do so. Admittedly, I haven't seen Cimino's most recent, 216-minute cut, which the 2012 Venice Film director called an "absolute masterpiece." But if it's anything like the 219-minute version available on Amazon, I can say that though the movie is beautifully shot, it remains tremendously boring and overlong.

Further, the allegations of animal cruelty perpetrated during its production should not be forgotten or ignored. According to the American Humane Society's review of "Heaven's Gate," the movie "includes an actual cockfight, several horse trips, and a horse being blown up with a rider on its back. People who worked on the set verified more animal abuse, such as chickens being decapitated and steer being bled in order to use their blood to smear on the actors instead of using stage blood." Ultimately, this led the actors' guild and the producers' association to authorize the American Humane Society to monitor all animal use in film. But as a recent expose in the Hollywood Reporter demonstrated, the oversight is far from adequate. One hopes that if "Heaven's Gate" were made now it would rely solely on CGI animals.

What the film does offer is an illustration of how violence against humans and animals has historically overlapped. As sociologist David Nibert put it, "harms that humans have done to other animals — especially that harm generated by pastoralist and ranching practices that have culminated in contemporary factory-farming practices — have been a precondition for and have engendered large-scale violence against and injury to devalued humans." Primarily Nibert traces European colonization, showing how violence against indigenous populations was often made possible and motivated by animal exploitation. "Heaven's Gate," set in 1890s Wyoming and loosely based on the Johnson County War, follows a similar pattern, though the human victims in this case are European immigrants. In Cimino's film, rich cattle barons, whose wealth is generated through the murder of cows, kill those impoverished settlers who threaten their herds.

But this unintentional representation of a historic phenomenon is not nearly enough to save "Heaven's Gate." Thirty-five years after its release, don't fall for the revisionist hype. Because it's still a bad movie — purely on artistic terms. Worse than that, the production involved willful torture of animals. 

By Jon Hochschartner

Goldfish Enrichment and Wildlife Rehabilitation

As a Virginia resident, I follow the "wildlife"¹ rehabilitation efforts of the Wildlife Center of Virginia, efforts which often entail heartwarming stories about bear cub rescues (something I've always found ironic, as it is completely legal to shoot and kill bears in my state). There is also a lot of focus on saving eagles, and the Center's social media site often posts links to webcam feeds of animals healing and playing in their enclosures or inspiring videos of eagle releases. Today they posted a video of "fish enrichment" for eagles on the mend.

In the video, we see a crude plastic pool imprisoning several fishes² with no filter, no pebbles, no air pump, and no plants or hiding places. The fishes seem to be treated as though they have no interests and they exist solely for the eagle to jump on, harass, terrify, and kill. The Wildlife Center posted the video as a cute update on the rehabilitation status of Buddy the eagle, but all I could see was the cruel and tortured existence of the goldfishes who have been completely objectified for the Virginian fetishization of eagles. Indeed, no commentator to date has expressed any unease with the well-being of the fishes on Facebook or YouTube. Viewers simply see this video as "cute" and entertaining.

It should go without saying, but the goldfish industry is one that imposes great amounts of suffering on fishes, and goldfishes are a highly sensitive animal who easily succumb to inferior habitats, water that has not been treated, and stressful conditions.

Like bears and eagles, goldfishes are sentient and social animals.

"Wildlife" rehabilitation reinforces the notion that some animals (usually charismatic megafauna) are more important than other animals (like goldfishes and the animals we kill for food, clothes, sport, and entertainment).  I've also seen the Wildlife Center asking Virginia "hunters" to please switch to non-lead ammunition, so that scavengers will not be poisoned by ingesting the corpses of deers, turkeys, and other animals who matter less. The notion that "hunting"³ might be a problem in itself is never addressed. Our thinking about other animals is quite compartmentalized. Compartmentalization helps us to reconcile our inherent empathy for other animals with our existence in a society that systemically exploits Nonhuman Animals for our benefit.

What's to be done with animals like eagles that need to consume the corpses of other animals to survive? I believe there are alternatives that can be explored. Goldfish "enrichment," however, is most certainly not a requirement for eagle rehabilitation and cannot be morally justified.


Notes:
1. "Wildlife" is an objectifying pejorative best replaced with "free-living animals."
2. I avoid mass terms like "deer" or "turkey," which work to deindividualize some species.
3. "Hunting" is a euphemism for systemic violence against Nonhuman Animals.

What Can Buster Keaton Teach Us About Animal Abuse?

This year marks the 90th anniversary of Buster Keaton's pastoral comedy "Go West," which in its own clumsy way explores humanity's domination of animals. The 1925 silent film, that Pauline Kael described as one of Keaton's lesser works, and which I will momentarily spoil, centers on a lonesome ranch hand who befriends a cow. In a bizarrely-triumphant finale, he rescues her from death, while leading the rest of her herd to slaughter. I'm genuinely unsure what one is supposed to make of it.

