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.