{"id":474,"date":"2024-03-10T21:04:05","date_gmt":"2024-03-10T21:04:05","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/jasondeadcat.com\/?p=474"},"modified":"2024-03-10T22:39:57","modified_gmt":"2024-03-10T22:39:57","slug":"cannibal-holocaust-and-a-psycho-thought-experiment","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/jasondeadcat.com\/?p=474","title":{"rendered":"CANNIBAL HOLOCAUST and a PSYCHO Thought Experiment"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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I started this blog with the intention of reviewing all the canonical \u201ccannibal\u201d films. I began with the Adamic Man From Deep River<\/em> and moved on, chronologically, from knock-off to knock-off (or, from innovator <\/em>to innovator<\/em>, as the case may be). My plan, when I had neatly disposed of these cinematic anthropophagi, was to take up other genres — zombies, hagsploitation, killer cars, that sort of thing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I never made it so far. In fact, I never finished with the cannibals. When it came time to write about my favorite of these films — the one that made me want to write about cannibals in the first place — I found I couldn\u2019t keep my opinions organized and consistent. I was stumped by a number of problems relating to the nature of art and criticism, language and metaphysics — problems which, ten years later, still stump me.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What you are reading now isn\u2019t my long-awaited review of Cannibal Holocaust<\/em> but simply an account of one of the many intellectual impasses that have prevented it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n

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An essential part of the Cannibal Holocaust<\/em> legacy is the on-screen slaughter — and in some cases, graphic mutilation — of animals. From my first draft: \u201cWhat\u2019s disturbing isn\u2019t so much that the animals were killed<\/em>, but that they were tortured<\/em>. You don\u2019t see the swift, farmer-sure slaughter that preserves both the animal\u2019s meat and the butcher\u2019s soul from a ruin of adrenaline and cruelty. Instead, what you see is a slow torturous death, designed to elicit a performance<\/em> from a creature and a response<\/em> from a viewer.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

These scenes were stubborn stumbling blocks to my appreciation of the film. On the one hand, I can hardly justify the torture of animals. A vegetarian and longtime friend of certain small furry quadrupeds, it behooved me to stick up for hoofed creatures. But on the other hand, I wasn\u2019t writing an essay on animal rights. This was to be a work of film criticism. And in that regard there seemed to me something entirely adventitious<\/em> about these ethical concerns. They are pointedly off-topic<\/em>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In response, I imagined another film. This film is so entirely like Cannibal Holocaust<\/em> that, scene for scene, frame for frame, from start to finish, no small detail, no snippet of dialogue, no abrupt cut, slow zoom, or lingering close-up, could offer a single distinguishable dissimilarity between itself and the OG Cannibal Holocaust<\/em>. Though filmed separately, this imitation Cannibal Holocaust<\/em>, cast with absolutely perfect doppelgangers, staged amongst meticulously well-matched set dressings, and framed with uncannily precise mis-en-scene, is absolutely indistinguishable from the already known, loved, reviled, Cannibal Holocaust<\/em>. The two films are materially, visually, auditorily, identical. Now, given the precision of this replica, I think it\u2019s fair to say that, formally speaking, we have not two different films but a single film, dually instantiated, created by two separate causal methods.1<\/a><\/sup> Furthermore<\/em>. . . .<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Furthermore, we know beyond a shadow of a doubt that this other Cannibal Holocaust<\/em> has utilized sophisticated mechanical puppetry (of both the wet and dry variety) in rendering each lower life form tortured and killed in the film — and did so (as follows from the above) with such extraordinary verisimilitude that not even the most seasoned anatomist may tell the difference!<\/em> Nevertheless, we have it on the unimpeachable assurances of the Humane Society that no animal was harmed, etc, etc.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Wouldn\u2019t it seem now that much of the adverse criticism leveled against our real-world Cannibal Holocaust<\/em> becomes moot in regard to this second film? And yet, isn\u2019t it, as we\u2019ve said, the same film?!<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