It should be mentioned the production clearly treated its non-human cast in an egregious manner. Sadly, one doubts Keaton saw anything objectionable in this. After all, much of the abuse was likely standard practice in his era's flesh industry, which has since only grown more brutal. Further, Keaton himself was no stranger to rough treatment, having worked in vaudeville from a young age. As Roger Ebert noted, "by the time he was 3, [Keaton] was being thrown around the stage and into the orchestra pit, and his little suits even had a handle concealed at the waist, so [his father] Joe could sling him like luggage. Today this would be child abuse; then it was showbiz." Given his past and societal speciesism, one can easily imagine how Keaton might rationalize animal abuse for the sake of entertainment.

In "Go West" the ranch hand Keaton plays, called Friendless, removes a troublesome rock from the hoof of a cow he oversees. The animal, named Brown Eyes, subsequently saves him from a charging bull. So their bond begins to form. The movie's laughs are designed to come from Friendless' ineptitude at ranching, with his seeming inability to objectify Brown Eyes as a mere head of livestock perhaps being the prime example. When he sees the cow is slated to be painfully branded, Friendless attempts to hide her behind some shrubbery. After being discovered, he shaves the desired marking into her hair, creating the illusion of scorched tissue, which successfully fools the owner. Eventually, it's time for Brown Eyes to be shipped to slaughter. Keaton's character violently opposes this, drawing his pistol on another ranch hand and shoving his boss out of the way. But it's no use. The owner refuses Friendless' offer to purchase the animal with his remaining wages, saying, "You can't buy her, she'll bring twice that much."

The herd is then loaded onto a train for a Los Angeles stockyard. During the trip, the transport is attacked by bandits, leaving Keaton's character to manage the animals on his own. Upon arrival, he initially moves to escape with Brown Eyes, leaving the rest of the herd in confinement. But remembering his boss' financial insecurities, Friendless decides to bring the herd to the abattoir. When I first saw the film, I initially thought in releasing the animals from their boxcars he intended to bring them to freedom and safety. I was surprised when he ultimately brought them to the stockyard gates, for which the boss granted him ownership of Brown Eyes, something he could not have counted on.

So why did Keaton's character, despite apparently valuing one of their kind, choose to bring the animals to slaughter? Broadly I see three explanations. The first is he valued the entire herd, but saw their deaths as inevitable, and for whatever reason thought bringing them to the stockyards himself was the best option for all. The second is he only valued Brown Eyes, as an exception to his overarching speciesism. And the third is Keaton's character didn't transcend the anthropocentric paradigm at all, and rescued his chosen cow merely for the benefits she could provide him, in this case, companionship. Regardless, the film's cheery ending does not seem to match the facts of the situation. 

By Jon Hochschartner

"Never Let Me Go" mirrors animal exploitation

"Never Let Me Go," a sorely-underseen film from 2010, can be easily read as an allegory for the exploitation of animals. The dystopian romance, based on what I hear is a masterful novel, stars Carey Mulligan and Andrew Garfield as a couple who belong to a class of humans raised to be forced organ donors. While the story could serve as a specific metaphor for xenotransplantation, in a broader sense it mirrors the plight of all domesticated animals, whose entire existence is predicated on their use by others.

The film, which I will necessarily spoil, begins in the 1970s at Hailsham, which appears to be an idyllic British boarding school, attended by Mulligan and Garfield's characters, Kathy and Tommy. A guilt-wracked teacher tells them they're fated to die as young adults, after their bodies have been harvested for medical purposes. When they turn 18, Kathy and Tommy are moved to a group home for future donors, where they hear a rumor that loving couples can seek a temporary deferral from their duties. Despite their long-held feelings for each other, Kathy and Tommy do not share a romantic relationship. This changes after Tommy starts the donation process. Seeking further time together, the couple pursue the rumored deferral only to discover it's a myth. Tommy dies as a result of harvesting. The film ends with Kathy scheduled to begin the same process.

In discussing the movie, it should be mentioned that Tommy himself explicitly compares the lot of his kind, who are the product of cloning, to the victims of animal agriculture. "I suppose you both heard that Hailsham is closed. The only schools left now — you hear they're like battery farms," he says, suggesting other institutions treat donor children exceptionally poorly. "I'm sure that's an exaggeration though." The comparison is apt. Like farmed non-humans, Tommy and Kathy are brought into the world solely so they can be objectified in a very literal sense.

If other schools in the story are akin to factory farms, Hailsham is the equivalent of a more 'humane' operation, such as those championed by locavores like Michael Pollan. Without the proper context, a viewer could be forgiven for thinking the posh Hailsham was filled with privileged children. And yet like these gentler forms of agriculture, Hailsham ultimately raises its wards so they can be killed and dismembered. When the headmistress castigates students for smoking, it's not for their own benefit, but rather because they are damaging bodies which are seen as belonging to others. "Never Let Me Go" reminds us that regardless of the conditions provided on 'humane' farms, animals exist in such places to be exploited.

