UNNERVING IMAGES: CINEMATIC REPRESENTATIONS OF ANIMAL SLAUGHTER AND THE ETHICS OF SHOCK by Sarah Jane O’Brien A thesis submitted in conformity with the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy Graduate Department of The Centre for Comparative Literature University of Toronto © Copyright by Sarah Jane O’Brien (2012) —Abstract— UNNERVING IMAGES: CINEMATIC REPRESENTATIONS OF ANIMAL SLAUGHTER AND THE ETHICS OF SHOCK Sarah Jane O’Brien Doctor of Philosophy, 2012 The Centre for Comparative Literature University of Toronto This dissertation forges critical connections between the industrial logic of cutting up animals to make meat and cinematic techniques of cutting up indexical images of animals to create spectacle. I begin by identifying the cinematic attraction of violent animal death. In Chapter One, I argue that social and material conditions prevent cinema from representing real (i.e., unsimulated) human death, and the medium in turn relies on animal bodies to register visible evidence of death. I contend that this displacement does not yield the definitive knowledge of death that it promises; reviewing scenes of animal death, we acquire no real knowledge of the “fact” of death, but rather approach an understanding that we share death—finitude, vulnerability, suffering—with animals. Cinema’s ethical potential rests on its singular capacity to lay bare this shared susceptibility, and I thus shift my attention to evaluating how seminal scenes of animal slaughter and fundamental techniques of film form fulfil or fail this ethical potential. I begin my wide-ranging analysis by identifying and critiquing, in Chapter Two, the methods of exposure that currently dominate cinematic representations of slaughter. Through readings of an animal-advocacy video made by PETA, an industrial film made by the Hormel Co., a documentary about a labour dispute at a slaughter plant, and two popular animated representations of the meat industry, I demonstrate that these methods aim to maximize the visibility of slaughter, yet in doing so they mobilise conventions that disconnect slaughter from daily life and disassociate the spectator from the ii slaughtered animal body. I then look to representational strategies that destabilize the notion of slaughter as something apart. In Chapter Three, I question the enduring trope, inaugurated by Sergei Eisenstein’s Strike, of aligning indexical images of animal death with dramatic performances of human trauma and death; the production of this sort of dialectical conflict, I argue, elides the singularity and significance of animal life. In Chapter Four, I demonstrate, through close readings of Dziga Vertov’s Kino-Eye and Charles Burnett’s Killer of Sheep, the ethical value of non-dialectical formal strategies (namely, defamiliarization and juxtaposition) that develop connections between slaughter and daily life. iii —Acknowledgements— This dissertation would not have been possible without the careful reading, critical insight, and well-timed encouragement and levity of my dissertation committee. Over the course of my graduate studies and in every stage of this project, Eva-Lynn Jagoe inspired me to be a better reader and writer, and gently nudged me to answer the question, “so what?” Corinn Columpar shared her awe-inspiring understanding of film and film theory with me, and provided invaluable feedback along the way. Sara Salih graciously let me sit in on her thought-provoking seminar “‘The Human’ and the ‘Animal,’” and even more graciously agreed, at the eleventh hour, to lend her discerning eye to this project. Angela Cozea, an honorary member of the committee, sparked many of the initial ideas for this project and was a reassuring presence during the writing of it. In his capacity as internal reader, Eric Cazdyn brought his invaluable attention to the formal and political registers of this project. Jennifer Fay, who served as external reader, gave me feedback of the best variety—the kind that generates the next level of scholarship. Nor would this dissertation have been possible without the support of The Centre for Comparative Literature at the University of Toronto. Aphrodite Gardener and Bao Nguyen made all the administrative worries of graduate school disappear. The early encouragement and assistance of Neil ten Kortenaar and Jill Ross helped this project get off the ground and ensured its completion. This dissertation would not read as cogently as (I hope) it does without the exacting feedback of my writing group: Joe Culpepper, Ronald Ng, Rachel Stapleton, and Martin Zeilinger. I also want to thank Ronald for convincing me to stick with the writing—and even to love it once in awhile—and Martin for emphasizing the bigger picture. Catherine Schwartz and Lana Swartz very generously