A movie that depicts men as inherently violent but also answers what pushes them to that point. David has many things happen to him throughout this film but it is not until his property is threatened that he responds with violence. That is in combo with defending an intellectually disabled person who did kill a young woman. What Sam Peckinpah is showing is how violence in a lot of ways is random but there are always consequences for it. The whole movie is one build up from a man avoiding confrontation to being so calm when it does happen at the end. Yet what he is defending isn't anything more important than what he avoided for the rest of the film. Contrastingly, Peckinpah in combination with his editors shows men's violent nature in different ways. David goes to hunt quail while the same people who have been belittling him and his wife the whole movie go and rape his wife. What is interesting about the after of the rape sequence is that it has no bearing on David. The other storyline of the film follows his younger wife falling less in love with him for paying her no attention and showing her being attracted to someone who does, albeit in a way that would never be approved by modern viewers. That being said, everyone fails in this movie to protect something they value and it leads to the confrontation at end. It feels like this movie shows the inevitability of confrontation and violence no matter how much you avoid it or run from it.
Synopsis: David Sumner (Dustin Hoffman), a mild-mannered academic from the United States, marries Amy (Susan George), an Englishwoman. In order to escape a hectic stateside lifestyle, David and his wife relocate to the small town in rural Cornwall where Amy was raised. There, David is ostracized by the brutish men of the village, including Amy's old flame, Charlie (Del Henney). Eventually the taunts escalate, and two of the locals rape Amy. This sexual assault awakes a shockingly violent side of David.
The problem with almost any synopsis or description with this film you will find is that it makes it seem like a rape and revenge movie. That is far from the truth as you find out throughout the film David seems like the type of man to blame his wife for being raped or the type to not be capable of doing anything about it. He never even finds out about the rape though his wife hints at it to him. This takes place in a rural British village in the early 1970s. Amy coming through the downtown area with a white shirt and no bra is almost like introducing this village to the modern world. A world that at a time without any modern technology was basically like a prehistoric, almost western town, as the rest of the world was changing. You had people traveling in planes and on the phones in other places, but here it is like people who never leave a town in their lives. It is said that David left the American college system because he didn't like the way the world was changing. Things like protests and maybe even the women's rights movement being things he would seem to disagree with. Yet he marries a product of that.
David's relationship with his wife is a little like how someone might treat their pet. He just wants to sit in his office all day and write on his blackboard. He got a land grant to go that house and complete his studies. At first Amy is all gung-ho to tell people like her ex-boyfriend Charlie Venner about David's job and what he is doing. Yet as the movie goes on she finds more value in the attention she gets from Charlie and the people fixing their garage than she does from David. David shows some affection for her, but only at night when he has been studying and neglecting her for hours. They have some cute moments such as her annoyingly, but also jokingly chewing her gum in front of him to which he playfully calls her a child. They also have a moment in bed where David gets her under the covers under the guise of looking for a chess piece yet we know what he really wants to find. Yet at other times he passive aggressive insults her intelligence calling her "not so dumb," when he says what binary numbers are. The comparisons to treating her like a pet are apt.
Enter Charlie and some of the other townspeople fixing their garage. Scutt and Chris were hired first and instead of firing them like he says he will at one point David just hires Charlie to help them. They all ogle Amy one morning when she gets home from town. Starting at her skirt rising up as she gets out of the car. She complains to David that "they were practically licking my body." Instead of sticking up for her, or even defending her, he jokes saying "I compliment them on their taste." He also blames her and says you can't blame them for staring if you don't wear a bra. The first of many things that would be considered victim blaming by a modern audience. Amy proceeds to go even further by going topless near the window that leads to the shower while all the men stare at her. More on this later.
The insults go further and eventually David finds Amy's dead cat, notably a cat David finds annoying, hanging in the closet. Amy wants David to confront Charlie and the others about this but instead just has them come inside the house and move a giant mantrap. I'm not sure whether or not he was ever going to go through with the confrontation but definitely decides against it when Amy comes in with the milk to give to her cat while she gives all the men beers. The men invite David to go hunting with them which he does accept. At this point Amy leaves a note on his board saying, "did I catch you off guard?" Something David had said to her that he planned to catch the other men off guard. This is not the only time David doesn't respond to some instigating Amy does. Earlier she put a subtraction sign on his board instead of an addition sign and put gum on the blackboard even when he told her not to do it. Amy acts a bit like a child wanting attention but once again David does nothing and can't even give her any negative reinforcement. The way she treats him is a microcosm of how the others do.
