Details
Movie Description
More a poetic collage than a narrative story, GUMMO presents the viewer with a lavish feast of images--some disturbing, some gorgeous, all memorable. In the small impoverished town of Xenia, Ohio, Solomon (Jacob Reynolds) and Tummler (Nick Sutton) spend their teenage boyhood killing cats, sniffing glue, and generally trying to alleviate their boredom. The town's other residents find their own amusements. Solomon's mother (Linda Manz, of DAYS OF HEAVEN, a film that GUMMO's dreamlike imagery evokes) tap-dances, local teen siren Dot (Chloë Sevigny) puts tape on her nipples, and Bunny Boy (Jacob Sewell) explores the desolate suburban landscape on his skateboard, wearing pink rabbit ears. Xenia and its inhabitants have never quite recovered from the tornado that ripped the town apart 20 years ago; the place remains inside out, raw, and shattered.
GUMMO's gritty realism is enhanced by director Harmony Korine's use of real locations in and around Nashville, Tennessee, and his use of nonprofessional local actors in many of the film's roles. These techniques harken back to filmmakers such as Werner Herzog and John Cassavetes, both of whom Korine cites as influences. Korine's willingness to explore the borderlands of feature filmmaking has resulted in a beautiful and challenging film whose haunting images remain long after it's over.
Synopsis
GUMMO's disjointed, unsettling vignettes explore the lives of the poverty-stricken residents of a squalid, tornado-ravaged Ohio town--teens collecting stray cats to finance a huffing habit, a mentally retarded prostitute, a boy clad in pink bunny ears roaming the streets.
Film Notes
DVD Features:
Region 1
Snap Case
Widescreen
Audio:
Dolby Digital - English
Additional Release Material:
Audio Commentary - 1. Harmony Korine - Director
Text/Photo Galleries:
Filmographies - 1. Cast & Crew
Stills/Photos - 1. Animated Photo Gallery with Commentary by Harmony Korine
Theatrical release: October 17, 1997.
Filmed on location in and around Nashville, Tennesse, where writer-director Harmony Korine spent much of his childhood.
Korine saw Nick Sutton, who plays Tummler, on an episode of THE SALLY JESSIE RAPHAEL SHOW, and spent weeks tracking him down to play the role.
In the script for GUMMO, Solomon is described as looking "like no other kid in the world."
Linda Manz, who played the narrator and younger sister in DAYS OF HEAVEN, had not been in a film for 15 years before appearing in GUMMO.
In addition to being a costar of the film, Chloë Sevigny designed the costumes. She found most of them in thrift stores around Nashville.
GUMMO’s French cinematographer, Jean Yves Escoffier, shot Leos Carax’s award winning LES AMANTS DU PONT NEUF, the most expensive film ever made in France.
Both the editor and the music supervisor on GUMMO previously worked in those capacities on Larry Clark’s KIDS.
Quotations
"Life is great. Without it you'd be dead."--Solomon (Jacob Reynolds)
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