OldBoy

Anyone see both extended and cut versions? Is the cut, really that much better?

Cygnet74

there's really only one cut you need to concern yourself with. the extended version you've heard about was a "work in progress" rough cut that Gallo previewed at Cannes. his final cut premiered at the Nuart theatre in los angeles in september of 2004. i was there. met Gallo. spoke to him. there is nothing missing from the film that Gallo wanted in there. he made no concessions. it's his final cut.

The film is a meditative journey through a man's grief-induced fantasies. The title serves as a key to unlocking what's real and what isn't. and in my opinion, the anticipation for the x-rated climax at the end of the film is the film's only flaw. it served as a distraction that kept my mind from investing fully in the present moment of each scene. although, i think if audiences could get over the blowjob, they would recognize this for what it is... a modern masterpiece. this, coming from someone who loathed Buffalo 66.

clemente

Ebert had a mini review of the DVD release in today Sin-Times and was rather complimentary of the new short (final cut) version.

DeputyDave

I think the tag line on the movie poster sums it up: "Now with 80% more Blow Jobs!"

Seantn

http://www.imdb.com

type in "The Brown Bunny"

Filmmaker

So let me be blatant--does she actually, truly, physically



on screen, or is it just strongly implied?

Troy Stiffler

Do a Google image search. It's DEFINATELY real.

Scandalous.

I'm looking forward to seeing it one of these days. But it doesn't seem like a movie that I NEED to see.

Filmmaker

Damn, I'm all for conviction in one's performance but I'd never need a seven-digit paycheck nor an Academy Award that bad...

lamphorn

It really is an odd choice. I really really doubt they'd give this performance an oscar no matter how good her acting is. Sucking a cock like that on screen is really not an image the Academy likes to present to the public. As far as her asking price, unless this film does big business (which, by it's nature, it's sure NOT to), it won't make her more money. I think she'll still get the same amount and quality of work that has been available to her, but really I don't see any career advantage to doing it, actually the opposite. She's now that famous girl who sucked her director's dick on camera. That fucker even advertised it that way with his billboard in L.A. Needless to say, my opinion of Gallo isn't very high.

Cygnet74

i don't think an actress that is willing to go this far with her performance is motivated by money or awards. and she is not being exploited by the director. it is not done for cheap pornographic thrills. it has the integrity of an artful expression of grief, desperation and hostility filtered through a frank portrayal of male sexuality.

clemente

Didn't Sevigny get dropped by her reps after the movie screened?

Troy Stiffler

That's horrible. Do you have a picture, or more info?

Cygnet74

Tyler_Durden

You know, I saw the film a week ago (and did not think it was terrible)... I understand Gallo shortened a sequence in which he rides his motorcycle into the horizon and then rides back. While the sequence is probably better in its shorter form, I had seen the below poster before seeing the film, and was kind of disappointed to not find that quite beautiful image in the film itself...

Troy Stiffler

W O W. From 'art' to GIMMICK. Did they REALLY need to sell it on the BJ scene? Is there no other positive or memorable points to the movie?

Stilll want to see it. I'll rent, not buy.

Filmmaker

I'd say you make a fair point, but I just CAN'T accept that the same qualities couldn't have been conveyed by suggestion of the act, rather than the photographed reality of it. Perhaps it's a reflection of the director's limitations of talent...

Cygnet74

sure, it doesn't need to be seen. in fact the blowjob could be cut from the film and his character to reach a point of crisis through a different route. but this is the film we're given and it works as a path to unlocking the source of his grief. do we need to see? i don't know. it poses different questions than if we hadn't seen it. and we can't change it. so instead of being hypocritical (wanting to see blowjobs in my porn, but not my art), i will accept exactly what's been laid before me try to draw conclusions based on the characters, story and mise en scene, not on the egos at play behind the camera.

Filmmaker

It sounds like you put more virtue in accepting what the filmmaker has offered you than in questioning and challenging it; not a judgment call on you, but in this case, I find more virtue in the latter...

