Straw Dogs: still biting or tamed by time?

Having not seen the film for many years, I was curious what I would make of Sam Peckinpah's Straw Dogs. Controversial on its 1971 release and later banned, would the years have diminished its? Standards of controversy change over time and what might have been too much for audiences back then, might seem tame now. Much like gross-out comedy, the shock value of hyper-violent films wanes with time and exposure; the power, therefore, lies in the foreground, the build up, and the context. Peckinpah was a product of his time; a talented director and still peerless in his use of editing even years after his death, however his various explorations of masculinity might not sit well with modern sensibilities. Would Straw Dogs still have an impact? Would it seem like a relic?

Straw Dogs is a work of art. Art can depict horrible subjects but can do so in a manner that shows the medium at its finest. Take Picasso's 'Guernica' or Slayer's 'Angel of Death' as examples (oh yes, I used Picasso and Slayer in the same sentence). Yes, Straw Dogs is a horrible, hideous film, and one with such moral murk as to leave you wondering if any character has a shred of merit, but it also stands as a textbook example of how to build to a cinematic crescendo.

Dustin Hoffman's meek mathematician David Sumner transforms from coward to brutal Western hero after suffering at the hands of the locals working on his house. He embarrassingly struggles to start his car, shrinks in the face of a pub scuffle, and is the frequent subject of ridicule. This culminates in a ruse, the purpose of which is to get him out of the way on a shooting trip so that local thug Charlie Venner (Del Henney) can pay David's wife (his ex girlfriend) Amy a visit. For several of reasons, this is the most unpleasant part of this film (and probably most others). Firstly, Susan George's character Amy is subjected to a protracted and complex rape. While not clear, she appears to eventually consent to sex with Charlie, however one of Charlie's friends then joins in while Charlie holds her down. Even considering this type of content in films since 1971, take Irreversible or The Accused as examples, this scene is horrific and has lost none of its potency.

It's also particularly bad in the context of the rest of the film because it barely considers the effect on Amy, nor show her viewpoint. She is barely presented as a victim of a crime or allowed to have feelings on the matter, nor is she presented as having the strength to rise above it. Save for some PTSD at a town meeting, more a narrative convenience than acknowledgement of the effect, her horrific ordeal serves only as further humiliation for David. Peckinpah, not exactly known for creating female characters, strong or otherwise, outdoes himself here. Without doubt, this is a misogynist relic; a product of its time and director. However in a narrative sense, this awful scene is hugely effective in creating a schism between David and Amy, later exploited in the climax, and creating tension between David and the locals. As far as build up goes, Peckinpah is the master; using something so appalling as a rape not even as a central narrative event but simply to ramp up the tension for the ending.

And so to the ending. Much like the unhinged, still-unmatched shootout that brings The Wild Bunch to a close, Peckinpah stages a siege in which David refuses to turn mentally handicapped accused child murderer Henry Niles (David Warner) over to face the wrath of the drunken mob. Instead, he takes his bloody revenge on his tormentors, honourably defending a man he barely knows and defying his wife. Peckinpah's attitude to women is prevalent here too, as Amy repeatedly orders David to turn Henry over to save her own skin. Her reward for such self interest? A slap from David. The fact that Amy has been raped by two of the mob is acknowledged but is barely a motivating factor for David's defence of his home.

Peckinpah, while probably not a man you'd introduce to your wife, shows what an artist he was in this sequence. Set against the unsettling sound of an impossible amount of breaking glass, we are subjected to an assault on the senses as David fends off intruders with boiling water, crowbars, shotguns, and a massive bear trap. The editing is dizzying and the effect is one of sensory chaos. You can't really concentrate but you can't look away.

As endings go, it's up there with the best, and works so well because of the build up. David, so belittled throughout the whole film, finally takes a stand. While hugely effective, this presents a terribly conservative, traditional viewpoint: David, an aloof intellectual, unable to relate to the 'real' men in the world, can only finally express his masculinity through violence. While Susan George is brilliant and makes more of Amy than the coy antagonist/helpless victim she easily could have been, she is left with the short straw (and cleaning up the mess) as David turns his back and leaves her.

Driving away with Henry towards an uncertain future, having lost his wife and home but found something in himself, David really shouldn't look as happy as he does. He's just killed a lot of people and isn't who he was at the start, but that's Peckinpah for you.