HOME

TheInfoList



OR:

''The Brown Bunny'' is a 2003
experimental An experiment is a procedure carried out to support or refute a hypothesis, or determine the efficacy or likelihood of something previously untried. Experiments provide insight into cause-and-effect by demonstrating what outcome occurs when a ...
road A road is a linear way for the conveyance of traffic that mostly has an improved surface for use by vehicles (motorized and non-motorized) and pedestrians. Unlike streets, the main function of roads is transportation. There are many types of ...
drama Drama is the specific mode of fiction represented in performance: a play, opera, mime, ballet, etc., performed in a theatre, or on radio or television.Elam (1980, 98). Considered as a genre of poetry in general, the dramatic mode has b ...
film written, directed, produced, photographed and edited by
Vincent Gallo Vincent Gallo (born 1961) is an American actor and director. He has had supporting roles in films such as ''Arizona Dream'' (1993), ''The House of the Spirits'' (1993), ''Palookaville'' (1995), and '' The Funeral'' (1996). His lead roles include ...
. Starring Gallo and Chloë Sevigny, it tells the story of a motorcycle racer on a cross-country drive who is haunted by memories of his former lover. It was photographed with
handheld A mobile device (or handheld computer) is a computer small enough to hold and operate in the hand. Mobile devices typically have a flat LCD or OLED screen, a touchscreen interface, and digital or physical buttons. They may also have a physical ...
16 mm 16 mm film is a historically popular and economical gauge of film. 16 mm refers to the width of the film (about inch); other common film gauges include 8 and 35 mm. It is generally used for non-theatrical (e.g., industrial, edu ...
cameras in various locations throughout the United States, including
New Hampshire New Hampshire is a state in the New England region of the northeastern United States. It is bordered by Massachusetts to the south, Vermont to the west, Maine and the Gulf of Maine to the east, and the Canadian province of Quebec to the nor ...
,
Massachusetts Massachusetts (Massachusett: ''Muhsachuweesut Massachusett_writing_systems.html" ;"title="nowiki/> məhswatʃəwiːsət.html" ;"title="Massachusett writing systems">məhswatʃəwiːsət">Massachusett writing systems">məhswatʃəwiːsət'' En ...
,
Ohio Ohio () is a state in the Midwestern region of the United States. Of the fifty U.S. states, it is the 34th-largest by area, and with a population of nearly 11.8 million, is the seventh-most populous and tenth-most densely populated. The sta ...
,
Missouri Missouri is a state in the Midwestern region of the United States. Ranking 21st in land area, it is bordered by eight states (tied for the most with Tennessee): Iowa to the north, Illinois, Kentucky and Tennessee to the east, Arkansas t ...
,
Utah Utah ( , ) is a state in the Mountain West subregion of the Western United States. Utah is a landlocked U.S. state bordered to its east by Colorado, to its northeast by Wyoming, to its north by Idaho, to its south by Arizona, and to it ...
,
Nevada Nevada ( ; ) is a state in the Western region of the United States. It is bordered by Oregon to the northwest, Idaho to the northeast, California to the west, Arizona to the southeast, and Utah to the east. Nevada is the 7th-most extensive, ...
, and
California California is a state in the Western United States, located along the Pacific Coast. With nearly 39.2million residents across a total area of approximately , it is the most populous U.S. state and the 3rd largest by area. It is also the m ...
. Following a world premiere at the 2003 Cannes Film Festival, the film garnered a great deal of media attention because of an explicit scene where Sevigny performs unsimulated
fellatio Fellatio (also known as fellation, and in slang as blowjob, BJ, giving head, or sucking off) is an oral sex act involving a person stimulating the penis of another person by using the mouth, throat, or both. Oral stimulation of the scrotu ...
on Gallo, as well as a feud between Gallo and the film critic Roger Ebert, who stated that ''The Brown Bunny'' was the worst film in the history of Cannes, although he later gave a re-edited version his signature " thumbs up".


