White Dog (1982): Samuel Fuller’s Timeless attack on institutional racism (Review)

Slavery has been a hot topic in cinema over the past 18 months, what with critical & commercial darlings in 12 years a slave and Django unchained bringing racial inequality into the public discourse. With this social sickness being given an unheralded amount of attention there could be no greater time for Masters of Cinema to unleash Samuel Fuller’s controversial and powerful drama – White Dog on the world.

Driving home late at night budding-actress Julie (Kristy McNichol) accidentally runs over a dog in the Hollywood Hills, a beautiful white German Sheppard.  Understandably grief-stricken Julie takes the dog to the nearest vet. Putting out ads for the dog to no avail, she eventually claims the dog as her own. Most of the time the dog is the perfect placid companion, but one night an intruder attempts to rape Julie and it’s there that we see a glimpse into the true nature of this dog. Not only does the dog maul the attacker it also jumps straight through a window, clearly there’s something abnormal about this dog. It’s not until a later in a film shoot that the dog attacks an actor friend of Julie’s, a black woman. It’s clear that this dog is a White Dog – an attack dog bred to savage black men and women. Instead of having the dog killed, Julie seeks help, help that leads her to a man called Keys (Paul Winfield) – an animal trainer who tenaciously attempts to break white dogs of their sickness.

The 1980s is not a decade short on its cinematic controversies, after all, that was the decade of the ‘video nasty’. Nonetheless, White Dog counts as one of the most controversial American films of the decade. Many of the aforementioned video nasties appear quaint compared to the contemporary extremes of horror, whereas the power of White Dog remains. Few films have gone for the jugular of racism as directly as Samuel Fuller did in this 1982 film (based on the Romain Gary book ‘Chien Blanc’). It certainly isn’t subtle, even so, Curtis Hanson’s script could have been one sodden with soapbox moments but it isn’t. The scriptwriters only oversight is a boyfriend character who has no place in the story other than to give Kristy McNichol more to do.

Even before we know the horrid past the dog experienced, the film has one stand out moment that needs attention called to. Early on when wandering a dog pound, Julie happens upon a dog being incinerated. This small moment informs her faith in the dog in spite of its indefensible actions. Not only is this an unforgettable character moment, but this is also a by-product of the film’s politics and while racism is the major bone, the treatment of stray dogs is also shown concern.

An intense film at the best of times, White Dog is at its most powerful in the sequence where Keys is training the dog with a full-body protective suit. This is a man who trains wildcats and he’s struggling with an animal that’s traditionally a domesticated pet. As for the sequences where he takes off parts of his protective suit, well, there are no words. Given the context of who Keys is these training sequences shouldn’t work. After all, how can a man who trains Lions and Elephants every day be psychically beaten doing the same with a German Shepard?

The camera is a work of contrasts, in the scenes before the dog reveals its bloodthirst when the dog is just walking through Julie’s house the camera tracks him as John Carpenter did in Halloween. Quietly observing this dog meekly stalk is prey is striking when his blood lust rises this same camera work becomes terrifying. There’s a degree of complicity at play, Fuller wants you to see the grizzly consequences of this firebrand racism. There is no relent. From the slow camera movement to the explosion of energy when the dog finds its victim, White Dog is difficult to watch. Whether one is introduced to the violence or left to the draw conclusions from the dog’s bloody fur, Fuller knows exactly what to show.

White Dog is elevated to a timeless rallying call against institutional racism by Paul Winfield. His performance is psychical and impassioned, there’s a fierce determination in his eyes that makes you believe in his ability to succeed even when the dog has literal blood on its paws. When the dog attacks most would have it put down, that alone is a profound testament to his presence – there isn’t one moment in which you believe he’ll fail. He represents a fight against racism that [also] will never let up until the state of affairs, no matter how bleak, changes for the better. In its film making method, it may well be a product of its time, beyond that, however, White Dog is a film with a message and an incredibly intense one to boot that is unlikely to be anything less than frightening relevant.

Thanks for reading our review of White Dog

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