The reason the ear scene is SO upsetting to people is because he did exactly what Hitchcock did with his infamous Psycho shower scene - he NEVER showed the actual butchery. And someone’s imagination will never be as limited as something that’s right there on the screen. What’s great about it is that to some degree it can always be worse than it actually was.
And I disagree - for the simple fact that it was done so tastefully and yet so savagely, I still think people would have a hard time watching it. Scenes like the needle in Pulp Fiction are lesser so now because they showed it on screen. It was what it was and we’re now over it.
