Save this article to read it later.
Find this story in your accountsSaved for Latersection.
A curious ritual takes place between them.
He asks her to sing, offering payment in the form of a piece of jewelry.
He pushes her against the table.
The camera then pans to show us what shes looking at: the crackling fire before her.
The film requires us to bear witness to the minute and overarching effects of colonialism.
Violence isnt just part of the story, itisthe story.
Who do rape scenes serve?
If you look at any rape scene in cinema, you will see womens naked bodies.
That, for example, for me was a no go.
I didnt want to look at it from the male gaze.
Each circles around the sexual violence white men inflict upon women.
WhenThe Story of Temple Drakemade it into theaters in 1933, Hollywood was on the precipice of mammoth change.
She spends her evenings cavorting with different men, a river of cocktails always flowing.
Everything she desires is within reach.
They reluctantly accept the help of a couple of shady characters and take shelter in a rundown plantation.
After Trigger spends the night hovering around her, Temple goes into the barn to sleep, fitfully.
(Her own lover is drunk as hell and no help to her.)
He kills Tommy before he can protest.
Temple lays on the barn floor, frozen in fear.
He stalks toward her until her bloodcurdling scream rips through the silence and the scene fades to black.
When we see Temple next, she is listless, colorless, her eyes trained on some distant horizon.
My Name Is Julia Rossisnt as direct.
It turns sexual violence into a miasma that pervades the entire film rather than a single act.
The gothic noir centers on Julia Ross, a young woman in London trying to make ends meet.
She comes across an ad for a secretary position.
Theres something off from the jump when she comes in for an interview.
The questions shes asked are all framed around the connections she has.
Does she have any living family?
Only a distant aunt in America.
Anyone who would care for her if she went missing?
Why have they kidnapped her, intent on driving her mad?
The potential for violence sexual and otherwise permeates the situation Julia finds herself in.
The film is blunt when it comes to creating the arc of Ralphs violence and perversity.
But its a sense of dread that most defines the films approach to violence.
To make matters worse, Ralph taunts her with the knowledge of the truth.
Would it make any difference if I called you Julia?
The film is filled with near misses like this, that linger in the threat of violence.
One of the most potent early scenes in the film plays around with sexual assault as visual metaphor.
Julia wakes to see the shadow of a mans hands creeping over her bed and up her body.
Shadow and light, texture and metaphor are used to signal physical boundaries being crossed and ignored.
The late 1950s were a fraught time in Hollywood.
Movies were quickly becoming more explicit to make it feed the appetite of the audience.
But 29 minutes into the film comes a scene that splits it into two.
Gladden fights against Dohmers grip like a wild cat, clawing and bucking against the weight of his touch.
The scene cuts between cloying close-ups of their dueling perspectives and the harsh clang of the subway.
It doesnt sit with this violation long.
IfThe Burglarhad relegated sexual violence to a single sequence, I would have issues with the film.
Youve heard it before.
Same sob story, she tells Nat.
But I think the truth is more complicated.
Violence has limits, no matter who holds the camera.
More broadly, we havent created a sufficient theory to discuss this kind of cinematic violence.
What does it mean for rape to be handled sensitively?
How does that look?
Is it merely the absence of nudity?
Or more fully placing the audience in the perspective of the survivor?
InThe Burglar,theyre chaotic, point-of-view shots that depict the physical and emotional unraveling a rape causes.
It isnt that such scenes of brutality have no place in cinema.
But I often struggle to sit through scenes like this; they only bring back memories.
It would behoove filmmakers to ask themselves what they want audiences to feel in these moments.
What am I trying to say about rape beyond the fact that it is a vicious, soul-crushing act?
How can I visually communicate trauma in ways that dont revel in brutality for brutalitys sake?
Are these scenes better served by inventive metaphor?
