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==Overview== |
==Overview== |
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Most of the filming was done in [[Nashville]], Tennessee and most of the actors had little or no experience. [[ |
Most of the filming was done in [[Nashville]], Tennessee and most of the actors had little or no experience. [[Chloë Sevigny]], the long-time girlfriend of the director, plays a role, as does Korine himself. The director approached Nick Sutton (Tummler) after seeing him on an episode of The [[Sally Jessy Raphaël]] show. |
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The name of the movie is supposedly derived from [[Gummo Marx]], the least known of the [[Marx Brothers]], who quit the act before they became famous. |
The name of the movie is supposedly derived from [[Gummo Marx]], the least known of the [[Marx Brothers]], who quit the act before they became famous. |
Revision as of 00:27, 15 July 2005
Gummo is a 1997 cult film written and directed by Harmony Korine, better known for his writing contributions to Larry Clark's controversial 1995 film, Kids.
Overview
Most of the filming was done in Nashville, Tennessee and most of the actors had little or no experience. Chloë Sevigny, the long-time girlfriend of the director, plays a role, as does Korine himself. The director approached Nick Sutton (Tummler) after seeing him on an episode of The Sally Jessy Raphaël show.
The name of the movie is supposedly derived from Gummo Marx, the least known of the Marx Brothers, who quit the act before they became famous.
Synopsis
The movie is about the people of Xenia, Ohio, who are shellshocked by the destruction wreaked by a recent tornado. (In the real world, the tornado struck in 1974; in the movie, it happens in the 1990s.)
The two main protagonists are Solomon and Tummler, two teenage boys who kill cats and sell them to a butcher so they can buy glue to sniff. Other characters, odd enough to make a black midget in an Israeli flag t-shirt seem like the most normal person in the room, pop in and out of the narrative, wrestling kitchen chairs, discussing nipple-darkening techniques and threatening to shoot their children if they don't smile. And the enigmatic Bunny Boy wanders silently through the landscape, urinating off bridges and playing the accordion.
Response
This unflinching documentary about "poor white trash" has garnered both glowing reviews and thunderous condemnations for its disturbing content and strange style, which is simultaneously hyperrealistic and surrealistic. As well as drug abuse the film profiles a broad range of issues including suicide, grief, prostitution, sexual abuse and sexual harassment, euthanasia and racism all in a day in the life of Xenia. Notwithstanding cases in which some characters experience mindless joy, Xenia is a place far from optimistic, being plagued by an overall sense of despair.