Operation Screenshot (Films of the 2000s): Claire Denis' Trouble Every Day (2001)

Operation Screenshot (Films of the 2000s): Vincent Gallo's The Brown Bunny (2003)

"Loneliness has followed me my whole life, everywhere. In bars, in cars, sidewalks, stores, everywhere. There's no escape. I'm God's lonely man."
-Paul Schrader-














Kudos to both James Hansen at Out 1 and Joe Bowman at Fin De Cinema for beating me to the punch in already honoring this extraordinary film as we are nearing the end of the decade.
...and thanks to Vincent Gallo and Chloe Sevigny for making such a beautiful and daring work that is among the most poetic and haunting American films I have ever seen.

My Favorite Closing Shots: Vincent Gallo's Buffalo 66

Inspiring Careers in Modern Cinema: Chloe Sevigny

Born in Darien, Connecticut in the late fall of 1974 to a strict Catholic family, Chloe Stevens Sevigny probably seemed like an unlikely candidate to blossom into one of the most uncompromising and bravest actors in modern American cinema. Since her searing screen debut in Larry Clark’s Kids (1995) though she has been just that, an intense and potent reminder that the independent heart of American cinema always has a strong backbone behind it.
Springing from both Polish and French heritage, Sevigny was the youngest of two children in a relatively normal household. Her rather sheltered world began to open up as a teenager when she began to make regular visits to New York City in the late eighties and early nineties. Blossoming into a remarkably striking and beautiful young woman, Sevigny was discovered just past her 18th birthday by a Fashion magazine editor who brought her on as an intern.


After landing her intern position, Sevigny’s world quickly changed and within a year she was modeling on the front of a Gigolo Aunts album, hanging out with Sonic Youth's Kim Gordon and having odes written to her in the press by Jay Mcinerney. Cinema seemed the natural extension for the exciting young scenester and it came calling in 1995 when Sevigny came into the view of controversial photographer and filmmaker Larry Clark, who was planning a new film based on a screenplay by a young writer named Harmony Korine.


It’s a bit hard to describe the impact Kids had on the film world in 1995, but it was a searing one and much of it was due to the devastating performance Chloe Sevigny delivered as Jennie for Clark and Korine. Simultaneously projecting an inexperience with a world weariness and an intensity not possessed in very many actors from her generation, Sevigny’s work in Kids marked her as one of the most important newcomers of the nineties and destroyed doubters who thought Mcinerney’s “It-Girl” would be a quick flash in the pan.

Sevigny followed up Kids with the remarkable Trees Lounge (1996), a knowing and controlled film directed by and starring Steve Buscemi. Again delivering a haunting performance in a smaller role, Sevigny’s work and the film itself continues to be one of the small hidden treasures of American Independent Cinema in the nineties.


Next up for the young actress was Gummo (1997), the directorial debut film from Korine and the film which briefly marked the end of her first run with strictly independent films, as her next work would be relatively high profile affair.
1998’s Palmetto (1998) from director Volker Schlondorff would indeed be Sevigny’s first mainstream work and it would see her working alongside Woody Harrelson and Elisabeth Shue. The cast is particularly good in Palmetto but the modern noir finally suffers from a rather tired script.

After the disappointing Palmetto, Chloe appeared in Whit Stillman’s interesting The Last Days of Disco(1998) opposite a strong Kate Beckinsale. Despite not finding the success of Stillman’s previous works Metropolitan (1990) and Barcelona (1994), The Last Days of Disco has arguably aged better and is need of a reassessment.


Sevigny would strike gold with her next film, a low budget affair called Boys Don’t Cry (1999) that would become one of the major films of 1999 and would garner her an Academy Award Nomination as Best Supporting Actress. Viewed today, Boys Don’t Cry is quite a haunting work and the pairing of Sevigny and Hilary Swank was an inspired choice by director Kimberly Peirce. It is worth noting that Chloe was originally up for the lead in the film but she opted for the supporting spot, a career line she has bravely followed throughout her career.


