Gummo
At a glance...
- Directed by Harmony Korine
- Released in 1997
- Runtime 89 minutes
- Watched at home
- Final feelings: defiant low-class cinema anarchy
Ok yeah there are some really amazing images in this. There's a real anarchy to everything about this film in its structure, its environments, and its characters. The interior shots of all these homes just filled with stuff is the clearest indication we have of the impact of the tornado that is initially narrated to us, and from there we can understand the various degrees of eccentric, barbaric, and apathetic behavior of these people as also being an extension of that disaster.
I was struggling with this movie right after finishing it because I kinda hated seeing the worst parts of people in this film. Something about this felt exploitative to me, like "hey look at these fucked up hicks aren't they so fucked up and dirty and nasty, I'm going to record these white people saying racist shit and doing heinous things to cats and people and you're going to watch and feel grossed out!" I saw in the wikipedia article for Harmony Korine that he made a company named EDGLRD and I was like, ah, this guy sucks.
But then I read that he grew up from Nashville, where this is filmed. I learned that there's a lot of interest from Nashville about this movie, where people are excited to see different parts of their city on screen. I learned about how a lot of the cast were first time actors hired from the area. I think there are cynical ways to read or speculate on all of these things (filmed in Nashville because he didn't have the connections in Xenia, Ohio for his story, hired first-time local actors to avoid paying them very well, etc.) but I don't know the truth about anything about this movie. I don't know communities like this, I'm not from an area like this. I don't know anyone from Xenia and the one girl I went on a few dates with from Nashville regretted that she moved to Seattle. In fact, the movie has a character for people like me. It's the hotshot journalist in the car who picks up those 3 girls looking for their cat Foot Foot and then tries to grope one of them. He's the wealthiest, most cosmopolitan looking guy in the whole film and what does he say? "Dumb hicks! It's nothing you don't know, you dumb hicks!"
It feels weird to feel compelled into researching questions like, "Do people from Xenia, Ohio like Gummo". Like I'm trying to access this movie from a different angle (the angle of someone who knows intimately whether its images are truthful or not) because from my own standpoint I just feel uncomfortable and gross. But then again, we're now living in the Hillbilly Elegy era of American politics, which is the latest distillation of the general American contempt for poor people everywhere. Maybe it's nice to feel a little fucked up instead of having to wade through all these disingenuous fascists pillaging the image of rural people in order to mask over their self-serving agendas.
So, while I would like to rationalize the images of this film in some way, I don't think I have enough information to really do so. All I'm left with is the pure images and my reactions and my emotions to them. Gummo really surprised me!
edit: reading a couple other reviews reminded me I never even touched on the queerness in this film, I saw it in my watch but didn't really focus on it. Note to self: second watch of this movie, try to suss out how queerness/transness works in this!