Ugh.
What to say about "Straw Dogs."
When I first saw this film, I was 14 or 15. I discovered Stephen King about two years earlier, and had spent the time in between pretty much devouring as much paperback and pulp horror as I could. In tandem with that, I started diving into the movies in earnest. "Hellraiser," check. "The Omen," check. "The Texas Chain Saw Massacre," check. "Dawn of the Dead," check.
My love of horror (particularly of the 1970s variety) led me, in a roundabout way, to the New Hollywood. I graduated from Hooper and Romero to Friedkin (through "The Exorcist") and then to Scorsese, Bogdanovich and Coppola.
And, of course, Sam Peckinpah.
What to say about "Straw Dogs."
I don't think there's another movie I've seen that I've wrestled with more. All the pulp horror I'd been reading up to that point seemed not only irrelevant, but downright silly after sitting through this thing. Peckinpah's vision was terrifying in a way that an army of zombies or vampires or Cenobites or chain saw wielding psychos could never be.
Films like Gaspar Noe's "Irreversible," Pascal Laugier's "Martyrs" and Ruggero Deodato's "Cannibal Holocaust" are, by any objective measure, more brutal. Certainly, when stacked up against all the torture porn and New French Extremity we see today, the violence in "Straw Dogs" is — at least in terms of pure viscera — pretty tame. But most extreme horror — even the really fucked up stuff — I can basically dismiss out of hand. I'm one of the few people I know who actually found "The Human Centipede" boring. When something is trying to be shocking, I tend to find it laughable.
But what Peckinpah is doing here is ... something else.
First, the misogyny. It's there, and it's undeniable. And it's Peckinpah's. I have listened to film student after film student twist themselves into knots trying to find a way to justify it or excuse it away. But, right around the time I discovered this movie I also discovered my dad's old Playboy collection in the basement. And as much as I liked looking at the pictures, the interviews were what kept me coming back. I remember reading this one with Peckinpah from 1971 about the movie:
Playboy: What about his wife Amy? What does she find out about herself?
Peckinpah: Well, there are two kinds of women. There are women and there there's pussy. A woman is a partner. If you can go a certain distance by yourself, a good woman will triple it. But Amy is the kind of girl – and we've all seen them by the millions – they marry, they have some quality, but they're so goddamn immature, so ignorant as far as living goes, as to what is of value in life, in this case about marriage, that they destroy it. Amy is pussy, under the veneer of being a woman. Maybe because of what happens to her, she'll eventually become a woman.
Just so we're perfectly clear here, when Peckinpah says "what happens to her," he's talking about her rape by a jilted ex-boyfriend. A rape scene that turns into a love scene because, well, Amy (Susan George) is "pussy" so, in Peckinpah's world view, she really wanted it. The rape isn't quite as viscerally "violent" as the one in "Irreversible," but what Peckinpah is insinuating with it is so much more vile.
Still not convinced? How about this, talking about David (Dustin Hoffman) and his journey.
Playboy: But Amy was the instrument of his self-discovery, wasn't she? Didn't she push and prod him to "act like a man"?
Peckinpah: She didn't know what she wanted. She pushed him, as you say, but not in any constructive way. To start out with, she asked for the rape. But later she could barely bring herself to pull the trigger to save his life. I don't know whether they'll get back together again ... He obviously married the wrong dame. She is basically pussy ... And speaking of rape, I'd like to point out to Miss Kael and these other so called critics that rear entry does not necessarily mean sodomy, as they said in their reviews. In the picture, Amy is taken by one guy she used to go with and then she's taken from the rear by another guy she didn't want any part of anywhere. The double rape is a little bit more than she bargained for...
"A little bit more than she bargained for."
What. The fuck.
The thing that I find so disturbing about this (and that I found so disturbing at the time I read it) is that Peckinpah clearly thought all this out. He knows what he wants to say and he's saying it. He's articulate. He has a philosophy. It's all worked out in his head.
So ... why am I defending this movie again?
I'm not, really. I can't. I guess here's where I come down on it: the misogyny is there, and it's real, but it's not the only thing going on. Reading these quotes through again, it really strikes me that Peckinpah knew exactly what he was saying and what he was trying to provoke. He's trying to piss you off. He's putting himself out on a real steep ledge and daring us to shove him over.
At his worst, Peckinpah was a drunken hack who made unwatchable films, but at his best he was a master craftsman in the true Hitchockian sense. He knew how to play us like a fiddle, and with "Straw Dogs" he's forcing us to confront our own worst thoughts and impulses by making us revel in his. It's gross, and it's painful ... but there's something true about it in a way "Hostel" and "Saw" could never be. Not "true" in what he's saying with the movie, but "true" in the raw and terrible emotions that he's revealing. He's showing us his true self, with no apology or explanation or film-school obfuscation. And it ain't pretty.
I really don't know how much of this was intentional or how much I'm reading into it (I might be just another one of those film students trying to give myself an escape hatch), but I think there's a certain amount of value to be found in allowing a master artist to take you on a dark trip into his own dangerous psyche and neurosis. In "Straw Dogs" we're being confronted with Peckinpah's damaged male id in a way that's just all too naked, too bloody and uncooked. There's an open wound quality to this film that was (and is) like nothing I've experienced before or since.
It's a journey into a certain type of Heart of Darkness, and one we'd be well advised not to deny.
At his best, this is what Philip Roth does in his novels (with a good bit more elegance, to be sure), and what Picasso did in his paintings. As much as I hate to admit it, Peckinpah deserves to be spoken of in the same breath.
So I find that I hold two equal and opposing views of this movie, and the 20 years between now and my first experience with it haven't changed that one iota. I find the film absolutely revolting, and not just because what it shows but because of what it is. And yet I find it terribly compelling. It's a powerful masterwork by a real artist working at the top of his game. I can't dismiss it, as much as I would like to.
No one promised us our idols would be nice people.
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