Everyone Has Reversals

Story Lessons, Big and Small (Warning: Spoilers!)

March 11, 2007

How to Kill a Dog

Can't wait to see who stumbles across this blog searching for that cheerful phrase! Welcome, Dexters of the future!

Ahem. To business.


There's a scene in War of the Roses in which wife Barbara has just served husband Oliver some pate. Oliver's looking for common ground, while Barbara just wants to convince him how far she'll go to get him out of "her" house. She drops the hint the pate is made from Oliver's beloved dog Bennie. Oliver's horrified, and immediately begins violently barricading them both in the house to settle this once and for all.


Cut to: Bennie in the front yard, giving a little whimper.


I would love to know if this scene -- the "It's okay, folks, we wouldn't really kill the dog" beat -- was always in the script, or if it was a late-game change. (If someone knows, please be in touch.) Because it really could have gone either way... either Barbara has truly snapped after Oliver accidentally ran over her cat and pissed on her fish. Or Barbara just really wants to convince Oliver there's no chance at reunion. Regardless, the message seems to be that in movies you can kill human beings any way you like, but don't you dare kill the dog.


Except.


Killing the Dog Method #1: A Fish Called Wanda. You may recall the stuttering, but animal-loving Ken being given the task of killing an old lady, and accidentally killing each of her three terriers instead (perhaps most memorably, squished dog by falling safe). Why is this funny and not boycott-worthy? Well, the character killing them desperately wants to kill the old lady, and is devastated with each dog's death. And the comic reversal (Oh no, I killed the dog instead of the person!) takes the sting out of the deaths. Plus the deaths are cartoony to watch. (They were originally shot gorily with butcher's entrails as dead-dog-bits, but audiences said "Gasp!" and the changes were made.)


Killing the Dog Method #2: The Hills Have Eyes (2006). Family on vacation trapped in desert has two dogs with them, Beauty and Beast. Very early on, poor Beauty wanders into the hills and is later found gutted. (Someone found a use for butcher's entrails after all...) It's gross, for sure... but in my memory we don't see the dog actually being killed. Once again, it's okay to show pretty much anything happening to the human beings, but-- the dog is killed off-screen. We're allowed a bit of distance from the event itself. Also, there are two dogs: one as initial victim, the second to avenge that dog's death and repeatedly come to the aid of the humans. The dog has its day in the end.


Killing the Dog Method #3: The Royal Tenenbaums. The day of the wedding, a drugged-up Eli Cash skids up to the house, narrowly missing Ari and Uzi Tenenbaum. Looking down, they realize their beagle Buckley is under the car. This is particularly upsetting given Buckley survived the same plane crash that killed the boys' mother the year before; they all survived the plane crash, but Buckley doesn't survive standing on a sidewalk? This dog death works because it precipitates one of the biggest reversals in the film. Chas, furious Eli almost killed his kids, chases Eli through the house, ready to tear him apart. But when the chase is over, Chas is a changed man. Having his kids come that close to death -- and then getting the rage out of his system -- seems to allow him to "reset". Maybe the other shoe has dropped. Regardless, Chas will no longer be oppressively paranoid about his sons' safety. Thanks to the sacrifice of Buckley.


Phew! That was a lot of dog-killing for one day. I didn't even make it to Eight Below!


You may be wondering if the lesson here is "Jennica should not be allowed two cups of coffee on Sunday mornings". I think it's "writers who wish to kill dogs and other beloved animals on screen, beware".

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1 Comments:

Anonymous Anonymous said...

Then there are those dramatic movies that have characters euthanise their dogs to make them more human and sympathetic -- Hitler in "Downfall", and Michael Caine's character in "Children of Men".

Oh, Michael Caine... he should never, ever die.

2:20 p.m.  

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