Plot

Motorcycle racer Bud Clay undertakes a cross-country drive, following a race in New Hampshire, in order to participate in a race in California. All the while he is haunted by memories of his former lover, Daisy. On his journey he meets three women, but Bud seems to be a lost soul, and he is unable to form an emotional connection with any of them. He first meets Violet at a gas station in New Hampshire and convinces her to join him on his trip. They stop at her home in order to get her clothes, but he drives off as soon as she enters the house. Bud's next stop is the home of Daisy's parents, the location of Daisy's brown bunny. Daisy's mother does not remember Bud, who grew up in the house next door, nor does she remember having visited Bud and Daisy in California. Next, Bud stops at a pet shelter, where he asks about the life expectancy of rabbits (he is told it is about five or six years). At a highway rest stop, he meets a distressed woman, Lilly. He comforts and kisses her, before starting to cry and eventually leaving her. Bud appears more distressed as the road trip continues, crying as he drives. He stops at the
Bonneville Speedway Bonneville Speedway (also known as the Bonneville Salt Flats Race Track) is an area of the Bonneville Salt Flats northeast of Wendover, Utah, that is marked out for motor sports. It is particularly noted as the venue for numerous land speed rec ...
to race his motorcycle. In
Las Vegas Las Vegas (; Spanish for "The Meadows"), often known simply as Vegas, is the 25th-most populous city in the United States, the most populous city in the state of Nevada, and the county seat of Clark County. The city anchors the Las Vegas ...
, he drives around prostitutes on street corners, before deciding to ask one of them, Rose, to join him for a lunch. She eats
McDonald's McDonald's Corporation is an American multinational fast food chain, founded in 1940 as a restaurant operated by Richard and Maurice McDonald, in San Bernardino, California, United States. They rechristened their business as a hambur ...
food in his truck until he stops, pays her, and leaves her back on the street. After having his motorcycle checked in a Los Angeles garage, Bud stops at Daisy's house, which appears abandoned. He leaves a note on the door frame, after sitting in his truck in the driveway remembering about kissing Daisy in this place, and checks in at a hotel. Daisy eventually appears there. She seems nervous, going to the bathroom twice to smoke crack cocaine, while Bud waits for her, sitting on his bed. As she proposes to go out to buy something to drink, Bud tells her that, because of what happened the last time they saw each other, he does not drink anymore. They have an argument about Daisy kissing other men. At this point, Bud undresses Daisy and she
fellates Fellatio (also known as fellation, and in slang as blowjob, BJ, giving head, or sucking off) is an oral sex act involving a person stimulating the penis of another person by using the mouth, throat, or both. Oral stimulation of the scrotum ma ...
him. Once done, he insults her as they lie in bed, talking about what happened during their last meeting. Bud continuously asks Daisy why she had been involved with some men at a party. She explains that she was just being friendly and wanted to smoke marijuana with them. Bud becomes upset because Daisy was pregnant and it transpires that the baby died as a result of what happened at this party. Through flashback scenes, the viewer understands that Daisy was
rape Rape is a type of sexual assault usually involving sexual intercourse or other forms of sexual penetration carried out against a person without their consent. The act may be carried out by physical force, coercion, abuse of authority, or ...
d at the party, a scene witnessed by Bud, who did not intervene. Daisy asks Bud why he did not help her, and his feelings of guilt on this are considerable. He tells her that he did not know what to do, and so he decided to leave the party. After he came back a bit later, he saw an ambulance in front of the house and Daisy explains to Bud that she is dead, having passed out prior to the rape and then choked to death on her own vomit. Bud awakens the next morning, alone; his encounter with Daisy turns out to have been a figment of his imagination. The movie ends as Bud is driving his truck in California.


Cast

*
Vincent Gallo Vincent Gallo (born 1961) is an American actor and director. He has had supporting roles in films such as ''Arizona Dream'' (1993), ''The House of the Spirits'' (1993), ''Palookaville'' (1995), and '' The Funeral'' (1996). His lead roles include ...
as Bud Clay * Chloë Sevigny as Daisy *
Cheryl Tiegs Cheryl Rae Tiegs (born September 25, 1947) is an American model and fashion designer. Frequently described as the first American supermodel, Tiegs is best known for her multiple appearances on the covers of the ''Sports Illustrated'' Swimsuit ...
as Lilly * Elizabeth Blake as Rose * Anna Vareschi as Violet * Mary Morasky as Mrs. Lemon