We can imagine the converse scenario.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Many people consider Psycho<\/em> a masterpiece of filmmaking. (And imagine, for the moment, that you\u2019re one of them.) Psycho is also a film that features a number of on-screen murders. All simulated, of course. But imagine (while you\u2019re at it) that a dark secret about the production of this masterpiece has recently come to light: these on-screen murders were not, so it’s discovered, simulated deaths but rather — whether through a series of really unfortunate accidents, or perhaps somebody\u2019s overzealous commitment to cinema verite — real, honest murders. Both the in-shower stabbings of actress Janet Leigh and the stairs-down-falling of actor Martin Balsam were, in fact, accomplished using the lazy \u201calzahad\u201d method of SFX — which is to say, real knives and real stairs were introduced to real bodies — and real lives, not just fictional lives, were expended in the process2<\/a><\/sup>. (Stand-ins, let\u2019s say, remains neatly disposed of in a swamp, post-production.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Terrible? Criminal? Morally reprehensible? — Yes, Yes, and, again, Yes. None of that I contest. But is the film itself<\/em> — that is, the film qua film<\/em> — also terrible, criminal, morally reprehensible? Or, should I say, any more nor less so than it was before the filmmaker\u2019s murderous methods became known?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Keep in mind that nothing about the film itself has altered. Each frame remains the same. The celluloid remains inviolate. The aesthetic object — which is to say, the only fit subject of aesthetic <\/em>criticism — remains ever the same as it was.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But something has changed, hasn\u2019t it?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Such consideration have, for the last ten years, led me down the meandering and not always intersecting paths of philosophy, aesthetics, and art criticism. I have not discovered any certain answers but only a muddle of questions. As I get older I become more certain that wisdom consists not in a surer and surer knowledge of things but in a more and more scrupulous categorization of one\u2019s ignorance. And so, in upcoming posts, with that motto to guide me, I hope to serialize the progress I\u2019ve made both in unknotting the Gordian muddle of these weighty philosophical questions and also in composing a coherent, gushing appreciation of a film where a turtle is tortured to death and a pig is shotgunned in the face.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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  1. I should give credit to certain philosophical thought experiments where a pair of physically identical objects result from two totally distinct causal chains — Donald Davidson\u2019s Swampman, for instance — but consider also Borge\u2019s \u201cPierre Menard, Author of the Quixote<\/em>.\u201d \u21a9\ufe0e<\/a><\/li>
  2. I feel inclined to mention here something about the expendable lives of Roman slave-actors and a famous opium eater\u2019s famous essay — only to say, yes, yes, I\u2019m aware of these things, but neither quite pertain to the point just now at issue. It\u2019s not a question of whether crime may be justified extra-morally, i.e. aesthetically, but of how — and if it\u2019s even possible — to restrict the domain of a certain type of discourse. \u21a9\ufe0e<\/a><\/li><\/ol>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    I started this blog with the intention of reviewing all the canonical \u201ccannibal\u201d films. I began with the Adamic Man From Deep River and moved on, chronologically, from knock-off to knock-off (or, from innovator to innovator, as the case may be). My plan, when I had neatly disposed of these cinematic anthropophagi, was to take … Continue reading CANNIBAL HOLOCAUST and a PSYCHO Thought Experiment<\/span> →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"[{\"content\":\"I should give credit to certain philosophical thought experiments where a pair of physically identical objects result from two totally distinct causal chains -- Donald Davidson\u2019s Swampman, for instance -- but consider also Borge\u2019s \u201cPierre Menard, Author of the Quixote<\/em>.\u201d\",\"id\":\"cdbc47a4-e604-4726-85de-353938c02c34\"},{\"content\":\"I feel inclined to mention here something about the expendable lives of Roman slave-actors and a famous opium eater\u2019s famous essay -- only to say, yes, yes, I\u2019m aware of these things, but neither quite pertain to the point just now at issue. It\u2019s not a question of whether crime may be justified extra-morally, i.e. aesthetically, but of how -- and if it\u2019s even possible -- to restrict the domain of a certain type of discourse.\",\"id\":\"d167d7e3-03f8-4f85-918d-e998f9789c14\"}]"},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/jasondeadcat.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/474"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/jasondeadcat.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/jasondeadcat.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jasondeadcat.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jasondeadcat.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=474"}],"version-history":[{"count":25,"href":"https:\/\/jasondeadcat.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/474\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":506,"href":"https:\/\/jasondeadcat.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/474\/revisions\/506"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/jasondeadcat.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=474"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jasondeadcat.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=474"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jasondeadcat.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=474"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}