read chapters and gave me perceptive feedback. iv A great many of the ideas in this dissertation were triggered by and/or worked out in conversations with incredibly generous and knowledgeable colleagues. Discussions with James Cahill about André Bazin and Jacques Derrida proved formative at the beginning stages. Conversations with Nicole Shukin about the material logic of animal disassembly influenced my work as a whole and promise to inform subsequent stages of it. This dissertation and my broader scholarly interests were shaped and sharpened by the opportunity, in 2010–11, to work with a diverse group of scholars concerned with the topic of “Image and Spectacle” at the University of Toronto’s Jackman Humanities Institute, and I would like to extend a warm thanks to the staff and fellows at the JHI for their insight and friendship. I also want to extend my gratitude to my colleagues and students at the Abelard School, who not only were incredibly encouraging and enthusiastic about this project, but also provided me with a much-needed respite from it. Last but certainly not least, the encouragement and love of my friends and family kept me plugging away at this project. Michael Lamb, Bradley Rogers, Julia Schilling, Kay Tappan, Heather White, and many of the colleagues listed above kept me laughing and sane—or at least close to it. Myra Bloom shared a cozy house, a bleak carrel, and her seemingly endless store of perspective and hilarity with me. Paul Dallas never let me forget la passione. Katie Hitt and Mark O’Brien were constant sources of reason and motivation. Finally, Laurie O’Brien pushed me to question the limits between humans and animals, and showed me that writing was my way to address them. This dissertation is dedicated to her memory. v —Table of Contents— Abstract……………………………………………..…………………………...….................ii Acknowledgements……..…………………………………………………………..…….iv Introduction……………..…………………………..……………………………………..1 Chapter One Why Look at Dead Animals? I. Reading Rules, Facing Facts……………………………………………………..30 II. “Again and Again”……………………………………………………………….56 Chapter Two “Put a Video Camera Inside and Show It”: The Ethics of Exposing Animal Slaughter I. Framing Animal Slaughter……………………………………………………….83 II. It Matters How You Slice It………………………………………………...........86 III. The Place of Suffering……………………………………………………………91 IV. Naming Slaughter………...…………………………………...………………….99 V. The “Slaughterhouse Aesthetic”…………………………….……………...…..104 VI. The Sound of Slaughter…………………………………………………………121 VII. The Slaughterhouse as a Site of Proto-Cinematic Spectatorship….…................131 Chapter Three Shocking Blows: Dialectical Montage and the Attraction of Slaughter I. Introduction to Eisenstein’s Montage and Strike……………………………….141 II. The Mechanics of Dialectical Montage………………………………………...148 III. “A demonstration of the real”; or, the problem with (re)counting slaughter…...163 IV. “The swift blow as the ethical blow; the swift blow as ethics”………………...172 V. Efficiency and Excess…………………………………………………………..188 Chapter Four Binding and Loosing; or, The Ethics of Making Present I. Catching Life Unawares: Dziga Vertov’s Kino-Eye……………..…………....191 II. Nous revenons à nos moutons: Charles Burnett’s Killer of Sheep…..….……..213 Conclusion…….…..……………………………………………………………...………...246 Works Cited Filmography…………………………………………………………………………250 Bibliography……………………………………………………………….....……...253 vi —Introduction— I began thinking about this dissertation by casting a wide net, collecting texts and images that speak to a broad thematic: the ways humans represent and relate to animals through the literary and visual arts. At some point, the preliminary work of taking stock— of attempting to size up a vast discursive field—began to look like its opposite, and I found myself carving out a much more specific set of questions and deciding on a course to find their answers. These questions are, in brief, why do we look at documentary cinematic representations of violent animal death (specifically, animal slaughter), and are there ethical ways to construct and view such films? In retrospect, I can pinpoint two images that played a formative role in this transition—this narrowing of scope and intensification of purpose—and I discuss them here as a way of delineating the aims of this dissertation. I unfold these readings slowly and deliberately, with an eye to accounting for the central questions that motivate and structure this work as whole. The first reading, of Rainer Maria Rilke’s object poem “Schwarze Katze” (“Black Cat,” 1908), prepares my consideration, in Chapter One, of the medium-specific reasons for looking at animal death in film. The second, of the closing sequence of the documentary The Cove (Louie Psihoyos, 2009), explains the impetus behind