Cockfighter

Monday, July 7, 2008

I need to see some more Warren Oates movies. Am I wrong when I say that this guy is awesome? No, no I am not wrong. Warren Oates rules.

This is another movie by Monte Hellman, who did Two Lane Blacktop, and it's got a similar sorta laid back, ramblin' feel to it, but I liked this one even more. Oates is front and center here, and even though he takes a vow of silence for most of the movie, he still somehow dominates the film with his charm and presence.

The cockfights in this are apparently unsimulated, so I'm guessing that a lot of people would not be cool with this movie. It didn't bother me, but I guess it does raise some interesting moral questions about movies. Namely, is it okay to kill an animal for a movie? And I'm not exactly sure what I believe. I am definitely no animal lover, and stuff like this or, say, the squid eating scene in Oldboy seem perfectly acceptable to me. But then I've seen some of those Italian cannibal movies, where they show animals being mutilated and killed for real, and I do take issue with that. What I'm not sure is... is it a matter of cruelty towards the animals that bothers me, or am I simply more accepting of it in a better film. Is it a matter of the act of violence towards the animal itself, or is it how that act relates to the work of art as a whole? Hard to say.