‘ART IS NOT SAFE’: STRADDLING DOWNWARDS AND ELEVATING THE COMMODITY

A difficult day of filming on the set of Rob Zombie's The Devil's Rejects led to an interesting behind-the-scenes story. On this day, Zombie and his cast were shooting on a set dressed to look like the interior of a sleazy, 1970s-era motel room. The scenes they were shooting depict Otis (Bill Moseley) and Baby (Sheri Moon Zombie), two members of the monstrous Firefly family, holding two married couples hostage. During this sequence, Otis and Baby threaten, torture and humiliate the couples. Their cruelty reaches a perverse crescendo as Otis forces one of the women (Priscilla Barnes) to fellate him while holding a gun to her head as her husband (Geoffrey Lewis) watches helplessly.

Having to shoot this particular scene for The Devil's Rejects bothered Moseley. He later explained that performing the level of cruelty required for this scene was ‘very frightening’ for him and ‘really bummed [him] out’ (Rejects, ‘30 days’). Zombie noticed Moseley's discomfort and took him aside before filming to try to help him get through the scene. Moseley said that, after he explained his discomfort to Zombie, the musician turned director stated with emphasis four words: ‘Art is not safe’ (Rejects, ‘30 days’). Moseley claimed these words inspired him and instilled him with the confidence to get through the scene even as, according to Zombie, people on the crew who were watching ‘had tears coming down their faces’ because the scene was ‘very powerful’ and ‘very real’ (Rejects, ‘30 days’).

This anecdote has been repeated several times in several different forums, mostly in the context of praising Zombie as an iconoclastic auteur who exhibits immense bravery in the pursuit of his vision. What may be more interesting about the anecdote, however, is the assumption that the film Zombie is making is ‘art’. While the notion of ‘film as art’ is certainly nothing new, The Devil's Rejects is not exactly what comes to mind when one thinks of ‘art house’ cinema. Zombie's claim suggests that definitions of art cinema have changed to include horror films – even the most distasteful ones – under the umbrella of art, as long as there is a guiding intelligence, such as Zombie's directorial vision, behind them.