Art Versus Exploitation: The Virgin Spring and The Last House on the Left

"The herdsman three took her to wife

And then they took from her her life."

-"Tore's Daughter at Vange" (line 11)

"Tore's Daughter at Vange," a 13th century Swedish ballad by Ulla Isaksson, has inspired no less than four film adaptations, including Ingmar Bergman's The Virgin Spring (1960), The Last House on the Left (Wes Craven's 1972 cult classic and the 2009 remake) and Chaos (2005). Of the four, I have seen only Bergman's The Virgin Spring and Craven's original The Last House on the Left. Bergman's film is the work of a master--an examination of man's inhumanity and God's place in a chaotic universe. It is a work both philosophic and poetic. Craven's film, on the other hand, exploits violence and sex for no apparent purpose, other than to disgust the audience. That art and exploitation can come from the same source is of immense interest to me, and seems to prove the old maxim that it's not what you do but how you do it.

The story of the ballad is rather simple. The daughter of a wealthy landowner is on her way to church. While passing through the woods, she is raped and killed by bandits. Later that same evening, the bandits seek shelter in the girl's home. When they offer to sell the girl's garments to her mother, the mother realizes what has happened and tells her husband who exacts his revenge upon the bandits. Full of remorse for what he has done, the father promises to build a church on the spot where his daughter was killed.

Bergman's film follows the plot of the ballad rather strictly, to the point that it is even set in medieval Sweden. Craven's film makes the story contemporary (the daughter is on her way to a concert with a friend instead of church and the bandits are a group of escaped convicts), and removes the religious themes that Bergman explores. This alone would not keep Craven from exploring the moral and ethical questions implicit in the story. However, Craven is more interested in portraying violence than considering the effects of it. Bergman's film is about what happens before and after the violent acts. For Craven, it's about portraying the violence--everything else is just filler.

Some would undoubtedly say, in defense of Craven's film, that Craven set out to achieve something completely different than Bergman. That Craven intended to make a horror film, not an art film. Yet this argument seems to limit the genre of horror by implying that no horror film can achieve the artfulness of a film like The Virgin Spring. Of course, nothing could be further from the truth. Since the days of silent films, filmmakers have been producing great horror films. Some violent, some not. Craven himself has made some worthwhile contributions to the genre, including Wes Craven's New Nightmare and Scream. Both of these films, although not necessarily artistic, at least try to do more than just depict the slaughter of human beings.

When The Virgin Spring was released in the United States, the murder of the daughter was heavily edited. The Criterion Edition DVD of the film contains the scene as it was originally filmed, and while it is shocking and brutal, it's amazing how little Bergman shows the audience compared to how much is communicated. There is no gore or nudity, yet we know what is happening. Bergman portrays the violence, but he does not dwell on it. Craven, however, revels in it. To this day the British censors will not allow The Last House on the Left to be shown uncut, and for good reason. When I saw the film, I could not bring myself to look at the screen during the murders.

This, I think, is the difference between violence that matters in movies and violence that doesn't. You should not want to look away when a character is being killed, no matter how gruesome the acts is. As an audience member you should have so much invested in the characters that you will remain with them even in their darkest hour. While this is the case with The Virgin Spring, it is not the case with The Last House on the Left. The daughter in the former film is a fully formed character, a human being that we care about; the daughter in the latter is just a pawn to be knocked off so that the parents can enact the revenge fantasy.

Between the scenes of violence in The Last House on the Left are some frivolous scenes involving a pair of incompetent policemen pursuing the killers. These scenes are no doubt intended as comic relief. The scenes featuring the policemen are set to ridiculous banjo music, and one can't help but think the filmmakers were trying to recreate the juxtaposition of silliness and violence that worked so well in Bonnie and Clyde. One would think comic relief would be welcome, instead the scenes of comedy cheapen the scenes of violence. Any comic relief in The Virgin Spring (or any of Bergman's serious films for that matter) flows naturally from the characters and the situations, and does not feel that it has forced its way into the film.

When the film Chaos (supposedly, more of a rip off of The Last House than a proper remake) was released in 2005, Roger Ebert gave the film a zero star review, which led the film makers to write him a letter defending their film and the evil that they portray. Ebert responded in an articulate letter (reprinted on his website, and in his 2006 movie yearbook) that addresses the moral responsibility of artists in a world where such evil exists. "What I object to most of all in Chaos is not the sadism, the brutality, the torture, the nihilism, but the absence of any alternative to them. If the world has indeed become as evil as you think, then we need the redemptive power of artists, poets, philosophers, and theologians more than ever. Your answer, that the world is evil and it is your responsibility to reflect it, is no answer at all, but a surrender."

Some have defended the content of The Last House on the Left (and other films of its era and nature) by saying it reflects the issues of it's time--that it is the only logical response to a post-Manson family, Vietnam era America. That too, I believe, is a surrender. It's also egotistical, because it presupposes that Americans in the last half of the 20th century are the only ones to have been subjected to violence and terror. Violence can be, and has been, portrayed on film since the inception of the art form. However, it is how it is portrayed that matters.

