SCREENWRITER OF THE MONTH
APRIL 2004

VINCENT GALLO

BUFFALO 66 (1998) Orson Welles wrote, directed and played the lead
role in his filmmaking debut, "Citizen Kane." Vincent Gallo wrote,
directed and played the lead role in his filmmaking debut, "Buffalo 66."
Gallo is a recently released convict who abducts a ballet student
(Chistina Ricci) and drags her to dinner at his nutjob parents' home.
The parents are played by Ben Gazzara and Angelica Huston. Huston is
obsessed with a Buffalo Bills game spoiled by a botched field goal kick.
She replays the game endlessly on video, hoping for a different outcome
each time. Brimming with eye-catching visual flourishes, and exploring
many of the great themes of American theater, namely dysfunctional
families, crime, sex, sports and the ghosts of the past encroaching
upon the present, "Buffalo 66" is a startling original, the work of
a singular talent, and one of the boldest filmmaking debuts since
Orson Welles made "Citizen Kane" in 1941.

THE BROWN BUNNY (2003) Gallo's long-awaited second film was
the talk of the 2003 Cannes Film Festival. It is the most notorious film
of the past 50 years. I haven't seen it yet, and I am concerned that
it will never get distributed in the U.S. "The Brown Bunny" might be
so ahead of its time that the scorn of critics heralds its unprecedented
nature. Cubism and impressionism initially inspired a similar contempt,
so Gallo is in good company. Perhaps decades hence, "The Brown Bunny"
will be slotted alongside the likes of "L'Atalante" and "A Nous la
Liberte" on a "Greatest Films Ever Made" list compiled by enlightened
cinephiles.

"The Brown Bunny" sounds like an early 70's existential road picture
in the vein of "Two Lane Blacktop," "Scarecrow" and "Five Easy Pieces,"
and this is a sub-genre I am quite partial to. "The Brown Bunny" also
features Chloe Sevigny, a mainstay of avant garde cinema whose mere
presence in any production portends ill for the ordinary.


FUN FACT: VINCENT GALLO IS A MISUNDERSTOOD VISIONARY!

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