(Historical Post - June 2015)
After writing my last post and due to the fact that I am having a bit of a Brad Renfro phase at the moment I, stupidly, decided to watch Bully, again.
Bully, is a 2001 film by Larry Clark, about the 1993 murder of Bobby Kent.
I always wake up early on a Saturday and the first thing I see when I open my eyes is my iPad, propped up on my bedside table from the night before and not wanting to get out of bed at 7am, I thought I'd watch a film.
As soon as I heard the opening line I regretted it, but I just couldn't take my eyes off it.
The first words, uttered by Brad Renfro, are really quite obscene if you're easily offended, which I am not, but just the sound of his voice is like a trigger to me, and I knew exactly what was going to happen to me, but still carried on watching.
As a result, I was muted and thoughtful and day dreaming, all weekend - this is why I love movies so much, they physically and mentally effect you, yet they are only words and moving pictures; that is amazing to me.
There is something about how Larry Clark makes his films that just fills you with dread the second you start watching, you get that heavy feeling in the pit of your stomach that takes a good while to go away and also the fact that, really, on the surface of it, he is a dirty old man - if you have seen his other work, especially Kids and Ken Park, you will know exactly what I mean. I will get to that shortly.
The one thing I love/hate about this movie is that at no point is it masquerading as purely entertainment, it was made to tell a story, and tell a story it does, with this crushing effect only a few movies really have.
This film is the facts and no filler, granted some of the characters have been exaggerated for a more dramatic effect, but if you read the book, its pretty much word for word what happened and the author got these words straight out of the killers mouths - the only problem with a story about murder, is that the victims version of events will always remain untold.
How much of the story about the victims horrendous behaviour you believe, is totally up to the viewer and I like that in a movie, you can be on his side if you want, you can root for the bad guys or you can remain impartial - this film however is totally the exception, you just end up feeling disgusted by all of them!! Baring in mind the murderers are all between 17 and 20 years of age, there is only cursory outside/parental involvement and a weak attempt to make you feel slightly sorry for the victim by showing his father as a bit over bearing - this all means there is no clear choice to make, unless of course you're a bit of a psycho and think murderers are cool.
The film starts when the main characters meet and ends with the remaining 7 of them in the courtroom, arguing about who did what and who carries the most blame - all this in front of the jury. This is actually happened in reality, in fact the arguing got to such a volume that the entire courtroom was silent and they didn't even realise. Another glowing example of their shockingly cavalier mindset from hopeless start to pointless finish.
We get to see the dynamics of the relationships already in place at the beginning of the story and the new ones that are formed, the story is straightforward, to the point and shocking, the actual murder is pretty grim but nothing too horrific if you are a horror fan like me.
The whole movie is a sweaty heady mess off colours - it’s very orange and yellow in my memory, so bright for such a hard hitting film. You can feel the soaring temperature and see it in the sweat covered skin of the quite brilliant, ensemble cast.
Every single one of the central 8, are outstanding and totally fearless in handling such taboo subject matter, but there were 3 standout performances for me, Brad Renfro, playing Marty Puccio, Michael Pitt, Playing Donny Semenec and Nick Stahl playing Bobby Kent.
They all did such wonderful jobs, it's so hard to believe that this wasn't actually a documentary, they become their characters so well its gob smacking and by the point of Bobby Kent's murder you really don't give a shit if he suffers or dies, he's an atrocious character on paper and shined like a horrifying beacon on screen.
As I've said before there are 8 main players in this murderous game and are all luminous in their own ways, especially for how young they were at the time principal photography took place.
What gets me most is the soundtrack - I could watch the last 4 minutes of this film again and again, it mesmerises me, but it’s also the part that hits me hardest, there's something so tragic about the beautiful trancey sound of late 90's Fatboy Slim, which starts when you see Marty Puccio being arrested and taken away and begins to build when we see all 7 of them arguing in the dock, like the gravity of their situation is comparable to a playground scuffle, and finally develops into this white noise-esque sound when their final fate is revealed.
I think what makes this so disturbing to me is the mindless stupidity of it all and the fact that my brain goes into overdrive, trying to make that leap into the wayward teenage mindset that the director obviously did a long time ago.
