The Brown Bunny

"i've never been a popular person, but it doesn't matter. i have everything in my life that i want. i'm not a walking publicity stunt. i'm not an anarchist, or bitter. i'm not trying to be subversive. i just try to remain unguarded, unprotected by fear, and agents and publicists, and i feel comfortable that way." vincent gallo

there's the story in the bell jar about the poet esther eats with at a fancy restaurant, where everyone but the poet is dressed a certain way, and the poet uses his hands to eat his salad, "one piece of lettuce at a time." and no one whispers or stares at him rudely. esther uses this story to communicate her belief that it's not one's knowledge of a table fork's intended use that's essential, but that the fork handler has confidence.

basically, i'm comparing vincent gallo with that poet in the restaurant. that's how i see him -- eating lettuce with his hands in a fancy restaurant.

a single restaurant couldn't be analogous to all of cinema, there'd have to be multiple restaurants, because it seems clear that not everyone wants the same cinematic food.

it's difficult to imagine a theater full of random people all liking and feeling positive about the brown bunny, based on people i know and movies that are popular. but because it doesn't appeal to everyone doesn't mean it wasn't made for everyone. this is important. gallo made his movie in a very specific way, but by all accounts (and i feel when watching the movie that) his intention was to make the movie for everyone. brown bunny doesn't operate on and isn't enriched by exclusionary cultural references or extraneous background knowledge.

the brown bunny exists as an unmappable curiosity, fine-tuned liked a person. its weight comes not from cinema, but from cinematic realness.

it wasn't a popular movie, with the audience or with critics. in the recent sight and sound poll, brown bunny received one vote: american moviemaker josh safdie (pleasure of being robbed), who also voted milestones, korine's julien donkey-boy, and a maurice pialat movie.

i feel deep and meaningful connections to the brown bunny, more than i do with the majority of movies i see (and i see so many movies) and i guess that means things that don't appeal to everyone have the same capacity for personal meaning as movies that appeal to a greater number of people.

two weeks ago or thereabouts, over a shared bottle of sake, i told my roommate a problem i had was i wanted to see a movie in the theater but there wasn't a movie in the theater i wanted to see. and again he became mad at me for not wanting to see the dark knight rises. it's his favorite routine. it's either the dark night rises or fincher's girl with the dragon tattoo or slumdog millionare or some other movie. i sense that he wants me to see these movies not because i might like them, but because he likes them so much.

amid my explanations for not wanting to see the dark knight rises, he accused me of not wanting to see the movie because it's popular. he was so off it startled me. we weren't having the same conversation. it took me a day and a half to figure out where the assumption came from. i realized there's this perception that the popularity of a movie has meaning -- that the numbers themselves have a meaning. this doesn't occur to me, not because i'm anti-numbers, but simply because numbers don't have the same meaning for me.

i like community, and i want it from cinema, but there are other things i want.

there are other things i want more.

based on my familiarity with the type of movie the dark knight rises is, and its maker, and based on its trailers, the movie isn't my bag. my specific bag. it's not the thing i die for. and i might like the movie, when and if i see it, i might be totally wrong. but nothing about it immediately sings to me, and don't we all follow the things that sing to us?

when a movie plays in the theater that sings to me, like solondz's dark horse, or hansen-løve's goodbye first love, the value isn't related to b.o. receipts or attendance. that stuff doesn't matter in an ultimate sense. and a lot of people talk about how it's the business end and a lot of people talk about how it does matter, but the truth comes to people when they sit alone in the theater and experience the movie.

only the movie matters.

while having domestic squabbles with the local multiplex i can sometimes forget there are these really wonderful american movies, and i think that's because some of the most wonderful don't play in multiplexes. many american movies i think are really wonderful aren't popular, for one reason or another, and by popular i mean they don't get mentioned in glossy magazines or chatted about too much on television and people don't go to see them and things like that.

i don't at all think the pure fact of them being underseen or unappreciated makes them important or unimportant, culturally or otherwise. that's like thinking the person who's talking the loudest or whispering the quietest has the most valid opinion by virtue of their speaking volume.

