Synopsis
When man’s best friend becomes his fiercest enemy…
A trainer attempts to retrain a vicious dog that’s been raised to kill black people.
Directed by Samuel Fuller
A trainer attempts to retrain a vicious dog that’s been raised to kill black people.
Dressé pour tuer, Perro blanco, O Cachorro Branco, Den hvide hund, Valkoinen koira, Le chien blanc, Trained to Kill, A fehér kutya, Cane Bianco, O Cão Branco, Beli pas, Vit hund, Die weiße Bestie, Білий пес, Белый пёс, Biały Pies, Der weiße Hund von Beverly Hills, Perro Blanco, Cane bianco, 白狗, Fehér kutya, כלב לבן, Bílý pes, Beyaz Köpek, 마견, Cão Branco, Білий собака, Белая собака, Den Hvide Hund, ホワイト・ドッグ, Gos blanc
"Racism is a poison that is learned, but once learned that poison can never be truly banished from those it infects." - Samuel Fuller, the lion of American cinema
This review may contain spoilers. I can handle the truth.
Aside from the 300 point font screaming headline, "HATE IS HERE TO STAY" that hovers over the central story, this time around I noticed how Fuller's cynicism manifested in all of the periphery interactions of Krsty McNichol's character. The movie opens with the nice young woman taking a dog she hit to a vet, where she's promptly treated with the assumption that she's not going to want to pay the vet bill. She's instructed to post "found dog" signs and ask for a reward because, as the nurse suggests, she's probably going to want her money back. No chance she took the dog in and would be willing to pay just because she's compassionate to living things? Then a man…
racism is just a symptom. it's anger and fear that's been bred in, and maybe irreversibly.
This review may contain spoilers. I can handle the truth.
Samuel Fuller tackled the subject of racism throughout his career, and something about his brutish, direct approach holds up as a surprisingly thoughtful means of addressing the complex, corrosive sin at the heart of America. White Dog is to the point even by Fuller's standards, introducing a lovable if ferociously protective stray dog, only to reveal a mind conditioned to attack black people on sight. Fuller triangulates the beast with the innocent, naïve young white woman (Kristy McNichol) who rescued him and the black man (Paul Winfield) who attempts to retrain him, casting the dog as the manifestation of racism as mental disease, not inherently present but gradually formed through trauma and teaching.
But while there may be Fuller films…
After watching this vicious aryan dog being a fucking racist, I’m afraid I’m gonna background check all white dogs from now on. I’m looking at you Snoopy. 👀
“that dog is sick — then he should be cured.”
The setup of White Dog works incredibly well. Late one night, a young woman accidentally hits a white German shepherd with her car. Set against the bright openness of the Hollywood Hills, Julie (Kristy McNichol) is introduced as fiercely independent – a young actress living alone, ambitious, resistant even to letting her boyfriend move in with her. Out of guilt she takes the dog in temporarily while trying to track down its owner, not wanting this sudden responsibility to interfere with the life she is trying to build for herself. But slowly she starts building an attachment to him. Fuller almost shamelessly engineers the bonding: her career frustrations deepen, men…
Reconditioning is like entering the eye of a needle - as though social circumstances affect ones psychology so much that it becomes part of their DNA..
"Why don't you give her a call and say he's 100% cured?"
"99."
"One percent."
"And that percent has got me in a corner."
This might only make sense if you've seen the film, but it reminds me of Fuller in 1997, talking about his WW2 regiment finding the Falkenau Concentration Camp, and saying that in that moment, if it were up to him, he wouldn't have taken a single prisoner and killed every Nazi in sight. Because like we see here, maybe you can change minds. But once the impulse is crushed into you, it never disappears. You can't unlearn an impulse.
Toda a dimensão de história social que esse filme alcança com tão pouco não é brincadeira. Acaba sendo um dos maiores exemplos de como trabalhar um roteiro teoricamente usual com chaves encenativas nada menos que mitológicas. Roteiro usual até certo ponto, claro, até pela temática do filme. O que no fundo diz muito sobre todos os filmes do Fuller, essa crença cênica que é potencializada por uma temática agregadora, uma fé mesmo na capacidade do aparato cinematográfico em concretizar um conceito. Não é fácil partir de uma dinâmica tão elementar e sair com uma obra que basicamente faz toda a justiça possível a esse método.
Como eu já disse, o único cineasta que me vem à cabeça capaz de filmar a abjeção que ocorre no Brasil de hoje e de sempre, olhando na cara dessa abjeção sem incorrer na sua instrumentalização, sem se rejubilar com o ato de expô-la e denunciá-la.
E provavelmente o único jornalista capaz de fazer jornalismo nessas mesmas condições.
P.S.: trilha do Morricone para este filme muito provavelmente a melhor de todas que ele compôs.
In his almost lost drama about racism - just recovered by Criterion in late 2008 - Samuel Fuller tells a very simple but effective story. A woman hits a dog at night and takes it home with her, nurses it back to health and lets it become her companion and protector. After a short time however, she discovers that her new friend is a "white dog" - an animal who is trained to attack black people. She gives it into the hands of an animal tamer who tries to condition it to trust people of color again.
Fuller's drama is told in a straightforward, almost conventional way. The explosive power comes from the subject - racism is openly formulated as…