In between Brad Renfro's opening lines and the closing title cards depicting the eventual sentences they all received, is an hour and a half of extremely graphic sex, unnecessary nudity, drugs, alcohol, and the general hopelessness that Larry Clark manages to capture so hauntingly well, given that he was well into his 50's when he started making these films and 58 when he made Bully I wonder how he knows about this suburban teenage depravity he so accurately depicts?? It’s a running theme in almost all of his movies especially the 3 I have mentioned, they oddly or not also involve some kind of teen subculture, like surfing, specifically in Bully, but more often than not it's skateboarding - I have no idea why; maybe he was a misunderstood angsty skateboarding teenager in the 50's or something :-/ the appearance of this thought, whilst watching Kids around 1998, was when I started asking questions..........
Why is a 52 year old man, filming barely legal kids, having what I can only assume was simulated sex, whilst portraying underage characters??
Now I have to point out that even if some of them look very young they were all 18 or over at the time of filming, but even the oldest cast members were barely in their 20's and we're not talking about vaguely implied sex here, his movies are extremely graphic for not being actual pornography - where do you find the artistic merit in this?? I just don't know.
Martin Scorsese and Gus Van Sant have named Larry Clark as an influence in their careers and I can sort of see a teeny glimmer in some of their films, but I still struggle to see the reason for films like Kids and Ken Park.
Bully is at least a true story so he is working with the facts he was given but the other two??!! Is he re hashing his own past? Was he abused as a child? Does he wish that he could have behaved like his cast? Did he have a dysfunctional family??
We will probably never know the answers to the million questions I have, but what concerns me the most is the fact that two of his leading actors were dead by 25. One by way of suicide and the other by (supposedly) accidental heroin overdose.
I will say that, yes, Brad Renfro was already getting in trouble with police and using cocaine by the age of 15, having worked pretty solidly on some amazing films from the age of 12, but was it his experiences with Larry Clark that pushed him into heroin and his eventual death? That's highly possible.
Both deaths occurred roughly 6 or 7 years after filming, but we don't know what baggage they gained from these films.
Justin Pierce was plucked from a skate park in New York to star in Kids in 1994 and hung himself in 2000, there are a few contributing factors according to the press, but his suicide notes were never published, so we'll never know why.
He certainly dealt with some pretty serious shit in Kids - yes it’s a film, but can a normal 19 year old be expected to make that transition from skateboarding teenager to AIDs carrying druggie, within a few months and come out completely unscathed?
The whole thing just stinks of inner demons to me - so who put them there??
After writing my last post and due to the fact that I am having a bit of a Brad Renfro phase at the moment I, stupidly, decided to watch Bully, again.
Bully, is a 2001 film by Larry Clark, about the 1993 murder of Bobby Kent.
I always wake up early on a Saturday and the first thing I see when I open my eyes is my iPad, propped up on my bedside table from the night before and not wanting to get out of bed at 7am, I thought I'd watch a film.
As soon as I heard the opening line I regretted it, but I just couldn't take my eyes off it.
The first words, uttered by Brad Renfro, are really quite obscene if you're easily offended, which I am not, but just the sound of his voice is like a trigger to me, and I knew exactly what was going to happen to me, but still carried on watching.
As a result, I was muted and thoughtful and day dreaming, all weekend - this is why I love movies so much, they physically and mentally effect you, yet they are only words and moving pictures; that is amazing to me.
There is something about how Larry Clark makes his films that just fills you with dread the second you start watching, you get that heavy feeling in the pit of your stomach that takes a good while to go away and also the fact that, really, on the surface of it, he is a dirty old man - if you have seen his other work, especially Kids and Ken Park, you will know exactly what I mean. I will get to that shortly.
The one thing I love/hate about this movie is that at no point is it masquerading as purely entertainment, it was made to tell a story, and tell a story it does, with this crushing effect only a few movies really have.
This film is the facts and no filler, granted some of the characters have been exaggerated for a more dramatic effect, but if you read the book, its pretty much word for word what happened and the author got these words straight out of the killers mouths - the only problem with a story about murder, is that the victims version of events will always remain untold.
How much of the story about the victims horrendous behaviour you believe, is totally up to the viewer and I like that in a movie, you can be on his side if you want, you can root for the bad guys or you can remain impartial - this film however is totally the exception, you just end up feeling disgusted by all of them!! Baring in mind the murderers are all between 17 and 20 years of age, there is only cursory outside/parental involvement and a weak attempt to make you feel slightly sorry for the victim by showing his father as a bit over bearing - this all means there is no clear choice to make, unless of course you're a bit of a psycho and think murderers are cool.
