Credo (part 2 of 3)

The last shot of ’Ravished Armenia’ is the film’s signature image: a beautiful young girl is crucified, her long black hair draping her naked body. The film fades out as her lips mouth a prayer and a vulture waits menacingly beside her on the cross. The controversial shot was deleted in England on political grounds, yet as incredible as it seems, Ms. Mardiganian actually witnessed such acts; indeed, her own fate was spared when her captors ran out of wood. She herself criticized the scene, calling it inauthentic for not having gone far enough. As explained to film historian Anthony Slide: “The Turks didn’t make their crosses like that. The Turks made little pointed crosses. They took the clothes off the girls. They made them bend down. And after raping them, they made them sit on the pointed wood, through the vagina. That’s the way they killed the Turks. Americans have made it a more civilized way. They cant show such terrible things.“ The scene is scoured of