Production and release

The film was shot in
16 mm 16 mm film is a historically popular and economical gauge of film. 16 mm refers to the width of the film (about inch); other common film gauges include 8 and 35 mm. It is generally used for non-theatrical (e.g., industrial, edu ...
and then blown up in 35 mm, which gives the photography a typical "old-school grain". Vincent Gallo credited himself as director of the photography as well as one of the three camera operators along with Toshiaki Ozawa and John Clemens. The version of the film shown in the U.S. has been cut by about 25 minutes compared to the version shown at Cannes, removing a large part of the initial scene at the race track (about four minutes shorter), about six minutes of music and black screen at the end of the film, and about seven minutes of driving before the scene in the
Bonneville Speedway Bonneville Speedway (also known as the Bonneville Salt Flats Race Track) is an area of the Bonneville Salt Flats northeast of Wendover, Utah, that is marked out for motor sports. It is particularly noted as the venue for numerous land speed rec ...
. Neither Anna Vareschi nor Elizabeth Blake, both in the film, were professional actresses.
Kirsten Dunst Kirsten Caroline Dunst (; born April 30, 1982) is an American actress. She made her acting debut in the short ''Oedipus Wrecks'' directed by Woody Allen in the anthology film '' New York Stories'' (1989). She then gained recognition for her ro ...
and
Winona Ryder Winona Laura Horowitz (born October 29, 1971), professionally known as Winona Ryder, is an American actress. Originally playing quirky roles, she rose to prominence for her more diverse performances in various genres in the 1990s. She has recei ...
were both attached to the project but left. In an interview from ''
The Guardian ''The Guardian'' is a British daily newspaper. It was founded in 1821 as ''The Manchester Guardian'', and changed its name in 1959. Along with its sister papers ''The Observer'' and ''The Guardian Weekly'', ''The Guardian'' is part of the Gu ...
'' Sevigny said of the sex scene: "It was tough, the toughest thing I've ever done, but Vincent was very sensitized to my needs, very gentle. . . . And we'd been intimate in the past." Actress
Jennifer Jason Leigh Jennifer Jason Leigh (born Jennifer Leigh Morrow; February 5, 1962) is an American actress. She began her career on television during the 1970s before making her film breakthrough as Stacy Hamilton in '' Fast Times at Ridgemont High'' (1982). Sh ...
was initially set to play the role that Sevigny played, including the unsimulated oral sex scene, but ultimately turned the role down due to being in a relationship at the time. For the film's promotion, a trailer was released featuring a split screen in the style of
Andy Warhol Andy Warhol (; born Andrew Warhola Jr.; August 6, 1928 – February 22, 1987) was an American visual artist, film director, and producer who was a leading figure in the Art movement, visual art movement known as pop art. His works explore th ...
's ''
Chelsea Girls ''Chelsea Girls'' is a 1966 American experimental underground film directed by Andy Warhol and Paul Morrissey. The film was Warhol's first major commercial success after a long line of avant-garde art films (both feature-length and short). It w ...
'', depicting on one side of the screen a single point-of-view-shot of a driver on a country road, and the other side various scenes from the end of the film featuring Chloë Sevigny. Neither side of the screen had any audio tracks attached, although the song "Milk and Honey" by folk singer Jackson C. Frank played over the trailer's duration.