Cygnet74

these "behind the camera" acecdotes are fun to discuss, but ultimately i'm just interested in breaking down the film, not the politics or egos behind it. and i don't blindly accept what the filmmaker has presented. in fact, as i posted earlier, the blowjob scene is a flaw; it's a distraction that prevented me from investing fully in the 90 minutes leading up to it. things like "why would chloe do a scene like that" is just gossip. and gossip doesn't figure into my analysis of story, character, mise en scene, etc.

Filmmaker

That's seems to me to be too quick and easy a dismissal. Surely there is as much worth to be found in deconstructing actors and the individual, case-by-case processes of their craft as there is in deconstructing story, character, mise en scene, etc., yes?

Cygnet74

if you call what's being said in here a critical deconstruction of the actor, i've got news for you. all i've read is slander and gossip. yes, there is a place for true analysis of an actor, but separate and apart from the contents and intents of the film. for example, I recently met a (will go unnamed, if you know him, great) noted cinematographer. he is an alcoholic. what does that have to do with the imagery he captured in 'Hero'?

MartinBlank

So...just found a link to the clip....is it art or is it smut? Personally, I'm gonna have to go the route of the latter. Don't get me wrong, I'm all about a writer or director's vision and artistic integrity, but wow....just wow. I didn't have to "see" Ving Rhames being brutalized in Pulp Fiction to know what was happening....I guess I just don't get it....but I also subscribe to the school of thought that the human mind, generally, can create a more vivid/brutal image than that of the one projected on the screen. When people discuss Reservoir Dogs, all they remember is the "brutality" of the ear cutting scene, which the audience never actually "sees".

*Sorry for all the Taratino references, these are the best examples I can think of at the moment.

Maybe Sevingy will be setting a new standard for the pay scale of women in film. Didn't Halley Barry receive half a million dollars, above her normal pay, to appear topless in Swordfish? A few years from now, Katie Holmes and Lindsay Lohan will be turning down features because she doesn't do BJ scenes....then they'll probably start adding "no fellatio" clauses to their contracts. LOL

So the question I pose...Is excess really rebellion?

Cygnet74

martin, i suggest watching the scene in the context of the film. it takes on much more meaning beyond a sexual act. and that school of thought is BS in this case. how could the scene be any more "vivid" than it was?

also, that scene in reservoir dogs is an oft cited example for the power of off-screen violence. but you know, i've seen the film with many audiences and no one gasps or groans until faced with the graphic close-up of the cop's earless head that follows that shot.

btw, if memeory serves, in pulp fiction we did see ving rhames getting sodomized. there was no shot of the penetration, but we saw the guy thrusting into him -- a clear graphic depiction of the act. and come to think of it, i would have had an even stronger, more powerful reaction to the scene had i been confronted with a close-up of a dick ramming up ving's ass.

AeroStone

Not attacking anyone here..but I crack up when a movie comes out that features graphic sex and then people try to take a high road and talk about the merits of the film and how the sex gets in the way....O...KAYYYYYYYYY...

I aint gonna pretend to care about the merits of the message of the Brown Bunny...the film sounds like a boring story and not my cup of tea and I rented it from Netflix which should come tomorrow.... and I rented it for one reason only..cause I wanna see Chloe suck cock on screen while I touch myself....

same reason why I rented The Dreamers.... which let me down...in sex and story

same reason why I rented Intimacy.... which let me down in sex and story

same reason I rented Romance...which let me down in sex and story

same reason I rented Pola X....which let me down in sex and story

same reason why I rented Sex & Lucia...which provided SOME good wanking....and an okay story

same reason I rented Y Tu Mama Tabien... some good sex stuff and ok story...

and the same reason I am gonna see 9 songs when it debuts...soley for the fucking...if a good story interrupts thats even better.

hey..at least I am being honest.

The Bus

Sex & Lucia was extremely boring. Y Tu Mama Tambien was an excellent, excellent, excellent movie. The sex didn't "get in the way" at all.