As David goes hunting, the others all leave him be and Charlie, and later Scutt rape Amy. Charlie comes to the door, Amy lets him in and he forces himself on her at first just kissing her. She asks him to leave but he does not and then starts slapping her around and eventually gets her on the couch and takes her clothes off. After a certain amount of time Amy's fighting grunts become moans and she starts caressing Charlie in a way that shows she submits to him. What happens next however is Scutt coming in and pressuring Charlie at gunpoint and gesturing for him to move away from Amy. He does so but also holds Amy down while Scutt rapes her, Amy showing she is certainly not comfortable with this by screaming. This is intercut with David shooting at quail and eventually hitting one and walking home as the others have stranded him. When he gets home Amy is in bed and she calls him and herself a coward. The next night in my favorite sequence of the movie, David and Amy go to church where Amy keeps thinking about her rape as we see in cuts. This is only made more uncomfortable by the cacophonous noise of the children's party favors before a magic show. I like this scene because of the editing with the cuts to images from Amy's mind but also the look of distress on Susan George and the cutting to the children, symbolizing both their innocence and Amy's loss of but also the noise probably not making her feel any better and more overwhelmed. It almost feels like a nightmare that you is happening and the rape has happened. Not many movies show how a woman would feel right after this event. Far be it for me to be able to speak on the subject but I think a lot of movies turn it into trauma leading to revenge. This shows how Amy is just uncomfortable and feels sick.
Spoiler Section
David and Amy leave as Amy feels uncomfortable. While driving they hit Henry Niles, an intellectually disabled person with a history at the asylum. It is never said why he was committed but it is implied that he was a child predator of sorts. One of the men tells Tom Hedden, the town drunk, and Charlie's Uncle that Janice, Tom's young daughter, was seen leaving the church with Henry. Henry had accidentally choked Janice to death while men were looking for them. That scene is quite similar to Lennie accidentally killing Curley's wife in Of Mice and Men. This leads to a siege and home invasion narrative at Amy and David's house with David fighting each man when they attempt to enter his home. There are no scenes of cathartic violence really except for when David kills Chris by beating him to death with a fire poker while the bagpipe music he put on earlier plays in the background. You get some of Peckinpah's signature slow motion when Tom attempts to enter the house and Henry hits while he enters the window forcing Tom to shoot himself in the foot with his own shotgun.
There are several interesting things that happen during this invasion. For the first time in this movie we see David comfortable, almost a little too comfortable with standing up to these men. In many ways he has an advantage. The men can't come in the front door because of how well reinforced it is. They have to come in the windows giving David a chance to defend the windows before they can come in. David had fired the men earlier after they stranded him on the hunting trip. That was his first show of confidence and getting fed up. He is so calm and collected in this situation you just wonder what his mindset was throughout the rest of the film and how it changed so suddenly. He talks about how "I will not allow violence against this house." It is interesting that throughout the film the men have shown no respect toward him but he seemed to be okay taking it. Now when it comes to his home and defending a man, a questionable man at best in Henry Niles he sees the responsibility to defend them, therefore defending himself. At one point Henry attacks Amy. You're not sure why but David stops him. David later starts slapping Amy around when she wants to give Henry to the mob. After David slaps her around a bit she becomes more submissive helping him bring the mantrap downstairs. At one point Scutt gets in upstairs. Who saves her from being assaulted again but Charlie. After that Charlie fights with David and David ends up snapping Charlie's neck in the mantrap. At this point David fights the man who drove the men to his house, Riddaway. Amy eventually shoots Riddaway. David and Niles leave with each man saying they don't know their way home.
While I don't necessarily find Straw Dogs to be the most rewatchable movie, it is a movie that I like more and more each time I watch it. That could sound contradictory, but there are many movies I have seen once that I will never watch again. The questions that this movie poses and the moments that are memorable to me are always worth watching again. I would get in trouble with modern feminists and people that are like minded for saying Amy is to blame in some ways for her fate. I never have had any problems with the way she dresses or her lack of clothing, for example not wearing a bra. What I do have a problem with is her getting topless and walking by all the men while she knows what she is doing, and they know it too. While she is trying to get attention that her husband is not giving her, she is still planting an idea in the heads of men that she is accessible. There is probably someone feminist minded screaming at me for saying that. I would compare Amy to someone who has money and holds that money out for everyone to see. Amy not wearing a bra and dressing more moderately is like someone showing or saying they have an expensive gold watch or something. Amy walking by the men is like someone flashing that gold watch in front of their faces and saying you can't steal it much like how Amy tells Charlie to leave when he makes his move on her. Can you expect many men to say no when they can easily overpower her? I wouldn't, but many people of other minds would call me a victim blamer when I am just simply saying Amy put the idea in their minds that they could do what they wanted. Other sequences like the scene in the church, and fan theories like did David actually kill the cat? The rape scene can be interpreted many ways but it warrants discussion no matter your viewpoint. As troubling as it is, if Scutt doesn't interfere you could argue that Amy and Charlie would have started an affair. Those are reasons why I love this movie and I feel like I have different interpretations of it every time. It makes you ask hard questions.
Rating: 10/10
Trivia: T.P. McKenna, who plays Major John Scott has his arm in a sling for a lot of the film. This is because of a party with some escorts where his arm was apparently harmed, an event that was arranged by Peckinpah himself.
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