The film starts when the main characters meet and ends with the remaining 7 of them in the courtroom, arguing about who did what and who carries the most blame - all this in front of the jury. This is actually happened in reality, in fact the arguing got to such a volume that the entire courtroom was silent and they didn't even realise. Another glowing example of their shockingly cavalier mindset from hopeless start to pointless finish.
We get to see the dynamics of the relationships already in place at the beginning of the story and the new ones that are formed, the story is straightforward, to the point and shocking, the actual murder is pretty grim but nothing too horrific if you are a horror fan like me.
The whole movie is a sweaty heady mess off colours - it’s very orange and yellow in my memory, so bright for such a hard hitting film. You can feel the soaring temperature and see it in the sweat covered skin of the quite brilliant, ensemble cast.
Every single one of the central 8, are outstanding and totally fearless in handling such taboo subject matter, but there were 3 standout performances for me, Brad Renfro, playing Marty Puccio, Michael Pitt, Playing Donny Semenec and Nick Stahl playing Bobby Kent.
They all did such wonderful jobs, it's so hard to believe that this wasn't actually a documentary, they become their characters so well its gob smacking and by the point of Bobby Kent's murder you really don't give a shit if he suffers or dies, he's an atrocious character on paper and shined like a horrifying beacon on screen.
As I've said before there are 8 main players in this murderous game and are all luminous in their own ways, especially for how young they were at the time principal photography took place.
What gets me most is the soundtrack - I could watch the last 4 minutes of this film again and again, it mesmerises me, but it’s also the part that hits me hardest, there's something so tragic about the beautiful trancey sound of late 90's Fatboy Slim, which starts when you see Marty Puccio being arrested and taken away and begins to build when we see all 7 of them arguing in the dock, like the gravity of their situation is comparable to a playground scuffle, and finally develops into this white noise-esque sound when their final fate is revealed.
I think what makes this so disturbing to me is the mindless stupidity of it all and the fact that my brain goes into overdrive, trying to make that leap into the wayward teenage mindset that the director obviously did a long time ago.
In between Brad Renfro's opening lines and the closing title cards depicting the eventual sentences they all received, is an hour and a half of extremely graphic sex, unnecessary nudity, drugs, alcohol, and the general hopelessness that Larry Clark manages to capture so hauntingly well, given that he was well into his 50's when he started making these films and 58 when he made Bully I wonder how he knows about this suburban teenage depravity he so accurately depicts?? It’s a running theme in almost all of his movies especially the 3 I have mentioned, they oddly or not also involve some kind of teen subculture, like surfing, specifically in Bully, but more often than not it's skateboarding - I have no idea why; maybe he was a misunderstood angsty skateboarding teenager in the 50's or something :-/ the appearance of this thought, whilst watching Kids around 1998, was when I started asking questions..........
Why is a 52 year old man, filming barely legal kids, having what I can only assume was simulated sex, whilst portraying underage characters??
Now I have to point out that even if some of them look very young they were all 18 or over at the time of filming, but even the oldest cast members were barely in their 20's and we're not talking about vaguely implied sex here, his movies are extremely graphic for not being actual pornography - where do you find the artistic merit in this?? I just don't know.
Martin Scorsese and Gus Van Sant have named Larry Clark as an influence in their careers and I can sort of see a teeny glimmer in some of their films, but I still struggle to see the reason for films like Kids and Ken Park.
Bully is at least a true story so he is working with the facts he was given but the other two??!! Is he re hashing his own past? Was he abused as a child? Does he wish that he could have behaved like his cast? Did he have a dysfunctional family??
We will probably never know the answers to the million questions I have, but what concerns me the most is the fact that two of his leading actors were dead by 25. One by way of suicide and the other by (supposedly) accidental heroin overdose.
I will say that, yes, Brad Renfro was already getting in trouble with police and using cocaine by the age of 15, having worked pretty solidly on some amazing films from the age of 12, but was it his experiences with Larry Clark that pushed him into heroin and his eventual death? That's highly possible.
Both deaths occurred roughly 6 or 7 years after filming, but we don't know what baggage they gained from these films.
Justin Pierce was plucked from a skate park in New York to star in Kids in 1994 and hung himself in 2000, there are a few contributing factors according to the press, but his suicide notes were never published, so we'll never know why.
He certainly dealt with some pretty serious shit in Kids - yes it’s a film, but can a normal 19 year old be expected to make that transition from skateboarding teenager to AIDs carrying druggie, within a few months and come out completely unscathed?
The whole thing just stinks of inner demons to me - so who put them there??