The crying game

Backpacker Kristy (Kestie Morassi) finds herself in mortal danger after accepting help from a local in Wolf Creek, one of many recent films that include torture scenes. (Daniel Guerra/Weinstein Company/Associated Press)

’Twas a time — OK, 1992 — when seeing one man torture another appalled movie audiences. We were privy to such a scene in Reservoir Dogs, Quentin Tarantino’s heady debut. In the aftermath of a thwarted bank heist, one of the felons, nicknamed Mr. Blonde (Michael Madsen), takes a cop hostage in order to determine who tipped off police. Mr. Blonde duct-tapes the officer to a chair, demanding an answer. When the cop pleads ignorance, Mr. Blonde lops his ear off with a switchblade.

We don’t actually see the act — at the operative moment, Tarantino pans to the left, leaving the viewer to contemplate a drab green wall (and the officer’s muffled cries). Despite playful direction and upbeat soundtrack (’70s radio hit Stuck in the Middle With You), the scene is, to quote another Tarantino villain, some “repugnant shit.” But compared to the current spate of onscreen torture, it’s downright quaint.

In Hostel (2005), a trio of backpackers travel to Bratislava, Slovakia, on the promise of gorgeous and game women. What they find is a veritable torture factory, where wealthy men pay to brutalize locals and hapless tourists; one unhappy camper is drilled in the chest and legs before having both his Achilles tendons slashed. In the low-budget Saw franchise, a serial killer named Jigsaw torments his victims both physically and morally. In the 2004 original, a woman is outfitted with a metal device that will wrench her face apart unless she obtains the key. The catch? It’s embedded in the stomach of the man lying on the floor nearby. A victim in Saw II (2005) is ensconced in a similar device; the key is behind his right eye.

Torture has become a recurring motif in our media landscape. From the graphic accounts of the Rwandan genocide to the beheading of American reporter Daniel Pearl to the scandalous photos from Abu Ghraib, real-world violence has become, if not more widespread, then certainly more vivid. (The internet, where many of these images are found, has had a big hand in this.) With little fanfare and even less shame, torture has crept into pop culture. Acts of sadism dominate not only Hostel and Saw, but films like Turistas, The Devil’s Rejects and Wolf Creek. It’s also a key element in prime-time television series like 24, Lost, Law & Order and The Shield (as well as the late Alias).

Torture has even invaded our urban landscape. Last month, the Motion Picture Association of America reprimanded U.S. film company After Dark Films for a billboard promoting the upcoming thriller Captivity. In it, Canadian actress Elisha Cuthbert plays a supermodel who is kidnapped and tormented by a deranged fan. The offending ad, which appeared in New York and Los Angeles, featured Cuthbert in four panels, labelled “Abduction,” “Confinement,” “Torture” and “Termination.” In the final frame, she appears to be dead. While After Dark has yanked the ad, the film’s current poster — in which Cuthbert looks to be buried alive — is no less vexing.

Indeed, the most troubling part of this wave is how brazenly torture is presented. Many of the depictions are gratuitous and exploitative; others are more restrained. But rarely is the subject dealt with critically, or as something more than a visual provocation.

Troy (J. Larose) becomes a plaything for a serial killer named Jigsaw in Saw III. (Lions Gate Films)

The use of physical torment to obtain valuable intelligence, for the purposes of religious conversion or simply as a perverse punishment, has been a staple of humanity as far back as the Crucifixion. (The Inquisition would probably qualify as torture’s golden age.) The cases of Ottawa’s Maher Arar and Nova Scotia native William Sampson have educated Canadians about modern methods. Mistakenly thought to be an al-Qaeda operative, Arar suffered two years of agony in a Syrian prison; Sampson spent two and a half years in a Saudi jail, falsely accused of a bombing in Riyadh. Since being released, Sampson has spoken openly about what he endured; one of his most excruciating punishments was being hung naked and upside down and lashed on the backside, the feet and the scrotum. “The pain from that is just incredible,” said Sampson. “I just felt like my entire body was about to explode out of my ears and my eyes.”

Some screen depictions of torture illuminate the ruthlessness with which people will go about getting information. In Syriana, a dark exploration of how American oil interests influence Middle Eastern politics, aging CIA operative Bob Barnes (George Clooney) is asked to assassinate the reform-minded prince of an unnamed Persian Gulf state. Before he can pull the trigger, Barnes is kidnapped and taken to a dank hideout. To compel Barnes to reveal his contacts, an “interrogator” pulls out his fingernails. The scene is severe but short, meant only to demonstrate the incredible stakes of the oil trade.

What we’re seeing in films like Saw is part of the general ratcheting up of gore — horror fans are by definition bloodthirsty, always hungering for newer, harsher, more audacious splatter. In the past, the vilest stuff was found in cult films — Japanese filmmaker Takeshi Miike (Audition, Ichi the Killer) is often cited as the most splatterific. But mainstream audiences are showing an increasing bloodlust: Hostel grossed $80 million US in worldwide box office receipts and another $180 million in DVD sales; the Saw series has earned more than $200 million US.

The biggest perpetrator of mainstream torture is the television show 24, which goes about its business with almost gleeful brutality. Every season of 24 encapsulates a single 24-hour day in the life of U.S. agent Jack Bauer (Canadian Kiefer Sutherland). In previous seasons, he’s had to fend off a presidential assassination, a biological weapon attack and a hostage crisis, among other events. The show is currently in its sixth season; this time around, an Islamic group has dropped a nuclear bomb on Los Angeles and is threatening more carnage before the day is out. And so Jack goes around interrogating a multi-ethnic coterie of villains in the hopes of stopping the next blast. His methods of gaining valuable, time-sensitive information are notorious: this season alone, we’ve seen him take off a Russian diplomat’s finger with a cigar cutter and asphyxiate his own brother with a plastic bag.

What’s missing in all this onscreen sadism is a conscience. Horror films can be partially excused; they exist simply to freak you out. Hostel, at least, offers a potent twist: as people pursue ever more extreme pleasures, is it not conceivable that someone, somewhere, would pay to torture another human being? It’s a mordant extrapolation of man’s cruelty, but stops short of denouncing it. After all, it was the film’s promise of brutality that put people in theatres — and inspired Hostel: Part II, out this June.

While 24 provides a bracing reminder of the urgency and inherent dangers of counterterrorism, it rarely confronts the ethics and efficacy of torture, a debate that rages daily on talk shows and op-ed pages. Back in 2001, Saudi officials got William Sampson to confess — on TV, no less — to murder. He was later proven innocent. Therein lies a key element of torture: people will say anything to make it stop.

Jack Bauer doesn’t have time for such trifling nuance; he’s got villains to smack around. In a recent blog post for The Nation magazine, Jon Wiener observed that 24 “is much more successful than the White House at making the case for torture.” Indeed, there’s even ghastly talk that U.S. soldiers in Iraq are using Jack Bauer’s methods as inspiration. In February, executive producer Howard Gordon announced that 24 would mitigate its use of torture — not out of a sense of guilt, but because “the idea of physical coercion or torture is no longer a novelty or surprise.” I get what Gordon is saying — he doesn’t want 24 to become predictable. Even so, it’s a depressing statement about our desensitization to onscreen violence.

Andre Mayer writes about the arts for CBC.ca.

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