The Brown Bunny

Started by meatwad, May 09, 2003, 07:49:32 PM

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modage

#150
June 12, 2003, 03:30:43 PM
funny....

Vincent Gallo's Brown Bunny was almost universally panned by the critics, but it was the talk of Cannes this year, in part for the graphic 15 minute long blowjob scene with Gallo and Chloe Sevigny. AVN Hall of Famer Ron Jeremy, who was actually consulted by Gallo in preparation for the scene, thinks that regardless of the artistic merit of the film, Brown Bunny will serve as an important historical note — the first time mainstream actors have performed in a full-blown sex scene.
Ron Jeremy met Gallo at the wrap party for Spun a year ago, and was asked advice for the oral scene. Gallo wanted to know how to prepare so that he could ensure "Peter North" size money shot.

"I told him to hold back. Don't have sex for a couple of days. And when you are actually doing it, stop. If you get close, stop. Go eat a sandwich. Use your finger on her. That's the real way to do it," Jeremy told AVN.com, after appearing at a promotional event in Chicago.

Jeremy isn't sure if his advice was followed, but he does know that Brown Bunny has a graphic money shot at the end of the 15-minute blowjob.

What makes this even more notable is that these aren't C-list actors. Chloe Sevigny was nominated for an Oscar for her supporting role as Lana Tisdel in Boys Don't Cry. Vince Gallo directed and starred in the cult classic Buffalo '66.

"This could seriously change the faces of adult. Gallo says he won't release it without that hardcore scene in the end. If they won't take it in the arthouse theatres, he'll just put it out of DVD and VHS," said an enthused Jeremy. "If he can do this, it could open up doors for everyone in adult. It'll open up doors for adult performers getting mainstream roles.

"There could be a day in Hollywood where doing a hardcore scene will be no big deal, just part of the acting process. You'll see the Screen Actors Guild sending people down to AIM to get tested," he added.
Christopher Nolan's directive was clear to everyone in the cast and crew: Use CGI only as a last resort.

godardian

#151
June 12, 2003, 03:38:09 PM
That is actually very interesting. It brings us back to the question: Are people "acting" when they're having sex in front of the camera? Is it a legitimate form of acting? Will the lines between pornography and mainsteam film finally be blurred? Is that a good or bad thing? Could be either, probably, depending on who you're talking about and in what kinds of films.
""Money doesn't come into it. It never has. I do what I do because it's all that I am." - Morrissey

"Lacan stressed more and more in his work the power and organizing principle of the symbolic, understood as the networks, social, cultural, and linguistic, into which a child is born. These precede the birth of a child, which is why Lacan can say that language is there from before the actual moment of birth. It is there in the social structures which are at play in the family and, of course, in the ideals, goals, and histories of the parents. This world of language can hardly be grasped by the newborn and yet it will act on the whole of the child's existence."

Stay informed on protecting your freedom of speech and civil rights.

Raikus

#152
June 12, 2003, 03:39:25 PM
Right, Ron. Right.  :wink:

I don't necessarily see Peter North and Nicole Kidman sharing a marquee any time soon.
Yes, to dance beneath the diamond sky with one hand waving free, silhouetted by the sea, circled by the circus sands, with all memory and fate driven deep beneath the waves, let me forget about today until tomorrow.

modage

#153
June 12, 2003, 03:40:51 PM
sure, but he could serve as the "technical adviser" behind the scenes if she decides to do the next Gallo flick.
Christopher Nolan's directive was clear to everyone in the cast and crew: Use CGI only as a last resort.

AlguienEstolamiPantalones

#154
June 12, 2003, 03:40:53 PM
Quote from: RaikusRight, Ron. Right.  :wink:

I don't necessarily see Peter North and Nicole Kidman sharing a marquee any time soon.


but wow i would actully sit through moulon rough if they did

godardian

#155
June 12, 2003, 03:59:03 PM
I could only abide Moulin Rouge again if it had a different director. I thought the stars were fine, but Luhrmann has to go, IMO. Maybe V. Gallo should've directed it.
""Money doesn't come into it. It never has. I do what I do because it's all that I am." - Morrissey

"Lacan stressed more and more in his work the power and organizing principle of the symbolic, understood as the networks, social, cultural, and linguistic, into which a child is born. These precede the birth of a child, which is why Lacan can say that language is there from before the actual moment of birth. It is there in the social structures which are at play in the family and, of course, in the ideals, goals, and histories of the parents. This world of language can hardly be grasped by the newborn and yet it will act on the whole of the child's existence."