Controversy


Cannes reception and reviews

The film was entered into the 2003 Cannes Film Festival. It was reportedly heckled, with the crowd jeering every time Gallo's name appeared during the credits. Seiichi Tsukada, an executive at Kinetique, the Japanese company that provided the financing for ''The Brown Bunny'', said “I was at Cannes. I felt injustice. The bashing in Cannes is not for ''Brown Bunny''. I think they’re bashing Vincent. I don’t know why.” Upon his return to the US, Gallo took a defiant stance, defending the film and finishing a new edit that clarified and tightened the storyline. A war of words then erupted between Gallo and film critic Roger Ebert, with Ebert writing that ''The Brown Bunny'' was the worst film in the history of Cannes, and Gallo retorting by calling Ebert a "fat pig with the physique of a
slave trade Slavery and enslavement are both the state and the condition of being a slave—someone forbidden to quit one's service for an enslaver, and who is treated by the enslaver as property. Slavery typically involves slaves being made to perf ...
r." Paraphrasing a statement attributed to
Winston Churchill Sir Winston Leonard Spencer Churchill (30 November 187424 January 1965) was a British statesman, soldier, and writer who served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom twice, from 1940 to 1945 during the Second World War, and again from ...
, Ebert responded with, "It is true that I am fat, but one day I will be thin, and he will still be the director of ''The Brown Bunny''." Gallo then claimed to have put a hex on Ebert's colon, cursing the critic with
cancer Cancer is a group of diseases involving abnormal cell growth with the potential to invade or spread to other parts of the body. These contrast with benign tumors, which do not spread. Possible signs and symptoms include a lump, abnormal b ...
. In response, Ebert quipped that watching a video of his colonoscopy had been more entertaining than watching ''The Brown Bunny''. Gallo subsequently stated that the hex had actually been placed on Ebert's
prostate The prostate is both an accessory gland of the male reproductive system and a muscle-driven mechanical switch between urination and ejaculation. It is found only in some mammals. It differs between species anatomically, chemically, and phys ...
and that he had intended the comment to be a joke which was mistakenly taken seriously by a journalist. He also conceded to finding Ebert's colonoscopy comment to be an amusing comeback. A shorter, re-edited version of the film played later in 2003 at the
Toronto International Film Festival The Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF, often stylized as tiff) is one of the largest publicly attended film festivals in the world, attracting over 480,000 people annually. Since its founding in 1976, TIFF has grown to become a perman ...
(although it still retained the controversial sex scene). The new version was regarded more highly by some, even Ebert, who gave the new cut three stars out of a possible four. On the August 28, 2004 episode of the television show '' Ebert & Roeper'', Ebert gave the new version of the film a "thumbs up" rating. In a column published about the same time, Ebert reported that he and Gallo had made peace. According to Ebert: In 2018 (five years after Ebert's death), however, Gallo rebuked Ebert's statement, calling it "both far-fetched and an outright lie." According to Gallo, "If you didn’t like the unfinished film at Cannes, you didn’t like the finished film, and vice versa". Gallo went on to speculate that Ebert wanted to distance himself from "a brutal, dismissive review of a film that other, more serious critics eventually felt differently about". In addition, Gallo incorrectly stated that the film's final cut was only eight minutes shorter than the Cannes cut, not 26 minutes shorter as Ebert had claimed. Nevertheless, ''The Brown Bunny'' still received mixed reviews from other critics and has a rating of 47% on
Rotten Tomatoes Rotten Tomatoes is an American review-aggregation website for film and television. The company was launched in August 1998 by three undergraduate students at the University of California, Berkeley: Senh Duong, Patrick Y. Lee, and Stephen Wang ...
based on 96 reviews with an average score of 5.3/10. The website's critics consensus states "More dull than hypnotic, ''The Brown Bunny'' is a pretentious and self-indulgent bore."
Metacritic Metacritic is a website that aggregates reviews of films, TV shows, music albums, video games and formerly, books. For each product, the scores from each review are averaged (a weighted average). Metacritic was created by Jason Dietz, Marc ...
gives the film a score of 51 out of 100 based on reviews from 30 critics. French cinema magazine '' Les Cahiers du Cinéma'' voted ''The Brown Bunny'' one of the ten best films of 2004. The film won the FIPRESCI Prize at the
Vienna International Film Festival The Vienna International Film Festival, or Viennale, is a film festival taking place every October since 1960 in Vienna, Austria. The average number of visitors is about 75,000. Traditional cinema venues are ''Gartenbaukino'', ''Urania'', ''Metro ...
for its "bold exploration of yearning and grief and for its radical departure from dominant tendencies in current American filmmaking". The film, aside from the feud with Roger Ebert, gained some positive reaction from American critics as well. Neva Chonin of the ''
San Francisco Chronicle The ''San Francisco Chronicle'' is a newspaper serving primarily the San Francisco Bay Area of Northern California. It was founded in 1865 as ''The Daily Dramatic Chronicle'' by teenage brothers Charles de Young and Michael H. de Young. The ...
'' called it "a somber poem of a film sure to frustrate those who prefer resolution to ambiguity... like an inscrutably bad dream, tlingers on". The film was praised by other filmmakers including Jean-Luc Godard,
John Waters John Samuel Waters Jr. (born April 22, 1946) is an American filmmaker, writer, actor, and artist. He rose to fame in the early 1970s for his transgressive cult films, including '' Multiple Maniacs'' (1970), '' Pink Flamingos'' (1972) and '' Fe ...
,
Sean Penn Sean Justin Penn (born August 17, 1960) is an American actor and film director. He has won two Academy Awards, for his roles in the mystery drama ''Mystic River'' (2003) and the biopic ''Milk'' (2008). Penn began his acting career in televisi ...
, and
Werner Herzog Werner Herzog (; born 5 September 1942) is a German film director, screenwriter, author, actor, and opera director, regarded as a pioneer of New German Cinema. His films often feature ambitious protagonists with impossible dreams, people with u ...
who called it "the best portrayal of the particular loneliness a man feels." ''
The Daily Telegraph ''The Daily Telegraph'', known online and elsewhere as ''The Telegraph'', is a national British daily broadsheet newspaper published in London by Telegraph Media Group and distributed across the United Kingdom and internationally. It was f ...
'' listed ''The Brown Bunny'' as one of the 100 "defining" films of the decade, calling it the decade's "most reviled" film, but saying it was "destined to become a future lost classic".


