ChatterBank5 mins ago
Straw Dogs & a clockwork orange
Answers
No best answer has yet been selected by seal!. Once a best answer has been selected, it will be shown here.
For more on marking an answer as the "Best Answer", please visit our FAQ.'Straw Dogs' comes from a translation of a Chinese text called Tao Te Ching thought to have been written by Lao Tzu in the (Western equivalent) 2nd century BC. It is an important text in the tao belief system. The passage reads;
Heaven and, Earth are not humane;
They regard the ten thousand things as straw dogs.
The Sage is not humane;
He regards the hundred families as straw dogs.
The idea of the impersonality of Nature is fundamental to all Taoist writings (and seems clearly evident in Peckinpah's film). In addition, the Taoist philosopher Chuang Tzu records certain Chinese ceremonies in which woven straw dogs are made and initially respected but when the ceremony is over, are thrown away and trampled on.
Peckinpah recognised that a book originally titled 'The Seige of Trenchers Farm' by Gordon Williams actually dealt with something more fundamental than the violence that distracted the original censors.
- There used to be a phrase "as queer as a clockwork orange".
- Nothing to do with the question, but about the time Straw Dogs came out I saw a letter in the Sun which (hopefully) some wag or a journo must have made up. It began like this: "As a lifetime dog lover, I was interested to see a film at my local Odeon called Straw Dogs, and I rushed to buy a ticket. Imagine my horror when..."
- There used to be a phrase "as queer as a clockwork orange".
- Nothing to do with the question, but about the time Straw Dogs came out I saw a letter in the Sun which (hopefully) some wag or a journo must have made up. It began something like this: "As a lifetime dog lover, I was interested to see a film at my local Odeon called Straw Dogs, and I rushed to buy a ticket. Imagine my horror when..."