Stay informed on protecting your freedom of speech and civil rights.

AlguienEstolamiPantalones

#156
June 12, 2003, 04:03:04 PM
Quote from: godardianI could only abide Moulin Rouge again if it had a different director. I thought the stars were fine, but Luhrmann has to go, IMO. Maybe V. Gallo should've directed it.

i wonder if vince would of kept in the part where they sing " i was made for loving you" by kiss

SoNowThen

#157
June 12, 2003, 04:03:24 PM
"Okay, this is a dance about us Spanning Time. We Span Time in this dance -- don't touch me..."

lol, that would be a GREAT musical...
Those who say that the totalitarian state of the Soviet Union was not "real" Marxism also cannot admit that one simple feature of Marxism makes totalitarianism necessary:  the rejection of civil society. Since civil society is the sphere of private activity, its abolition and replacement by political society means that nothing private remains. That is already the essence of totalitarianism; and the moralistic practice of the trendy Left, which regards everything as political and sometimes reveals its hostility to free speech, does nothing to contradict this implication.

When those who hated capital and consumption (and Jews) in the 20th century murdered some hundred million people, and the poster children for the struggle against international capitalism and America are now fanatical Islamic terrorists, this puts recent enthusiasts in an awkward position. Most of them are too dense and shameless to appreciate it, and far too many are taken in by the moralistic and paternalistic rhetoric of the Left.

pixelnixel

#158
June 13, 2003, 01:16:22 AM
ok, so ebert is a good guy, and I probably won't see Brown bunny because of the whole universal "panning" or canning, however, and everyone has a but.... I still don't like Ebert, I always used his judgements to reflect "devils advocate" in my head.  I'm sure thats ok, since there is room for rent up there, and Ebert should have no problem sitting down and debating between the space my ears confine.  If he leaves the door open, I don't know where I will go......
Patience builds the mind of man.  
Maintain balance while you plan.

AlguienEstolamiPantalones

#159
June 13, 2003, 01:29:09 AM
ok lets just put the fact that i am a porn lovin bastard aside

can you guys tell me as fans of art that there is no curiosity on your part to see the blow job scene

i mean lets keep it real, a oscar nominated almost mainstream actress


she knew what she was doing, gallo knew what he was doing

and she has very creative people around her, this is not a pam and tommy thing

say what you will, this is art

this is groundbreaking, and your telling me you guys have zero interest in this

godardian, saying no would be rather non godardian on your part

since he was the guy that gave us black panthers eating out white girls pussys

but i fear now that i have pointed this out your answer will change ohh well

godardian

#160
June 13, 2003, 02:00:41 AM
Obviously, only a very sexually repressed person would be desperate enough to sit through a universally panned 2-hour Vince Gallo film merely to see a celebrity blow job. That would just be a pathetic waste of that person's time. Don't they know about porn?

Since I'm relatively unrepressed, though, I'm interested to see what comes before that blow job, the context in which it occurs. I'm interested in exploring it as an artistic and/or erotic choice. I'm interested to see how something many might consider pornographic will work in a narrative feature film.
""Money doesn't come into it. It never has. I do what I do because it's all that I am." - Morrissey

"Lacan stressed more and more in his work the power and organizing principle of the symbolic, understood as the networks, social, cultural, and linguistic, into which a child is born. These precede the birth of a child, which is why Lacan can say that language is there from before the actual moment of birth. It is there in the social structures which are at play in the family and, of course, in the ideals, goals, and histories of the parents. This world of language can hardly be grasped by the newborn and yet it will act on the whole of the child's existence."

Stay informed on protecting your freedom of speech and civil rights.

godardian

#161
June 13, 2003, 10:41:18 AM
Susan Sontag writes, in her wonderful essay The Pornographic Imagination:

"One notable feature of Histoire de le'Oleil and, to a lesser extent, The Image, considered as works of art, is their evident interest in more systematic or rigorous kinds of ending which still remain within the terms of the pornographic imagination- not seduced by the solutions of a more realistic or less abstract fiction. Their solution, considered very generally, is to construct a narrative that is, from the beginning, more rigorously controlled, less spontaneous and lavishly descriptive."

