gummo

user_147 · Post by **user_147** » Fri Apr 09, 2004 3:42 am

scummo.

michael · Post by **michael** » Sun Apr 11, 2004 2:23 pm

shitto

Post by **grisha** » Sun Apr 11, 2004 2:38 pm

sheer utter crap

user_147 · Post by **user_147** » Sun Apr 11, 2004 2:56 pm

funny how this film gets the same replies from 5 out of 4 people. i was enthralled by the exploitation and camera work. but pointless to make comments here i guess.

Post by **grisha** » Sun Apr 11, 2004 3:04 pm

exploitation and camera work

even with that it's still what i said. but that's my opinion y'know. nothing serious.

jon abbey · Post by **jon abbey** » Sun Apr 11, 2004 3:51 pm

nirav loves this movie, he'll post here when he sees this, I'm sure.

personally, I only made it about halfway through and hated it. that record korine put out "ssab songs" was even worse. yikes.

michael · Post by **michael** » Sun Apr 11, 2004 4:15 pm

i turned it off after 15 minutes.

there are only 2 movies ive sat down with the intent to watch but turned them off or walked out cuz they sucked too much.

1 is gummo

the other is sunshine state

user_37 · Post by **user_37** » Sun Apr 11, 2004 9:29 pm

I liked it. The chair wrestling scene is surreal.

nirav · Post by **nirav** » Sun Apr 11, 2004 11:18 pm

Easily one of the best American movies ever. Pay attention to the sound-image relationship, it's as complex as any Godard film.

Here's a really illuminating interview of Korine by Mike Watt:
http://www.angelfire.com/ab/harmonykori ... azine.html" onclick= "window.open(this.href);return false;

my favorite part of the interview

Watt: You know them little kids at the beginning that are going "pussy"?

Korine: Yeah, right.

Watt: ....And then it ends with the cat and the cat's a pussy too.

Korine: There's millions of those types of things. Hopefully, that's what the film is only about, just things like that.

Watt: It's like throwing marbles in the air and having them come down stacked in pyramids.

Korine: Exactly. Everything's about the details, everything's about what's going on or what's in the corner.

Watt: I kind of hated them [the kids in the movie] at the end because they said they'd only kill cats with no owner. They broke their own rule.

Korine: Yeah.

Watt: When a guy builds a little logic he builds a little world.

Korine: That's what happens.

nirav · Post by **nirav** » Mon Apr 12, 2004 12:02 am

It seems double odd to me that none of the Tarkovsky lovers ever defend this film. The structural logic seems to parallel that of _Mirror_, in that there's a sort of story thing at the center (in Gummo, the two glue sniffers on bikes and in the latter the house of the man's childhood) around which are woven poetic reflections. The structure for both seems to be more intuitive, quasi-musical, Gummo is more like an early Hafler Trio collage than it's like most narrative cinema.

The closest things I can think of to Gummo are Gregory Markopolous' "Twice a Man", Jack Smith's "Flaming Creatures" or Ken Jacob's "Little Stabs at Happiness" (which has Jack Smith in it). There's the same play of reference and collage, and the same sense of homage and abstraction from the classical American cinema, with Markopolous it's Josef von Sternberg, with Smith it's Mario/Maria Montez tawdryness and with Korine it's more W.C. Fields and explicitly Leo McCary (Gummo was the 5th Marx Brother, y'all have seen "Duck Soup", right?)

I didn't like Gummo the time I watched it. After realizing that it had bothered me for a whole year, and a friend of mine liked it a lot (you'd have to know him to see why this was important), I gave it another shot, and was awestruck. I've only watched "Sans Soleil" or "The Passion of Joan of Arc" more than I've watched Gummo.

user_70 · Post by **user_70** » Mon Apr 12, 2004 1:22 am

I love Mike Watt, but I find his film criticism to be somewhat flawed.

I've never seen anything by Harmony Korine apart from Kids, which I liked despite Larry Clark's repugnant pedophilia.

nirav · Post by **nirav** » Mon Apr 12, 2004 1:48 am

polyphonic wrote: I've never seen anything by Harmony Korine apart from Kids, which I liked despite Larry Clark's repugnant pedophilia.

Have you seen that picture of Clark's with the subtitle, "This is my 17 year old girlfriend"? Troubling, but kinda hilarious too.

Buddy Glass · Post by **Buddy Glass** » Mon Apr 12, 2004 3:09 am

Man I figured kent would've posted in this thread by now, he was one of the few other dudes I remember who also loved this movie. Needless to say most people hate this movie and I can't really blame them, but I think it's fantastic.

Post by **grisha** » Mon Apr 12, 2004 4:11 am

i'm just your average viewer. i don't think it will ever be possible for me to analyze this film to the depth of finding parallels with mirror.

user_103 · Post by **user_103** » Mon Apr 12, 2004 5:34 pm

icefactory wrote: The structure for both seems to be more intuitive, quasi-musical, Gummo is more like an early Hafler Trio collage than it's like most narrative cinema.

I remember reading a interview where Korine said that he spends as much time editing the sound for the film as he does editing the film.

buddy,
nirav pretty much said everything I wanted to say.

jon,
that ssab songs disc is like my favorite record of all time.

jon abbey · Post by **jon abbey** » Mon Apr 12, 2004 5:55 pm

kent wrote:I remember reading a interview where Korine said that he spends as much time editing the sound for the film as he does editing the film.

yeah, that was in the interview nirav linked to above with watt. that certainly makes me curious, if I ever see one of his movies again, I'll keep it in mind. in the meantime, reading that interview made me want to punch korine even more.

that ssab songs disc is like my favorite record of all time.

ok, cool. I can't say I ever gave it much time, and I don't have it around to check out again. to me, it seemed as self-indulgent as my perceptions of his movies.

user_103 · Post by **user_103** » Mon Apr 12, 2004 6:46 pm

Maybe Jon, Michael & cunnilingus could do the final installment of Fight Harm?

edit: jon, I'd say ssab songs is actually much more self indulgent than gummo.

Post by **grisha** » Mon Apr 12, 2004 7:00 pm

http://www.harmony-korine.com/Pages/Main/ExFight.html?

if you pay for my flight, we all three will get together and kick his ass alright.

i thought he was a chick before i saw his photo. i thought korine was a chicks' name.

i don't think self indulgent is necessarily bad. i wanna download it and listen but can't find it. it has quite a potential to suck though.

i'm tired and will now go to sleep.

user_33 · Post by **user_33** » Tue Apr 13, 2004 4:17 am

Honestly, before you even take the step into filmic parallels, on what grounds are we judging whether 'exploitation' has taken place? Not too familiar with the setup, having just seen this recently, but is it common knowledge that Korine filmed these people without paying them anything/a pittance? Are we sure that the exploitation is one-way and not an exchange, considering the added clout the actors might have vis-a-vis other local townfolk, prestige, etc.?

Assuming that what went down is a priori a bad thing seems to be to be importing your own worldview into a situation where it isn't needed. The obvious limitations of objective 'documentary' work in a fictive film notwithstanding, it's not like I as a bourgeois viewer was looking down my nose at cruddy hicks smashing up their furniture, judging them, any of that crap. I think it's entirely possible to receive the film on a sympathetic level, with some understanding of the irresolvable complexities of the situation.

Plus, the visceral quality of the scene at the end with Solomon in the bathtub really got to me. Something about the contrast between eating that limpid spaghetti while sitting in that atrocious bathwater turned my stomach. It's like I could feel myself right there in the tub.

user_49 · Post by **user_49** » Wed Apr 14, 2004 8:49 am

awesome movie.

it's like watching a documentary involving tons of people i grew up with.