In the end of The Virgin Spring, the girl's father gets down on his hands and knees and asks God where he was while this violence was taking place. An uncomfortable yet legitimate question. No such questions are asked in The Last House on the Left. The parents exact their revenge and that's it. End of film. The audience is left with no moral, no message except that the world is full of terror and violence and the only logical reaction is to respond in kind. Which is, of course, no moral at all, but, as Mr. Ebert points out, a surrender.

2001: A Space Odyssey

The subject of Stanley Kubrick's 2001: A Space Odyssey is evolution--human evolution, to be specific. However, Kubrick isn't concerned with biology. The film addresses broader issues of human existence than the origins of life. Early in the film we see man as a lower form of primate, but we don't see him develop the ability to walk up-right or speak a language. What we do see is man develop the ability to use tools (weapons, actually), and with that development modern man is born.

The scene where the first primates learn to use tools is preceded by a scene where they are visited by a mysterious black monolith. It is apparent that the monolith was sent by an extra-terrestrial intelligence to speed along the species' evolution. Why they want to do this is unclear. An appearance by a physical being may have cleared that up, but one of the strengths of the film (especially as a work of science-fiction) is that Kubrick stays away from anything that had been done before. Popular physicist Michio Kaku has called 2001 "perhaps the most realistic depiction of an encoutner with an extra-terrestrial civilization." It's difficult to say whether a depiction of something that has never happened is realistic or not. However, one cannot help but agree that the depiction of extra-terrestrial contact has an element of realism to it. Realism that would have been lost had Kubrick decided to depict an actual, physical being.

The film's story is divided into three distinct sections. The first deals with the primates coming into contact with the monolith and developing the ability to use tools. The second section begins with one of the most startling jump cuts in film history (when a primate throws a bone into the air and it suddenly becomes a spaceship) and follows NASA employee Heywood Floyd (William Sylvester) to the Moon where humans have uncovered another monolith. The final section deals with the Jupiter mission led by the astronauts Dave Bowman (Keir Dullea) and Frank Poole (Gary Lockwood) and the super-computer HAL 9000 voiced by Douglas Rain (fans of the film have speculated about the fact that HAL's initials are only one letter away from IBM's, but screenwriter Arthur C. Clarke insists that it is only a coincidence).

When the audience first meets the crew of the Jupiter mission, the movie is well into its second hour. However, it is only then that we meet the first interesting and empathetic (and truly human) character in the film--the computer HAL 9000. The story until this point has traced humanity's developing conciousness, and this is mirrored in HAL's developing awareness of his own individuality and mortality. The scene when Dave Bowman must deprogram HAL, after HAL has killed Frank Poole and tried to lock Dave out of the ship, is the one truly emotional moment in the film. It is only after Dave has deprogramed HAL that the intentions of the Jupiter mission are made known to him.

What follows is one of the most visually exciting and truly cryptic sequences in all of cinema. Bowman travels through space (which looks like a psychadelic light show) and across dessert landscapes, finally arriving in a small bedroom. Over a few minutes, the audience (and Bowman) sees Bowman age from a young man to an old man dying in bed, only to see him reborn again moments later as the mystical star-child. It's not made explicit what this means exactly, but it is not necessary to know. What is clear is that Bowman, like the early primate who used tools for the first time, has reached the next stage in man's evolution.

Considering the film was released a year before the U.S. landed on the moon, it is incredible to think of how much Kubrick and his special effects team got right in terms of the reality of space travel. This has a lot to do with the talents of special effects supervisor Douglas Trumbull (who also did the special effects for Blade Runner) and the experts that Kubrick consulted to ensure every detail was as realistic as possible. But it also has a lot to do with Kubrick's notorious attention to detail. Had Kubrick been lazy about something or compromised in any way it's doubtful that the visuals would have been as effective as they are.

2001 is truly the great special effects movie, but it is also a great musical movie. After seeing the film one can hardly listen to Johann Strauss' "Blue Danube" and not think of ships floating through space and the calming effect of weightlessness. Richard Strauss' "Thus Spake Zarathustra" has become so closely connected with the film that I have often heard it refered to as "the theme to 2001." Originally, Kubrick had commisioned a score by composer Alex North. However, when Kubrick began editing the scenes he set them to classical music, and once he had seen how well the images matched the music the original score was scrapped. Alex North's score has since been recorded, and although it is a perfectly enjoyable piece of music it is impossible to imagine 2001 set to any other sounds.

It's difficult to think of another great director who worked in such varied genres to such great success. Kubrick's many great works include the war film Paths of Glory, the Cold War comedy Dr. Stranglove: or How I learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb, and the horror film The Shinning. Each is as different from the other (and 2001) as is possible, but each film attains it's own unique kind of perfection.