Though she's speaking mostly of pornographic literature (she would be the first to claim film's closest cultural counterpart is the novel,  however), this immediately brought The Brown Bunny to mind.

On deeper thought, though, what it really evokes is the proportion in which people seem to have reacted to it. Since I'm sure the culture-vultures who have picked away the body of The Brown Bunny, leaving just the ending for us to focus on, would've squawked just as loudly if there were any other such noticeable sexual content, this probably couldn't be applied very directly to it; from what we know, it apparently does not use the same "rigorously controlled, less spontaneous and lavishly descriptive" rule throughout. From the limited information we have about the film, we must deduce that, though it does follow a sort of sexual journey, (this points us back to an idea that all narratives are sexual in structure, with their foreshadowings and climaxes), the only explicitly sexual part- what many will think of as "pornographic" simply because of its explicit nature, regardless of whether they're actually aroused by it- takes place at the end. This is rule-breaking in a way much more important than the idea that some people will be shocked and bewildered by the sex act itself; it will likely represent an extreme breaking with its own hermetic system. This could leave audiences feeling elated, transcendent; it could also leave them feeling betrayed and scornful.

I'm guessing we'll find that Gallo is utilizing a sort of hybrid narrative of his own devise, and for his own singular purposes. As an artist who began in a more tactile and MUCH less narrative medium, he probably enjoys the application of the "wrong" level of camera revelation, as a contrast to the rest of the film's tone, just as a painter would experiment with "wrong," clashing colors and textures. It's safe to say that, regardless of the quality of the film itself, at least part of its goal is likely to play with and subvert narrative truisms, to find out just how far we can see our characters go while still remaining characters in the traditional sense (I predict that the concept of character will be infinitely more valued by this film than in any genuinely pornographic endeavor- porn only needs the idea of character. It has much different aspirations and rules; it need never convince us in the way that non-porn fictional narrative must). Gallo may very well be introducing us to an entirely different kind of "experimental" cinema.

It could easily be a total artistic failure, as so many have said, but I'm actually looking forward to seeing how he's mixed things up, what the actual detail and technique and style of it is. For example, is the rest of the film shot and edited in a much more conventional sense, only to suddenly switch to the camera setups and editing tropes of hardcore porn during the sexually explicit scene at the end? Will Gallo focus on the "reality" of it, that, "Look, we're really doing this! In real life!" or will they still seem to be acting? Porn actors are often referred to as "models;" they're required to do very little acting. The Brown Bunny at least purports to contain, for the bulk of its running time, acting to convince us that the people we see are not who they are in real life. Will the "acting" extend to the notorious scene at the end, or will that all go away, too? It forces us to question what kind of mediating force "acting" is when it comes to doing certain things for the camera.

It's too bad Camille Paglia has been so quiet and generally away from the public eye for... well, years now. It would be extremely interesting to know if her championing of this kind of more graphic sexual content could ever dovetail with her despondence over and hatred of most of the contemporary film scene. She's quite curmudgeonly on the subject, and refuses to see most things on the big screen; I wonder if this would get her out of the house? It would be too bad if we were denied the interpretations of our culture's more distinctive minds because they dismiss the film out of hand as a stunt unworthy of consideration. [/i]
""Money doesn't come into it. It never has. I do what I do because it's all that I am." - Morrissey

"Lacan stressed more and more in his work the power and organizing principle of the symbolic, understood as the networks, social, cultural, and linguistic, into which a child is born. These precede the birth of a child, which is why Lacan can say that language is there from before the actual moment of birth. It is there in the social structures which are at play in the family and, of course, in the ideals, goals, and histories of the parents. This world of language can hardly be grasped by the newborn and yet it will act on the whole of the child's existence."

Stay informed on protecting your freedom of speech and civil rights.

