Two stars shock with a real blowjob – spectators flee the cinema indignantly!

Whether it’s Cannes, Venice or the Berlinale, it’s been a long time since a film caused a real festival scandal – probably because there are fewer and fewer things that can really shock a festival audience. It used to look different. Almost every year at the Cannes Film Festival, there was one film that drove audiences out of the cinema en masse – and was met with boos and other angry reactions from those who stayed.

Twenty years ago this fate met “The Brown Bunny”, the second directorial work of New York artist and actor Vincent Gallo (“GoodFellas – Three Decades in the Mafia”) after his acclaimed debut “Buffalo ’66” – and not without reason also the last so far.

The Brown Bunny was screened in the 2003 Cannes Official Competition alongside films such as Lars von Trier’s Dogville, Clint Eastwood’s Mystic River and the eventual winner, Gus Van Sant’s Elephant. While other films are quickly forgotten, The Brown Bunny made an impression – angry reactions from the audience were followed not only by slates, but also by a private mud fight between Gallo and a star critic. But one after the other…

“The Brown Bunny” is – you have to give him that – a thoroughly author’s film. Gallo not only wrote, directed and produced the film, he also did the photography, editing, casting, production design and costumes – and of course he also stars in the lead role.

This soon earned him the accusation that “The Brown Bunny” was a pure ego show. And indeed, the road movie is all about Vincent Gallo – or rather the driver Bud Clay, who drifts across the US on his motorcycle and reveals his inner life to the viewers. In addition to fleeting acquaintances with different women, the failed relationship with his ex-girlfriend Daisy (Chloë Sevigny) also plays a major role, which Bud remembers again and again…

…and ultimately leads to the sequence “The Brown Bunny” remains infamous for: To quite a few viewers who found the film bland and boring, Gallo presented an explicit close-up blowjob scene lasting several minutes – which is not simulated! Gallo and Sevigny were actually a couple at the time of filming, and it seems like they were just following their intimate lives on camera – to really give the audience of the world’s premier film festival a go.

“Fettes Schwein”: That’s how uncertain Gallo reacted to criticism of his film

In any case, they succeeded: hardly any critics gave Gallo’s second album a good straightjacket. The most prominent hater was film critic Roger Ebert, who died in 2013, who called “The Brown Bunny” the worst film in Cannes history. Gallo reacted to this with little sovereignty, insulting Ebert as a “fat pig”. He proved much more quick-witted: Gallo’s tantrum was more fun than watching the movie, says Ebert—and if he’d ever managed to lose weight, unfortunately, Gallo would still be the director of “The Brown Bunny.”

“The worst feeling I’ve ever had in my life,” Gallo later recalled at the premiere of the sequel to “Buffalo ’66.” – and drew conclusions from that by making a new cut that is more than 25 minutes shorter than the premiere version. The oral sex scene was still in it in its entirety, but he managed to convince even Ebert, who apparently held no grudge: He called Gallo’s subsequent interventions “saving the movie” — and gave it a thumbs up.

Incidentally, Chloë Sevigny does not regret the film, she said in an interview. And that despite the fact that her desk subsequently detached itself from her – on the grounds that the actress ultimately had her career ruined by the pornographic scene. However, she apparently shares the view of our 3.5-star review, which ends with the line: “In the context of the ending, the much-maligned blowjob also makes sense and doesn’t just serve Vincent Gallo’s sexual satisfaction, as some critics wrote disparagingly.”