Analysis of clips from Saw (2004)

The following clips because of their gory nature and unsettling images cannot be uploaded unto Blogger but can seen by following these links: Clip 1: Let the Game Begin and Clip 2: Reverse Bear Trap. WARNING!! The second clip shows stabbing and bloddy intestines. Stop at 3.08 and resume at 4.19 if you do not wish to see this.

The first clip is towards the beginning of the film where Dr Lawrence Gordon and Adam Stanheight learn why they have been placed in a dirty bathroom and why there is a dead, bloody body in between them. They play the tapes, which they find in their pockets in a tape recorder found in the hand of the body and learn that they are there because of what they do in their jobs. The game is set up in this clip as Gordon has to find away to kill Adam to prevent his family being killed and to escape from the bathroom. (Wan 2004)

This clip echoes the captivity of Iraqi prisoners in the US Military Prison of Abu Ghraib, a story that broke earlier in 2004 that showed US soldiers torturing Iraqi prisoners with pride. It was only a coincidence that Saw came out later in the year after this arose but the link was made at the time of release by New York Times reviewer Stephen Holden, saying the images bear an "Uncomfortable Resemblance" (Holden 2004). However this movie is rooted in the post 9/11 political fears of the time that anyone could be taken away and tortured and reflects on the lack of security and chaos of the time.

A Photo of Adam, held in captivity and chained to a pipe in a dirty bathroom. Reflective of the apalling photos of torture at Abu Ghraib released earlier in the year

While the set-up of 2 innocent people in a makeshift torture chapter represents the fear of increased terrorism of which anyone could be subject to via a commercial plane after 9/11 it also depicts the tough choices that people make under the threat of terroism. Derry (2009, 311) makes the link between the United 93 passengers deciding to crash the plane themselves or allow it to hit a target and Gordon's decision to kill Adam to save his family or rot in the room. The clip then shows a man who is charged with an impossible choice and raises the question politically relevant at the time as to whether torture is acceptable when traditional moral actions will not help (ibid.). By represnting the issue of the best way to deal with terroism in this clip Saw continues a trend in representing political fears of the time, similar to Invasion of the Body Snatchers and communism.

Gordon, the other prisoner is the one given the impossible choice that involves killing Adam which parallels the tough choices the United 93 passengers were faced with.

The second clip shows Amanda, a victim who survived her trap or test decribes her ordeal to police detectives while Dr Lawrence Gordon watches on. It is revealed she is put there because she is a drug addict and in the process of taking the trap off her head before it causes her head to explode she is supposed to value her life and be thankful for the trap, which she is. (Wan 2004)

This scene plays around with the morality of torture and asks whether it is justified to use immoral means to reach benevolent ends, so the victims go on to appreciate their life as they have to torture themselves or others to do so. This taps into the debate of the time as to whether using torture is justified in winning the Iraq war and bringing suspected terrorists to justice in Guantanamo Bay. It also looks at the fact that even decent people have the potential to torture which David Edelstein considered in his article in the New Yorker, 2 years after Saw came out but while similar torture films came out (Edelstein 2006). Amanda survives precisely because she is convinced to torture someone else and shows that everyone has the inherent ability to torture, like the soldiers at Abu Ghraib (Derry 2009, 312).

Furthermore the use of the bear trap ties in with the growing conservatism after 9/11 as the use of out-dated and rusted technologies is argued by Christopher Sharrett an attempt to restore the old industrialist society to bring order to the chaos, linked to a conservative response to dealing with terrorism (Sharrett 2009, 34). The killer, Jigsaw's use of such technology is a way of getting his victims to obey his rules and avoid death, reflecting on people's desire for authority and dicipline to recover America's strength from the vulnerability of 9/11 (Tziallas 2010).

Amanda in the reverse bear trap, a use of old, mechanical technology to torture in a post-industrial world, to bring order to the chaos according to Sharrett (2009, 34).

These clips both show some of the themes that continue in the rest of the movie and indeed the Saw franchise itself that torture is used for ultimately moral ends and part of a conservative response to bring order to the chaos of a dangerous, less secure society. Moreover they show that horror movies continue to play on the prevailing political fears, which in this case is terrorism and torture. The fact that anybody is capable of torturing others is probably the feature of these clips that made the film as well as other torture films popular because people identified with those doing the torturing and psychologically they can project their dark instincts onto the screen. It is the familiarity with graphic violence in the world through the media that leads to its representation through the torture horror movie as more people are receptive to violence because there is more violence in the world. Saw is a film that has to be more violent to shock its audience that is pervaded with images of violence like the Abu Ghraib photos.

References

Derry, Charles. 2009. Dark Dreams 2.0: A Psychological History of the Modern Horror Film from the 1950s to the 21st Century. Jefferson, NC: McFarland & Company, Inc., Publishers.

Edelstein, David. 2006. Now Playing at your Local Multiplex: Torture Porn. Why has America gone nuts for blood, guts and sadism. New York Magazine, 28 January. Retrieved from nymag.com.

Holden, Stephen. 2004. Movie Review "Saw": A Gore Fest with Overtones of Iraq and TV. New York Times, Oct. 29, 2004. Retrieved from nytimes.com.

Lionsgateshop. Saw-1. "Let the Game Begin" [video]. 2009. Retrieved April 2 2011, from YouTube.com.

Murray, Gabrielle. 2007. Hostel II: Representations of the body in pain and the experience in torture-porn. Jump Cut: A Review of Contemporary media 50. http://http//www.ejumpcut.org/archive/jc50.2008/TortureHostel2/text.html

Saw 1 Unrated: The Reverse Bear Trap [Video]. 2008. Retrieved April 2 2011, from YouTube.com.

Sharrett, Christopher. 2009. The Problem of Saw: "Torture Porn" and the Conservatism of Contemporary Horror Films. Cinataste 35 (1): 32-37. Retrieved from Film and Television Index.

Tziallas, Evangelos. 2010. Torture Porn and Suveillance Culture. Jump Cut: A Review of Contemporary Media 52. http://www.ejumpcut.org/currentissue/evangelosTorturePorn/text.html

Wan, James. 2004. Saw. DVD. Los Angeles: Lionsgate Films.