Sevigny's response

In August 2004 upon the film's
limited theatrical release __FORCETOC__ Limited theatrical release is a film distribution strategy of releasing a new film in a few theaters across a country, typically art house theaters in major metropolitan markets. Since 1994, a limited theatrical release in the Unite ...
in the United States, star Sevigny took to defending the film and its final scene, stating, "It's a shame people write so many things when they haven't seen it. When you see the film, it makes more sense. It's an
art film An art film (or arthouse film) is typically an independent film, aimed at a niche market rather than a mass market audience. It is "intended to be a serious, artistic work, often experimental and not designed for mass appeal", "made primarily f ...
. It should be playing in museums. It's like an
Andy Warhol Andy Warhol (; born Andrew Warhola Jr.; August 6, 1928 – February 22, 1987) was an American visual artist, film director, and producer who was a leading figure in the Art movement, visual art movement known as pop art. His works explore th ...
movie. Despite the negative backlash toward Sevigny's involvement in the film, some critics praised her decision. ''
New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid ...
'' reviewer Manohla Dargis said: Seven years later, in an interview for ''
Playboy ''Playboy'' is an American men's Lifestyle magazine, lifestyle and entertainment magazine, formerly in print and currently online. It was founded in Chicago in 1953, by Hugh Hefner and his associates, and funded in part by a $1,000 loan from H ...
''s January 2011 issue, Sevigny talked about the oral sex scene in the film: "What's happened with that is all very complicated. There are a lot of emotions. I'll probably have to go to therapy at some point. But I love Vincent. The film is tragic and beautiful, and I'm proud of it and my performance. I'm sad that people think one way of the movie, but what can you do? I've done many explicit sex scenes, but I'm not that interested in doing any more. I'm more self-aware now and wouldn't be able to be as free, so why even do it?


Billboard promotion

''The Brown Bunny'' also attracted media attention over a large billboard erected over
Sunset Boulevard Sunset Boulevard is a boulevard in the central and western part of Los Angeles, California, that stretches from the Pacific Coast Highway in Pacific Palisades east to Figueroa Street in Downtown Los Angeles. It is a major thoroughfare in ...
in
West Hollywood, California West Hollywood is a city in Los Angeles County, California, United States. Incorporated in 1984, it is home to the Sunset Strip. As of the 2020 U.S. Census, its population was 35,757. It is considered one of the most prominent gay villages ...
in 2004 promoting the film. The billboard featured a black-and-white image taken from the fellatio sequence, drawing complaints from residents and business owners. The image showed Gallo standing with Sevigny on her knees, but did not show any explicit sexual content. It was eventually removed nonetheless. In 2011, a similar image featuring in the billboard of another French film, '' The Players (Les infidèles)'', triggered a similar controversy.


