Last year it was announced that the gruesome cult classic, Faces of Death (1978), would be remade by the team responsible for the film Cam (2018). Although the original received generally negative reviews, for a generation that was raised on VHS tapes, viewing this film became a rite of passage. With a vivid cover showcasing the claim to have been banned in 46 countries, the film was nearly irresistible for the young and curious hoping to prove they were brave enough to watch it to the end.
Despite the best efforts of parents, the film, and the sequels, were widely viewed. Often the screening was of a “secret” copy procured by someone’s older brother who made a copy from someone else. Or, perhaps, a friend that worked at the local video store made copies to sell to younger acquaintances. The tapes were often damaged, unlabeled, and the images were grainy. Somehow the poor quality of the footage and dubious origins of the copies only added to the appeal of the mondo horror. (Mondo films are a subgenre of exploitation and documentary films, featuring sensational topics and taboo images).
Faces of Death was one of the first faux documentary-style films. The plot, insofar as there is one, centers on a pathologist who sets out to study and better understand death. The film presents viewers with deaths involving human and nonhuman animals. While many of the death scenes are staged, including a particularly grotesque reenactment involving a trained monkey and cauliflower (Steven Spielberg paid tribute to this scene in Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom (1984)), some of the footage is genuine and exposes the viewer to the killing of animals, surgery, and human corpses.
Perhaps one of the most gruesome scenes of found footage involves paramedics lifting brain matter and parts of a cyclist killed by a semi-tractor trailer from the pavement. In short, the content is disgusting and disturbing. Given its raw presentation of gore, how can we possibly explain the film’s appeal? Noel Carroll and others have written extensively about the appeal of horror films. However, most of this writing centers on traditional horror films and doesn’t dive into the mondo genre (sometimes referred to as ‘shockumentaries’).
In the fourth book of Plato’s Republic, the story of Leontius (439e) is recounted. Plato claims that Leontius, on his way up from the Peiraeus, became aware of dead bodies at a place of public execution. Leontius is disgusted by the bodies but feels a strong desire to view them. He tries to cover his eyes; however, his desire is overwhelming to the point that he opens them and says, “look, ye wretches, take your fill of the fair sight,” (440a). While Plato uses this example to illustrate a division in the soul (ψυχή), I suspect many can sympathize with Leontius. Most people become Leonitius when passing by a highway accident. Many people, especially those that came of age in the late 1980s and early 1990s became Leontius while watching Faces of Death.
The fact that films like The Blair Witch Project (1999) and other faux footage horror films had yet to be released, gave audiences watching The Faces of Death no warning that what they were viewing could be fake. At the time, viewers truly believed that they were watching authentic footage of violence and death. The timing of the film’s release, just before the explosion of VCRs and video stores, was perfect for its rapid dissemination. This new way to watch films brought the horror of the public execution into the home. Like Leontius, we could feast our eyes upon death right in front of us. Contra Plato, this doesn’t necessarily imply the existence of a soul divided. I believe there is a far more parsimonious explanation for our fascination with death and dying.
Much of contemporary Western culture can accurately be described as death averse. After a death, corpses are usually shuffled off to professionals who aim to re-create a life-like appearance before family and friends view the deceased. Contact with death is sanitized and limited. In the United States, this shift is reflected in the language surrounding death. Parlors in homes where the dead were, in the Victorian era, laid out for home funerals, have been renamed as living rooms. Talking about death is often viewed as morbid and even impolite, a less than an ideal topic for dinner party conversations.
Given this scarcity of exposure to death and lack of information surrounding this universal human experience, we are simply death starved. We love to feast our eyes on the taboo. In support of the fascination we have with death, it has been my experience that the best way to capture the attention of college students is to weave in talk about sex or death (or maybe sex and death when discussing necrophilia). Apart from such anecdotal evidence, the popularity of YouTube personalities like Caitlin Doughty and videos from other morticians and death professionals can be pointed to as further confirmation. This popularity has even contributed to the rise of the death positivity movement. In response to this movement and increased interest in the topic, many universities are now offering courses in the philosophy of death and dying.
In 1985, parents of two high school students shown Faces of Death sued the school and claimed that their children were traumatized by the video, after an in-class showing. The students were interviewed last year for the podcast Snap Judgement. To be clear, the film is ethically problematic. Indeed, an entirely separate post could be devoted to the film’s morally questionable features, such as how it culturally stereotypes and displays the dead for entertainment purposes.
Such ethical issues are highlighted in the DVD commentary where the director, Conon LeCilaire (John Alan Schwartz) discusses how the sister of the cyclist involved in the semi-tractor trailer accident protested the inclusion of her brother’s remains in the film. Despite these titanic ethical concerns, I believe the sanitized culture surrounding death is partially to blame for any trauma resulting from the film’s viewing. Watching Faces of Death was—and is—so shocking because we live in a death-averse bubble.
Rather than avert our eyes when we witness death, there are reasons, I believe, that we should instead indulge our fascination with dying. Faces of Death is not an ideal medium for said indulgence; however, it’s what was available at a certain time in a specific milieu given a unique cultural landscape. (The film’s popularity also spawned a number of imitators, such as Traces of Death, Banned from Television, Death Scenes, and Faces of Gore).
Thinking about death, dying, and our exposure to death, while discomforting, can be surprisingly useful. For example, Epicurus believed that we could fight our mortality-related fears and misgivings by examining our beliefs about death (see Letter to Menoeceus). Other philosophers have echoed this sentiment. Montaigne went as far as to title an essay “To Philosophize is to Learn How to Die.”
Perhaps, examining death, and all its faces, can indeed inspire philosophical activity, offering a pragmatically valuable tool for understanding our mortal lives.
Amy White
Amy White is an associate professor of philosophy at Ohio University. Her work, thus far, has centered mostly on medical ethics and issues of autonomy. Her current research interests focus on the philosophy of death and dying and its intersections with medical ethics. In her spare time, she can be found facilitating death cafes’, not giving her dogs enough treats, and wondering why she bought a large Victorian house.
