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Barking at the box office: can a dead dog make a movie lead? Barking at the box office: can a dead dog make a movie lead?
(4 months later)
“For two years after her death,” run Laurie Anderson’s studiedly monotonous tones in Heart of a Dog, “I continued to get Facebook notifications from Lolabelle – from a Facebook account I didn’t know she had.” She is talking about her rat terrier, who predeceased her, as dogs are wont.“For two years after her death,” run Laurie Anderson’s studiedly monotonous tones in Heart of a Dog, “I continued to get Facebook notifications from Lolabelle – from a Facebook account I didn’t know she had.” She is talking about her rat terrier, who predeceased her, as dogs are wont.
Related: Laurie Anderson: ‘My dog’s character was pure empathy. I tried to express that’
It is a terrible thing to lose a dog, and the modern world has only made it worse. I still get a pop-up from Ocado asking if I’ve forgotten Winalot, even though my dog died in November. I have had to start going to Asda. Yet Anderson invites us to find mystery where there is none: plainly the terrier – while they are among the more intelligent breeds – did not set up the Facebook account herself. So it must have been some friend of Anderson’s, and a small amount of casting about would reveal which one.It is a terrible thing to lose a dog, and the modern world has only made it worse. I still get a pop-up from Ocado asking if I’ve forgotten Winalot, even though my dog died in November. I have had to start going to Asda. Yet Anderson invites us to find mystery where there is none: plainly the terrier – while they are among the more intelligent breeds – did not set up the Facebook account herself. So it must have been some friend of Anderson’s, and a small amount of casting about would reveal which one.
This gets to the heart of Heart of a Dog’s problem: it is, naturally, more than a rumination on her love for her dog. It steadily moves into her childhood, her relationship with her mother, her ambivalent feelings toward her own species, set against the absolute lack of ambiguity in her feelings for Lolabelle. That juxtaposition is arresting, even when you don’t fully accept its foundations or the wisdom of its narrator.This gets to the heart of Heart of a Dog’s problem: it is, naturally, more than a rumination on her love for her dog. It steadily moves into her childhood, her relationship with her mother, her ambivalent feelings toward her own species, set against the absolute lack of ambiguity in her feelings for Lolabelle. That juxtaposition is arresting, even when you don’t fully accept its foundations or the wisdom of its narrator.
Anderson tells a story from her childhood “about how adults have absolutely no idea what they’re talking about” which should have been titled “a story about how children have no absolutely no idea what they’re talking about”. Yet that feeling of being never fully among one’s own kind, a sort of homesickness and alienation, sometimes comes across – until we get back to the dog. The dog ruins it, by being a dog. That might need a little explanation.Anderson tells a story from her childhood “about how adults have absolutely no idea what they’re talking about” which should have been titled “a story about how children have no absolutely no idea what they’re talking about”. Yet that feeling of being never fully among one’s own kind, a sort of homesickness and alienation, sometimes comes across – until we get back to the dog. The dog ruins it, by being a dog. That might need a little explanation.
Heart of a Dog probably travels in the genre “installation” rather than “film”, and as such places itself beyond normal requirements like arc and pace. Yet art installations, indeed art generally, walks on a knife-edge between meaning and pretension, atmosphere and blather, and where the auteur is explicit, where she makes an outright observation on the nature of Lolabelle, it is banal. “Give a command to a terrier, and they say, ‘Is it going to be fun? Because if it’s not going to be fun, I’m not interested.’” This could really come from any dog-owner, anywhere. I could have had this conversation on the common, this morning. If I still had a dog.Heart of a Dog probably travels in the genre “installation” rather than “film”, and as such places itself beyond normal requirements like arc and pace. Yet art installations, indeed art generally, walks on a knife-edge between meaning and pretension, atmosphere and blather, and where the auteur is explicit, where she makes an outright observation on the nature of Lolabelle, it is banal. “Give a command to a terrier, and they say, ‘Is it going to be fun? Because if it’s not going to be fun, I’m not interested.’” This could really come from any dog-owner, anywhere. I could have had this conversation on the common, this morning. If I still had a dog.
This casts a certain suspicion over the work as a whole. When frames occur that are cryptic – a man walks backwards across an airport in some footage played in reverse, vehicles back across a distorted sepia forecourt, a phrase is repeated, ungrammatical words appear to make senseless almost-points across the screen – one would, in normal circumstances, take on trust that a world was being created whose mystery might unveil itself later. Here, the mystery has sloughed off its enigma and unfurled itself from its riddle: she loves her dog.This casts a certain suspicion over the work as a whole. When frames occur that are cryptic – a man walks backwards across an airport in some footage played in reverse, vehicles back across a distorted sepia forecourt, a phrase is repeated, ungrammatical words appear to make senseless almost-points across the screen – one would, in normal circumstances, take on trust that a world was being created whose mystery might unveil itself later. Here, the mystery has sloughed off its enigma and unfurled itself from its riddle: she loves her dog.