Soundtrack

The motion picture soundtrack to ''The Brown Bunny'' was released exclusively in Japan. The first five tracks come from artists
Gordon Lightfoot Gordon Meredith Lightfoot Jr. (born November 17, 1938) is a Canadian singer-songwriter and guitarist who achieved international success in folk, folk-rock, and country music. He is credited with helping to define the folk-pop sound of the 1960 ...
, Jackson C. Frank,
Matisse Henri Émile Benoît Matisse (; 31 December 1869 – 3 November 1954) was a French visual artist, known for both his use of colour and his fluid and original draughtsmanship. He was a drawing, draughtsman, printmaking, printmaker, and sculptur ...
/ Accardo Quartet,
Jeff Alexander Jeff Alexander (born Myer Goodhue Alexander; July 2, 1910 – December 23, 1989) was an American conductor, arranger, and composer of film, radio and television scores. Early years Born in Seattle, Washington, Alexander began performing in hi ...
and
Ted Curson Theodore Curson (June 3, 1935 – November 4, 2012) was an American jazz trumpeter. Life and career Curson was born in Philadelphia. He became interested in playing trumpet after watching a newspaper salesman play a silver trumpet. Curson's fath ...
. The last five tracks are performed by
John Frusciante John Anthony Frusciante (; born March 5, 1970) is an American musician, best known as the guitarist for the Red Hot Chili Peppers across three stints since 1988. He has released 11 solo albums and 7 EPs, ranging in style from acoustic guitar to e ...
.


Soundtrack re-release

Australian indie label Twelve Suns re-issued ''The Brown Bunny'' soundtrack on deluxe
gatefold A gatefold cover or gatefold LP is a form of packaging for LP records that became popular in the mid-1960s. A gatefold cover, when folded, is the same size as a standard LP cover (i.e., a 12½ inch, or 32.7 centimetre square). The larger gatefo ...
vinyl on April 26, 2014. This reissue was fully authorized by Vincent Gallo and remastered from his master recordings. The re-issue was limited to 1000 copies. The first 5 tracks are from the film ''The Brown Bunny''. The last 5 tracks were written before the movie and used as inspiration during filming.


See also

* 2003 Cannes Film Festival * Art house films *
Independent films An independent film, independent movie, indie film, or indie movie is a feature film or short film that is produced outside the major film studio system, in addition to being produced and distributed by independent entertainment companies (or, in ...
*
List of American films of 2004 This is a list of American films that were released in 2004 in film, 2004. Box office The highest-grossing American films released in 2004, by domestic box office gross revenue, are as follows: January–March April–June July– ...


References


External links

* * * * *
"Playboy Bunny: Vincent Gallo proves he just wants to be loved"
David Edelstein,
Slate.com ''Slate'' is an online magazine that covers current affairs, politics, and culture in the United States. It was created in 1996 by former '' New Republic'' editor Michael Kinsley, initially under the ownership of Microsoft as part of MSN. In 2 ...
, September 10, 2004.
''The Brown Bunny''
Charles Taylor, ''
Salon.com ''Salon'' is an American politically progressive/ liberal news and opinion website created in 1995. It publishes articles on U.S. politics, culture, and current events. Content and coverage ''Salon'' covers a variety of topics, including re ...
'', September 17, 2004.
Brows Held High episode about Gallo's film
{{DEFAULTSORT:Brown Bunny, The 2003 films 2000s avant-garde and experimental films 2000s erotic drama films 2000s drama road movies American erotic drama films American auto racing films American independent films American nonlinear narrative films American drama road movies 2000s English-language films Fellatio Films about depression Films about grieving Films directed by Vincent Gallo Films shot in the Las Vegas Valley Films shot in Los Angeles Films shot in Massachusetts Films shot in Missouri Films shot in New Hampshire Films shot in Salt Lake City Films shot in Utah French auto racing films French erotic drama films Japanese auto racing films Japanese erotic drama films English-language Japanese films Japanese nonlinear narrative films Motorcycle racing films Motorcycling films Advertising and marketing controversies in film Obscenity controversies in film Films about self-harm 2003 drama films 2003 independent films 2000s American films 2000s Japanese films 2000s French films