After filming Boys Don’t Cry, Sevigny was offered the lead female role in Buffalo 66 (1998), the debut feature film from writer-director-actor Vincent Gallo. Scheduling conflicts didn’t permit it and the plum role went to Christina Ricci, although Gallo and Sevigny’s paths would cross again several years later.

Boys Don’ Cry proved to be a hard film to follow for the recently Oscar nominated Sevigny. She became more and more of a fashion icon and had strong roles in Korine’s Julian Donkey Boy (1999) and Mary Harron’s audacious American Psycho (1999) but she seemed out of place in A Map of the World (1999). Some TV work followed as well as a spot in the Anthology film Ten Minutes Older (2002) before she would return to form in Olivier Assayas’ flawed but still powerful DemonLover (2002) and the ferocious Party Monster (2002) for directors Fenton Bailey and Randy Barbato.


2003 would prove to be the most controversial year in Chloe Sevigny’s career. It would be a year that would see her work with fiercly uncompromising directors ranging from Lars Von Trier to Vincent Gallo, and it would end with her losing her contract at the William Morris Agency.
Von Trier’s masterful and bruising Dogville (2003) opened the year for Sevigny and she more than held her own against award winning performers ranging from Nicole Kidman to Lauren Bacall to Ben Gazzara…not to mention she survived Von Trier and indeed it is the unforgettable Dogville Confessions where we perhaps see Chloe Sevigny at both her most vulnerable and bravest.


The heated and much argued about Dogville couldn’t hold a candle in controversary to Vincent Gallo’s The Brown Bunny (2003), one of the most individualistic and moving American Independent films of the past thirty years. As the very damaged Daisy that haunts Gallo’s character, Sevigny delivers her most poetic work and it's unfortunate that such a powerful turn was lost in the media frenzy surrounding the film’s climatic oral sex scene. The Brown Bunny remains one of the most distinct American films of the decade and Chloe Sevigny’s performance as the ghostly Daisy remains one of the most resonate.


A strong small turn in the striking and rather brilliant Shattered Glass (2003) got lost amidst the furious reaction The Brown Bunny inspired. Without an agency backing her, one might have expected Sevigny to fade from view, a fact that has made her last few years all the more inspiring and remarkable.
Quality roles in the fine Woody Allen film Melinda and Melinda (2004) as well as Jim Jarmusch’s Broken Flowers (2005) followed The Brown Bunny as did her turn in the disappointing Dogville follow-up production Manderlay (2005), and if the remake of Brian De Palma’s Sisters (2006) was a mistake then the same can’t said for David Fincher’s jaw dropping Zodiac (2007), a brilliant and epic piece of work that finds Chloe again delivering another stirring and solid supporting turn amidst some of the other best actors of her generation.
In the past couple of years Chloe Sevigny has maintained a high profile thanks to many striking print ads and a continuing role on the acclaimed HBO series Big Love. Her upcoming features include Barry Munday and The Killing Room. Not surprisingly, Chloe has supporting roles in both, and they will both no doubt continue one of the most interesting and inspiring careers of the past two decades.
Unlike many of her ‘indie’ peers who came out of the nineties, Chloe Sevigny has for the most part shied away from mainstream Hollywood. Even studio made films like Palmetto have at the very least had an independent feel. Chloe Sevigny's unwillingness to buckle to the system is beyond refreshing and at times feels downright heroic. Long may she continue to stay on the outskirts…

For more on Chloe Sevigny, please visit this remarkable fan site, where all of the above images plus thousands of others can be seen.

Another One From the Heart: Francis Ford Coppola's Tetro (2009)

