I Spit on Your Grave
From The Art and Popular Culture Encyclopedia
|
Related e |
|
Featured: |
- Do not confuse with I Spit on Your Graves by Boris Vian
Day of the Woman, better known by its re-release title, I Spit on Your Grave, is one of the few movies directed by Meir Zarchi. The movie was controversial enough to earn an X rating upon its original U.S. release in 1978, and earned Zarchi a reputation without him having to make a second film. Camille Keaton won a Best Actress award for her role in this movie at the 1978 Catalonian International Film Festival in Spain.
Contents |
Plot
Sophisticated New York magazine writer Jennifer Hills (played by Camille Keaton, grand-niece of Buster Keaton) is in the process of writing a book, and decides that the only way she can finish it is to go to a log cabin in the country, where she will not be disturbed.
Three local men, two ne'er do wells and a gas station manager are disturbed by Jennifer's independence. Late at night they hatch a plan to abduct her, apparently so their mildly-retarded friend Matthew can lose his virginity. The next day, they do so, but Matthew tells the group that he can't do it. Jennifer is then raped twice by the men in the woods, and after she crawls back to her house they attack her again. Matthew finally rapes her after drinking alcohol, but says that he can not climax with the other men watching. While she is being tortured, the other men ridicule her book and rip up the manuscript. As she passes out, the men order Matthew to stab her in the heart, and then leave. Matthew cannot bring himself to do this, and dabs the knife lightly in her blood so it looks as if he killed her.
In the following days, Jennifer is shown traumatized by the gang-rape. Slowly, she is brought out of herself and pieces her manuscript together again. It becomes evident that she is intent on revenge, and she vows to kill the men who raped her.
First, she lures Matthew back to her cabin and has him make love to her under a tree. As he becomes oblivious to the surroundings around him, she strings a noose around his neck and hangs him. She then cuts the rope and drops the body in the river.
She picks up one of the men at the gas station where he works. She stops halfway to her house and turns a gun on him. She orders him to take off all his clothes. He gets the gun from her and she takes him to her cabin for a hot bath. She manually stimulates him in her bathtub. As he nears orgasm, she picks up a knife she has hidden under the bathmat and cuts his genitals. Calmly, she leaves the room and locks him in from the outside. He dies due to blood loss and she disposes of him in her basement. She burns his blood-stained clothes in her fireplace.
The two remaining men take their motorized boat to Jennifer's cabin, with an axe in hand. As they attack her, she escapes with the boat and the axe. The two men swim after her, so she turns around and swings the axe into one man's back. The other man swims up, grabs hold of the motor, and asks Jennifer not to kill him. She revs the motor, disemboweling him. As she speeds away, the credits roll.
Name changes
The movie was originally released under the title Day of the Woman (the title preferred by Zarchi), although it was also shown under the title I Hate Your Guts and The Rape and Revenge of Jennifer Hill. Subsequent revivals as a cult classic beginning in 1981 saw the title changed to I Spit on Your Grave.
Controversy and criticisms
As I Spit on Your Grave, the movie was censored and released under an R rating in the United States in 1981. Many countries, such as Ireland, New Zealand, Norway, Iceland, and the former government of West Germany, banned the film altogether, citing that the film glorifies violence against women. Canada had banned the movie for a long time; in the 1990s, the individual provinces were allowed to decide whether or not to allow a video release. Since 1998, many provinces (such as Manitoba, Nova Scotia and Quebec) have released the film, albeit with a high rating.
The film was originally released in Australia in 1982 with an R 18+ rating, albeit the censored US version, and survived a 1987 appeal to ban the film. It continued to be sold until 1997, with yet another reclassification seeing the film banned in Australia. Even though Australian Censorship law forbids the release of films that depict scenes of sexual violence as acceptable or justified, in 2004 the full uncut version was awarded an R 18+, lifting the 7 year ban. The Office of Film and Literature justified this decision by claiming that castration is not sexual violence. In the United Kingdom the film was branded a "video nasty", and appeared on the Director of Public Prosecutions's list of prosecutable movies until 2001 when a heavily cut version of the film was released with an 18 certificate. Some defenders of the film believe the critics and MPAA contrived to "bury" this film. Film critic Roger Ebert considers this to be one of the worst films he has ever seen, referring to it as "a vile bag of garbage...without a shred of artistic distinction."
Zarchi's inspiration and responses to criticism
In the commentary for the Millennium Edition, Zarchi said that he was inspired to do the film after helping a young woman who had been raped in New York. He tells of how a friend of his and his daughter were driving by a park when they witnessed a young woman crawling out of the bushes bloodied and naked (he later found out the girl was taking a common shortcut to meet with her boyfriend when she was attacked). They took the girl with them, took his daughter back home, and talked with the friend on whether they should take her to the hospital or to the police. They decided to take her to the police first, which they soon afterwards discovered was a mistake — the officer, whom Zarchi described as "not fit to wear the uniform", delayed taking her to the hospital and instead insisted she answer questions about her assailants, even though her jaw had been broken and she could hardly talk. Finally, Zarchi insisted to the officer that they take her to the hospital right away. Zarchi said that soon afterwards the girl's father wrote him a letter of thanks for helping his daughter, and wanted to give him a reward, which he turned down.
In the same commentary, Zarchi denied that his film was exploitative, and that the violent nature of the film was necessary to tell the story. He described actress Camille Keaton as "brave" for taking on the role.
Trivia
- Actor Richard Pace (Matthew) unintentionally worried director Zarchi filming his death scene when he started to convulse while hanging. Zarchi initially thought he was just doing some really good acting, but realized that something was wrong. Pace wasn't choking, but was afraid of heights and was having a panic attack.
- The film that Roger Ebert and Gene Siskel based their negative reviews on was the uncut version of the film that was released by the distribution company with the R rating without notifying Zarchi. After the Motion Picture Association of America talked with Zarchi and found he wasn't responsible, the distribution company was reprimanded.
- In an episode of The Simpsons (S07E05, "Lisa the Vegetarian") the marquee of the Springfield drive-in advertises a double feature of I Spit On Your Grave and I Thumb Through Your Magazines.
