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December 10, 2004
The "Gritty Realism" of Harmony Korine's *Gummo*
"Gritty realism." Why does *Gummo* seem gritty? Why does it seem "real"? Why does it seem to "capture experience" so well? Why is it shocking? Does it have a story (a beginning, middle, end)? Is there symbolism in the film, whether intended or unintended?
These are just some of the questions that came up in our discussion afterwards. A criticism of the film is that it has no resolution, which the filmmaker defiantly accepts. (It became clear to me after discussing the film that having no resolution is not the same as having no story, because *Gummo* definitely has a story.) Many expect resolution of filmmakers, though some - like filmmaker Peter Greenaway, and apparently Korine - believe that resolution and other trappings of plot machination actually lessen the capability of filmmaking. But if resolution is the typical "payoff" of most films, what is the payoff of a film like *Gummo*? I have ways I'd like to respond, but they're not well-defined.
In any case, it strikes me as interesting that "being grittily realistic" and "capturing experience" go so well with "lacking resolution." It's also interesting that filmmakers who don't give you resolution are so often accused of "trying to shock." (I haven't done a study on this correlation - I'm just following intuition.)
The film begins by making clear that Xenia is a small town which never quite recovered from a tornado. There was much devastation and loss of life. I didn't notice until my third viewing that there is little or no reference by any character to this horrible tornado and also little or no sign of tornado devastation in the town the characters live in. What's interesting is how you don't notice this.
And what's up with the bunny boy anyway?
- Drew
Posted by lyceum at December 10, 2004 5:05 PM
Comments
Interesting what you say about "gritty realism." My question back is how much of actual reality is "gritty?" The challenge for "realistic" directors is to produce films that are worth the time spent on watching them and the vast majority of reality is rather banal and boring. Think of your normal day. Is there much in it that would be worth an audience watching? The film makers need to find aspects of reality which are accentuated almost the the point of the surreal, so that the film "works." This choice of what and how to bring out certain aspects of reality may also be quite naturalistic, if we assume we all view reality through pre-established schemas. "Gummo" is one such schema. We learn about the director's schemas in viewing a number of their films. Probably those that resonate the most with us are those that share in some of our own filters. Viewing film is like the rorschach - we add our own take in the perceiving. That's what makes conversation afterwards so fascinating.
Posted by: David O at December 11, 2004 11:48 AM
While I may be abusing the actual purpose of the blog by simply posting other people's thoughts instead of my own analysis, I thought that this collection of quotes would be illuminating nonetheless.
First, Here is a David Lynch quote which I tried desperately to articulate in the after film discussion but was unable to remember. These are two quotes from Lynch on how it is possible to work with a film intuitively, free of strict, logical conceptualizations: a methodology we seem to also see at work in Harmonie Korine.
ON LOOKING TOO DEEP: "It's better not to know so much about what things mean or how they might be interpreted or you'll be too afraid to let things keep happening. Psychology destroys the mystery, this kind of magic quality. It can be reduced to certain neuroses or certain things, and since it is now named and defined, it's lost its mystery and the potential for a vast, infinite experience."
ON LESSONS FROM NATURE: "I sort of go by a duck when I work on a film because if you study a duck, you'll see certain things. You'll see a bill, and the bill is a certain texture and a certain length. Then you'll see a head, and the features on the head are a certain texture and it's a certain shape and it goes into the neck. The texture of the bill for instance is very smooth and it has quite precise detail in it and it reminds you somewhat of the legs. The legs are a little bit bigger and a little more rubbery but it's enough so that your eye goes back and forth. Now, the body being so big, it can be softer and the texture is not so detailed, it's just kind of a cloud. And the key to the whole duck is the eye and where the eye is placed. And it has to be placed in the head and it's the most detailed, and it's like a little jewel. And if it was fixed, sitting on the bill, it would be two things that were too busy, battling, they would not do so well. And if it was sitting in the middle of the body, it would get lost. But it's so perfectly placed to show off a jewel right in the middle of the head like that, next to this S-curve with the bill sitting out in front, but with enough distance so that the eye is very very very well secluded and set out. So when you're working on a film, a lot of times you can get the bill and the legs and the body and everything, but this eye of the duck is a certain scene, this jewel, that if it's there, it's absolutely beautiful. It's just fantastic."
I would venture to say that the scene in the bath or the tap dancing scene would be the hinging eye that Lynch talks about. For me, they have an aura that focuses the movie, that gives the film a couple of moments for sober reflection on the shiftlessness and unrealized desperation pulsating throughout the rest of the movie.
And apropos of the grimy, the dirty, and gritty realism that Drew addressed, here's an interesting snippet about Bakhtin's ideas of the grotesque and why conventional views find the grotesque so shocking, so literally threatening:
THE GROTESQUE
A powerful esthetic category involving disruption and distortion of hierarchical or canonical assumptions. The notion combines ugliness and ornament, the bizarre and the ridiculous, the excessive and the unreal. The term derives from the Italian term for grottos (grotteschi), i.e., the ruins in which statuettes of distorted figures were found in the XV and XVI centuries. The Romantic era, with its interest in the dispossessed, in all those who before the age of Revolution had been nameless and invisible, made the grotesque its indispensable adjunct. Victor Hugo, for whom the grotesque was indispensable opposite the sublime, aptly indulged his penchant for antithesis when he claims that the grotesque is "the richest source nature can offer art." M. Bahktin placed the grotesque at the heart of the carnivalesque spirit.
With its insistence on ironic reversals, on fluent and fertile opposites, the grotesque also resembles the topos of The World Upside-Down, that topsy-turvy universe where things are no longer in their place, where order is disrupted, where hierarchies tumble, and the Fool is king. Both the Grotesque and The World Upside-Down possess a darkly comic portent, that the fantastic uncovers and explores; both serve the key function of revealing the constructed nature of rationality, of the mandate that everything be in its place. The surface relationships by which daily life is governed are anything but ordained and stable; indeed, they can be understood as absolute only by dint of a sustained illusion.
HERE'S THE LINK TO THIS: http://fantastic.library.cornell.edu/grotesque.php
And finally, here's just an interesting little quote from Werner Herzog, regarding his take on what Gummo is all about:
"When I saw a piece of fried bacon fixed to the bathroom wall in Gummo, it knocked me off my chair. [Korine's] a very clear voice of a generation of filmmakers that is taking a new position. It's not going to dominate world cinema, but so what?"
-Robin
Posted by: Robin S at December 14, 2004 5:02 PM
Yeah, I thought the tap-dancing seen between mom & son were rather pivotal as well. It's what finally gave the movie heart, which at the same time relieved me, because heart is also a part of reality, so it was nice to see that Gummo's version of reality wasn't only the general desultory chaos presented up until that scene. Drew
Posted by: Drew at December 17, 2004 6:52 PM