SoNowThen

#162
June 13, 2003, 10:49:20 AM
Um, I didn't really read everything that's been said lately, but this is my thoughts about Brown Bunny: I wanted to see it way before I knew what was in it, because I enjoyed Buffalo 66 so much (which I think is true of most people here). Now that I've found out about the whole hardcore thing, I think that's interesting, but I certainly hope it doesn't take away from the rest of the flick. That being said, I have my own take on hardcore in regular films: I've always told friends that I wish "x" was an acceptable rating for a film for one reason. And that is, if I decide, for whatever purpose, to have blowjob in my movie, I hate being restricted to having to show an angle to cheat the fact that there is no action actually happening. What if I wanna show it straight up? With the money shot? I should be able to, if I think that cheating the angle makes the scene seem fake and takes the audience out of the story (which it does most times) -- unless taking them out of the story is the point. So, uh, I guess I'm pretty excited about the whole thing here. Go Vince Gallo.
Those who say that the totalitarian state of the Soviet Union was not "real" Marxism also cannot admit that one simple feature of Marxism makes totalitarianism necessary:  the rejection of civil society. Since civil society is the sphere of private activity, its abolition and replacement by political society means that nothing private remains. That is already the essence of totalitarianism; and the moralistic practice of the trendy Left, which regards everything as political and sometimes reveals its hostility to free speech, does nothing to contradict this implication.

When those who hated capital and consumption (and Jews) in the 20th century murdered some hundred million people, and the poster children for the struggle against international capitalism and America are now fanatical Islamic terrorists, this puts recent enthusiasts in an awkward position. Most of them are too dense and shameless to appreciate it, and far too many are taken in by the moralistic and paternalistic rhetoric of the Left.

godardian

#163
June 13, 2003, 10:57:32 AM
Quote from: SoNowThenUm, I didn't really read everything that's been said lately, but this is my thoughts about Brown Bunny: I wanted to see it way before I knew what was in it, because I enjoyed Buffalo 66 so much (which I think is true of most people here). Now that I've found out about the whole hardcore thing, I think that's interesting, but I certainly hope it doesn't take away from the rest of the flick. That being said, I have my own take on hardcore in regular films: I've always told friends that I wish "x" was an acceptable rating for a film for one reason. And that is, if I decide, for whatever purpose, to have blowjob in my movie, I hate being restricted to having to show an angle to cheat the fact that there is no action actually happening. What if I wanna show it straight up? With the money shot? I should be able to, if I think that cheating the angle makes the scene seem fake and takes the audience out of the story (which it does most times) -- unless taking them out of the story is the point. So, uh, I guess I'm pretty excited about the whole thing here. Go Vince Gallo.

Exactly. The childish, giggly attitude the cultural powers that be in our country have towards sex is an embarrassment. We have got to find a way to keep an "X" type rating from being a scarlet letter to the loony Puritanical streak we still have in America. NC-17 hasn't cut it.
""Money doesn't come into it. It never has. I do what I do because it's all that I am." - Morrissey

"Lacan stressed more and more in his work the power and organizing principle of the symbolic, understood as the networks, social, cultural, and linguistic, into which a child is born. These precede the birth of a child, which is why Lacan can say that language is there from before the actual moment of birth. It is there in the social structures which are at play in the family and, of course, in the ideals, goals, and histories of the parents. This world of language can hardly be grasped by the newborn and yet it will act on the whole of the child's existence."

Stay informed on protecting your freedom of speech and civil rights.

SoNowThen

#164
June 13, 2003, 11:05:00 AM
Yes. But that being said, I don't want it to turn into porno. That's what porno is for. Some chick who can JUST fuck good on camera is not an actress. I wanna keep them in their own category.

I'm just saying, if you can serve the story (which, I know, is stupidly subjective) then you shouldn't be restricted. But then, I guess with that attitude, snuff films are okay...

Shit... I've painted myself into a corner...
Those who say that the totalitarian state of the Soviet Union was not "real" Marxism also cannot admit that one simple feature of Marxism makes totalitarianism necessary:  the rejection of civil society. Since civil society is the sphere of private activity, its abolition and replacement by political society means that nothing private remains. That is already the essence of totalitarianism; and the moralistic practice of the trendy Left, which regards everything as political and sometimes reveals its hostility to free speech, does nothing to contradict this implication.

When those who hated capital and consumption (and Jews) in the 20th century murdered some hundred million people, and the poster children for the struggle against international capitalism and America are now fanatical Islamic terrorists, this puts recent enthusiasts in an awkward position. Most of them are too dense and shameless to appreciate it, and far too many are taken in by the moralistic and paternalistic rhetoric of the Left.
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