As I was watching Francis Ford Coppola’s Tetro I was reminded at just how stale and stagnate most modern American films have become. It wasn’t because I thought that Tetro was necessarily a major masterpiece, although I do think it's Coppola’s best since Dracula, but there was just such a real sense of pleasure in watching a modern American film built by shots and not by cuts. Tetro is bold, adventurous and absolutely daring filmmaking controlled by Coppola’s old school mastery of the camera. Even towards the end, when Tetro starts collapsing in on itself, I had a smile on my face at I marveled at the intelligence and skill found in every frame.
Starring Vincent Gallo, Maribel Verdu and Alden Ehrenreich, Tetro marks the second film of Coppola’s welcome return to feature length filmmaking after Youth Without Youth. Shot in the kind of exquisite black and white that helped make his Rumble Fish such a resonate experience, Tetro has been called Coppola’s most autobiographical film and, even at its most flawed, it burns the way only true personal visions can. It doesn’t just feel like we a watching a film from one of our last great remaining masters, but that we are getting a glimpse inside his soul and it makes for a very moving experience.
Coppola himself scripts the ambitious story of Tetro, an aging writer spiritually torn apart by the memory of his mother who was killed in an accident he caused and his overbearing father who is a world famous composer. In his fifth decade as a filmmaker, Coppola shows himself as an artist still capable of pushing the boundaries of what great cinema is and, in its best moments, Tetro is as great as anything Coppola has ever delivered. At its weakest it is as scattershot as Coppola’s most flawed experiments, but perhaps the most enduring thing about Tetro is Coppola’s willingness at this stage of the game to still risk making a fool of himself. Tetro is Francis in daring One From the Heart mode again, a filmmaker bravely not making a work for the masses but for himself.



For Tetro, Coppola brings together two of the world’s most distinctive actors and faces in all of modern cinema, Vincent Gallo and Maribel Verdu. Both deliver for the seventy year old director brilliantly. As Tetro, Gallo has never been more controlled or studied. Coppola bravely allows Gallo to interject aspects of his own personality into the role but this is a portrait of Gallo as a great actor and not just a remarkable personality. He’s moving in the role and Tetro stands as the best work he has delivered for a director other than himself.
Verdu is equally captivating as Tetro’s sole supporter through thick and thin and the haunting Spanish actress is the film’s hidden weapon. Whether it is here or in Y Tu Mama Tambien or Pan’s Labyrinth, the beautiful Verdu injects her roles with a real sense of life and purpose and she is thrilling to watch here, especially in her scenes with Gallo where their two naturally opposing styles compliment each other beautifully. Like their characters in the film, Gallo and Verdu seem to feed off each other and it’s a pleasure to watch them work together.
Newcomer Alden Ehrenreich is solid as Tetro’s younger brother and Klaus Maria Brandauer is chilling as the father who controls everything around him with his ego and greed. Also worth noting is statuesque Argentian born Leticia Bredice who manages to lighten the rather heavy mood of Tetro everytime she appears on the screen.
While the fact that we have Coppola back as a filmmaker is well worth celebrating, there is no denying that Tetro is a flawed film. Overlong and at times sluggishly paced, Tetro is a film that for all of its greatness has moments that fall falt or simply don’t work. These flaws are finally pretty enduring, and more than forgivable, though as they are due to Coppola’s ambition and willingness to experiment. Tetro is the work of a filmmaker that really cares and, as in One From the Heart, its passion redeems its mistakes.
Tetro is represented fairly well on DVD and contains a beautiful looking picture (which really highlights the extraordinary photography of cinematographer Mihai Malaimare Jr.), a commentary by Francis and about 45 minutes worth of behind the scenes footage. It's a beautifully flawed film that had moments that captivated me more than any work I had seen in quite awhile. Whether Francis Ford Coppola will continue directing more films remains to be seen but, for now, I am just grateful to have him back.

Movie Sequences that Shake Me to the Core: A Rainy Drive with Vincent Gallo in The Brown Bunny (2003)

Brody and Seigner to Star in Argento's Giallo

This news is a few days old, but it looks like Oscar winning actor Adrien Brody (seen above with Asia Argento) and acclaimed French actress Emmanuelle Seigner have signed on to Dario Argento's newest film, Giallo, replacing Vincent Gallo and Asia Argento. I'm a really big fan of both Brody and Seigner so I will be curious to see what they will bring to the production. The film starts shooting in May and Brody is reportedly sharing a producing credit as well.

Images From My All Time Favorite Films: Vincent Gallo's Buffalo 66 (1998)

...for my friend still up in that Skyway.