This love might be fairly dark, as in the dream the film opens with, in which Anderson gives birth to the dog, but has first, in an act of cruelty to everyone, had her stitched into her stomach, in order to give birth to her. But it’s still dog-love and, while this is a beautiful thing, it is not complicated. Even a dog with a very large vocabulary – a rat terrier can understand 500 words and there was a border collie in the Daily Mail once who could recognise by name 1,000 different toys – presents no challenge. The limits of intimacy between a person and a dog are summed up in the joke: “Dogs are the opposite of girlfriends: the later you come home, the happier they are to see you.”This love might be fairly dark, as in the dream the film opens with, in which Anderson gives birth to the dog, but has first, in an act of cruelty to everyone, had her stitched into her stomach, in order to give birth to her. But it’s still dog-love and, while this is a beautiful thing, it is not complicated. Even a dog with a very large vocabulary – a rat terrier can understand 500 words and there was a border collie in the Daily Mail once who could recognise by name 1,000 different toys – presents no challenge. The limits of intimacy between a person and a dog are summed up in the joke: “Dogs are the opposite of girlfriends: the later you come home, the happier they are to see you.”
The power balance? Well, it isn’t a balance. It’s a serf relationship in which the serf is always in a good mood. Trying to make art from this is like trying to devise a sport in which only one of the teams is allowed to run. This doesn’t mean dogs have no place in film. I’m going to leave aside animation – indeed, any film in which a dog has a super-power. The dog as hero, or protagonist, is more or less destined to be a film for children, for the same reason that the dog does not work very well in art: they have a limited emotional range, from overjoyed to asleep, and it is hard to convey much wisdom between those points.The power balance? Well, it isn’t a balance. It’s a serf relationship in which the serf is always in a good mood. Trying to make art from this is like trying to devise a sport in which only one of the teams is allowed to run. This doesn’t mean dogs have no place in film. I’m going to leave aside animation – indeed, any film in which a dog has a super-power. The dog as hero, or protagonist, is more or less destined to be a film for children, for the same reason that the dog does not work very well in art: they have a limited emotional range, from overjoyed to asleep, and it is hard to convey much wisdom between those points.
People who really like the film Beethoven might say there’s humour in dogs that are really large. I don’t dispute for a second that they can be funny: most of life with a dog is spent laughing. But you have to know them extremely well – they can’t just be muddy. The dog as the vulnerable element, to give urgency to the protagonist’s motivation as protector, again mainly works for children (in films for adults, this role is played by women).People who really like the film Beethoven might say there’s humour in dogs that are really large. I don’t dispute for a second that they can be funny: most of life with a dog is spent laughing. But you have to know them extremely well – they can’t just be muddy. The dog as the vulnerable element, to give urgency to the protagonist’s motivation as protector, again mainly works for children (in films for adults, this role is played by women).
Certainly, though, the idea of the dog as an emotional trope, as a thing to be protected, has potency – it can keep the film alive into the viewer’s adulthood as you’ll know if you would gladly stop whatever you’re doing and watch The Wizard of Oz again, right now. The dog as companion in a buddy movie had a bit of mileage in the 80s and 90s, but it really only worked with an actor who was plausibly as stupid as a dog. For that, not even Chuck Norris (Top Dog) would do; you really needed Tom Hanks (Turner & Hooch) and he is but one guy, he couldn’t do everything.Certainly, though, the idea of the dog as an emotional trope, as a thing to be protected, has potency – it can keep the film alive into the viewer’s adulthood as you’ll know if you would gladly stop whatever you’re doing and watch The Wizard of Oz again, right now. The dog as companion in a buddy movie had a bit of mileage in the 80s and 90s, but it really only worked with an actor who was plausibly as stupid as a dog. For that, not even Chuck Norris (Top Dog) would do; you really needed Tom Hanks (Turner & Hooch) and he is but one guy, he couldn’t do everything.
To my mind, the most successful dog film ever was 2000’s Amores Perros, in which the magnificent Dogos Argentinos (like pitbulls, only larger) functioned as metaphors for masculinity, for the injustice of violence, their great big stoopid eyes windows into the cruelties of the world. On top of that, they were just abundantly lovely creatures which, in the hands of a lesser director, would have interrupted the drama but actually raised the stakes. Possibly the lesson is that there needs to be a lot going on besides: dogs can make a film, but cannot carry a film. It may be a tiny bit like life.To my mind, the most successful dog film ever was 2000’s Amores Perros, in which the magnificent Dogos Argentinos (like pitbulls, only larger) functioned as metaphors for masculinity, for the injustice of violence, their great big stoopid eyes windows into the cruelties of the world. On top of that, they were just abundantly lovely creatures which, in the hands of a lesser director, would have interrupted the drama but actually raised the stakes. Possibly the lesson is that there needs to be a lot going on besides: dogs can make a film, but cannot carry a film. It may be a tiny bit like life.