Like speciesism, which emerged to justify human exploitation of animals, an elaborate ideology exists in Kathy and Tommy's world to rationalize the violence done to clones like them. When the couple visits their retired headmistress as adults, they wonder why their artwork was saved at school. "You have to understand," she replies, "Hailsham was the last place to consider the ethics of donation. We used your art to show what you were capable of, to show that donor children are all but human. But we were providing an answer to a question no one was asking...We didn't have the Gallery to look into your souls. We had the Gallery in order to see if you had souls at all." It should be pointed out that despite this deep-seated enmity to clones, the organ-harvesting process seems to have existed less than fifty years into the film's setting. In contrast, speciesism arguably originated with animal domestication and thus is infinitely more entrenched in our culture.

Ultimately, "Never Let Me Go" is the story of a human couple reduced to the status of animals. It's a heartbreakingly sad film. But it's the exploitation that's sad, not the species of the victims.

 by Jon Hochschartner

Revisiting 'Jurassic Park' in light of 'Blackfish'

By Jon Hochschartner

With next summer's release of 'Jurassic World,' recently teased with a trailer starring Chris Pratt, I think it's worthwhile to revisit the original film in the paleontological franchise in light of the 2013 SeaWorld-documentary 'Blackfish,' with a focus on the inherent abuse captivity represents for wild animals and the potential dangers it creates for human handlers.

While I think it's safe to assume most readers have seen 'Jurassic Park,' for those not familiar with the other title, 'Blackfish' centers on Tilikum, an orca currently living in SeaWorld Orlando, who has been held captive for more than thirty years. During that time, he has killed three humans. The movie, which was nominated for the Grand Jury Prize at the Sundance Film Festival, suggests Tilikum's aggression was the result of his imprisonment. As journalist Jane Velez-Mitchell asked, "If you were in a bathtub for 25 years, don’t you think you’d get a little irritated, aggravated, maybe a little psychotic?” Since the documentary's release, SeaWorld has posted dramatic financial losses.

Interestingly, the inciting incidents for Steven Spielberg's 1993 blockbuster and 'Blackfish' are remarkably similar. 'Jurassic Park' opens on an island off the coast of Costa Rica with a captive velociraptor killing an employee of InGen, the bioengineering company responsible for the titular resort. It's this specific action that puts the entire plot of the film in motion. Paleobotanist Ellie Sattler, mathematician Ian Malcom, and paleontologist Alan Grant are invited to the island in the wake of this episode to assess the park's safety. Correspondingly, Gabriela Cowperthwaite's documentary begins with the brutal drowning of an experienced SeaWorld trainer, Dawn Brancheau, by Tilikum. From there, the remainder of the film seeks to answer the question of why this happened.

Dismissing conservative accusations of anthropomorphism, historian Jason Hribal encourages us to see such acts of violence not as random occurrences, but as intentional rebellions against speciesist confinement. "Through my research, the resistance became ever more evident. Captive animals escaped their cages," Hribal said. "They attacked their keepers. They demanded more food. They refused to perform. They refused to reproduce. The resistance itself could be organized."

Obviously there are differences between real-life orcas and fictional dinosaurs. As researcher Howard Garrett states in 'Blackfish,' there is no record of orcas attacking humans in the wild. And given the speculative nature of 'Jurassic Park,' we have no idea how various ancient species would interact with humans. Existing predators, such as tigers, generally attack humans only if they can't meet their dietary needs otherwise. But say we concede, for the sake of argument, that free-living prehistoric animals would choose to hunt and kill us, absent unique circumstances. I don't think such predation would invalidate the view that specific non-human violence in 'Jurassic Park' could be interpreted, to one degree or another, as an intentional form of resistance.

Jeffrey Ventre, a former SeaWorld trainer, says that Tilikum, an animal who should be traveling 100 miles a day, is kept in what amounts to a small, concrete swimming pool. Similarly, in 'Jurassic Park,' the resort's 'game' warden Robert Muldoon states that, like cheetahs, velociraptors can run 50-60 miles per hour, which presumably means the species would be accustomed to free access to large swaths of land. And yet the velociraptors are kept in a ludicrously small cage, about the size of a hockey rink, which they clearly do not enjoy. "She had them all attacking the [electrified] fences when the feeders came," Muldoon says, referring to the leader of the pride. "But they never attack the same place twice. They were testing the fences for weaknesses systematically. They remembered."

Indeed, the desire of these animals to escape is so great the owner of the resort, John Hammond, concedes InGen has been forced to take extreme precautions to prevent this from happening. "The viewing area below us will have eight-inch tempered glass set in reinforced steel frames," Hammond says.

One must assume that Spielberg and others involved in the creation of the box-office smash that was 'Jurassic Park' did not intend it to be a sci-fi parable of non-human revolt against captivity. The filmmakers' view appears to be expressed through the voice of Dr. Malcolm, who has nothing to say regarding animal treatment or use, and sees the threat posed by the island's dinosaurs purely as a result of scientific arrogance run amok. But I'm not sure that authorial intent matters that much. Ultimately, there's enough evidence in the film to make credible an anti-speciesist interpretation of 'Jurassic Park' as a sort of fictionalized 'Blackfish.'