2001 is a film that is as maddening as it is enthralling. It has been called slow, and one can understand why. It is a film where nothing seems to happen, yet everything does happen. In his great movies essay on the film, Roger Ebert (who was at the film's L.A. premier) writes of Rock Hudson infamously storming down the aisle muttering "Would someone tell me what the hell this is about?" Although not everyone stayed, Ebert writes, "those who remained until the end knew they had seen one of the greatest films ever made." 2001 changed the face of science-fiction film making and influenced a variety of films that followed, including Star Trek: The Motion Picture, the Star Wars series, and Spielberg's Close Encounters of the Third Kind. Yet none of these films, however good they are on their own terms, achieve the purity and thoughtfulness of 2001.

Heat: A Game of Cops and Robbers

The characters in most of Michael Mann's films fall into two distinct categories: cops and robbers. Whether a character is one or the other has nothing to do with what society has made them and everything to do with their nature. These characters are always men, and though their natures are opposed they often find that they have more in common with each other than they do with the women who share their beds. That's not to say that Mann isn't interested in women as subjects, but it's hard to tell from his films whether or not he understands them. His male characters certainly don't. Generally, the presence of females offers a moment of solace to the male characters before they are pulled back into the Darwinian struggle with other men that defines their existence. Over the course of a career spanning nearly 40 years, Mann has only directed a handful of theatrical releases including The Last of the Mohicans (1992), The Insider (1999), Collateral (2004) and Public Enemies (2009). However, his great work to date is Heat (1995), an entirely engaging action thriller that relies on character more than gun play to propel its story.


Heat is the story of two men: a thief, Neil McCauley (Robert DeNiro), and a detective, Vincent Hanna (Al Pacino). The two are obviously very similar. They each have a tight, regular crew of men they work with, and they are both the best at what they do. It is the way that they let their work effect their romantic lives that the men are most similar. Hanna is on his third marriage which is falling apart and McCauley tells his girlfriend he is a salesman because he lives by a strict code that requires no personal attachments that he can't abandon when he senses trouble.


In the book In a Different Voice (Harvard University Press, 1982), feminist psychologist Carol Gilligan addresses the different situations that men and women perceive as dangerous. Gilligan writes, "If aggression is conceived as a response to the perception of danger, the findings of the images of violence study suggests that men and women may perceive danger in different social situations and construe danger in different ways--men seeing danger more often in close personal affiliation than in achievement and construing danger to arise from intimacy, women perceiving danger in impersonal achievement situations and construing danger to result from from competitive success." It's doubtful that Mann read Gilligan's book before he made Heat, yet the gender issues that Gilligan addresses are perfectly illustrated in the film. Hanna and McCauley are both defined by what they do, and although intimate relationships with women are comforting, more often than not the relationships merely interfere with work. Neither Hanna nor McCauley knows how to do anything else, and neither of them wants to do anything else. For McCauley to be the best requires him to be free of any attachments, so that when he is pursued he has no regrets over what he is leaving behind. For Hanna to be the best it requires him to be as mobile as McCauley, which means showing up late for dinner and leaving his wife alone while his step-daughter is recovering in the hospital.


It's not only the audience that notices the similarities between the lives of Hanna and McCauley--each man seems to acknowledge a kinship with the other. This kinship is established midway through in the film's great scene (the first that DeNiro and Pacino ever appeared in together). Hanna has been trailing McCauley and his men for some time and McCauley knows it, and eventually Hanna finds out that McCauley knows. Instead of continuing their game of cat and mouse, Hanna pulls McCauley over on the freeway one night and suggests that they get a cup of coffee. McCauley agrees to the idea, and soon the two men are sitting at a diner talking about their professions, their lives, and even their dreams. As their conversation is coming to a close, they acknowledge that one of them, eventually, will have to kill the other. "Or maybe we'll never see each other again" says MacCauley. But neither of them seems to believe this.


The scene is great for many reasons. Not only are two of the greatest actors of their generation together on screen for the first time (they were both in The Godfather Part II, but shared no screen time) but it invests the audience in these two men emotionally. So that the climax is not merely a shoot-out between a cop and a robber, but a confrontation between two complex and interesting men. When one of them does have to kill the other, it's not just a bad guy killing a good guy or a good guy killing a bad guy--it's a man knowing he has killed the only person who understands him.


Returning to Heat over the years is a refreshing experience not only because of the honesty and intelligence of the characters, but because of the purity of the action scenes. Mann takes gunfire and its consequences seriously. This is true for most of his films, but especially Heat, where the gunfights are as frightening as they are exhilarating. The most notable sequence is when a bank robbery spills out to the streets of L.A., and there is a gunfight between McCauley's crew and the police. Not only can you hear the guns being fired, you can almost feel the impact of the bullets.


Mann has returned to similar subject matter for Collateral and (more blatantly) for his new film Public Enemies. Each is an excellent example of action film making, however no film Mann has made since attains the perfection of Heat. It's uncertain exactly why, but those other films seem restrained in some way--as if Mann was held back because of the circumstances of the stories. Thankfully, this was not the case with Heat, which is one of the best (certainly one of the most underrated) films of its decade.