this doesn't apply strictly to independents either. when five-year engagement and the avengers were in the theater at the same time i asked my friend, who's a big alison brie fan, if the friend had seen five-year engagement, in which the supporting actors alison brie and chris pratt outperform the movie's leads, in my opinion. my friend told me he hadn't seen five-year engagement, that he doesn't go to the theater often, and that he chose to see the avengers because it was the more "culturally important" movie. well, i remember alison brier's wedding speech in five-year engagement better than i remember anything from the avengers. i took more from five-year engagement than the avengers. facts. but i don't blame my friend, i think the summer's first blockbuster, by a talented moviemaker with an exciting and huge cast of people, has many reasons for being seen, and i think a lot of blockbusters offer tremendous riches. prometheus was a pot of gold. abe lincoln vamp hunter had a lengthy action sequence that took place within, and used as weapons, stampeding horses, in 3d. snow white and the huntsman doesn't just have a magical godlike white unicorn that reigns over a lushly fantastical forest specialworld, the movie also uses this unicorn creature for a major dramatic beat. you can't not make this stuff up. skipping the dark knight rises i take the risk of missing riches. but you can't see everything, right, so we each make these little judgments about how we're going to spend our time based on the information we have about the thing and about ourselves.

we follow what sings to us. the voice that sings to me is weird and not the same voice everyone else hears, and sometimes i hate it for that, tell you the truth. and then in stronger moments i know and believe that if others aren't hearing it, i have more personal responsibility about remembering its song.

i'm arguing with imaginary people.

gallo, right, the brown bunny, right. right right right.

gallo does despair, as he does all things, without the traditional accompaniment of self-pity and self-consciousness. he doesn't apologize for having emotions.

the twisted confidence of his misery makes it a mini-miracle. if you've ever been around a person or people and had a bad feeling, and apologized to the person or people for having that bad feeling, there's a strength to be acquired through gallo and his art.

the brown bunny is about bud clay (vincent gallo) feeling miserable while driving across america to los angeles. and i think the movie, by its patience and focus, captures many shades of misery that are important.

both this movie and buffalo 66 have a lead collapsing inward on a very specific feeling.

until the movie's end one might not identify the brown bunny's central feeling as a specific emotion, (a large number of people would describe the movie through their own emotion, boredom,) but the attentive viewer senses an emotion hovering outside frame.

and car trips in general and the specific shots of this trip engender complex feelings about traveling -- the literal experience of traveling, reasons for traveling, feelings stirred by traveling, memories of travel, etc.

over backstreets, passing white-shingled two-stories in the middle of bug-splatters and gas stations and highways and days turned to nights, one senses a feeling chases bud, and one senses a feeling bud chases.

the first spoken word, "hi," comes at 6:27. bud to the country girl.

whom he ditches, promoting a feeling other than misery, or at least a compound misery. something like anger, disapproval, objection.

bud's misery takes the shape of its environment.

sometimes the movie doesn't feel miserable.

things other than misery take place.

i think the movie is actually a quiet war against misery.

or at least an investigation into misery.

its despair has a confessional tone that lends it a sense of earnestness. bud, a victim of tragedy, victimizes others, creating new tragedies. he's stuck in the cycle of humanness that pains him. he buzzes with pure and innocent fear. one notices his downcast eyes. his short replies. (his conversational goal seems to be to speak as little as possible without appearing rude.)

the divergent emotional textures have roughly each the same value in an eventless and drifting narrative. gallo doesn't emphasize emotions, doesn't suggest one is more important or greater than the other. this indifference is the indifference of a reality beyond the camera.

the movie makes me feel tender. i want to take care of buddy. didn't i begin this piece by defending buddy, by rooting for him? the movie draws it out of me, triggers my instincts to protect the weak. and that's because buddy's imperfections are as clear as his humanness and his frailty.

and i feel for him. for 93 beautiful minutes.