This movie is pure art, plain and simple. Even if the movie might not be to your taste (a lot of people don't like this film at all, and they find it boring and meaningless). Hopefully one can agree it is really nice to know that there was once a time and place when American Independent Cinema really had a heart and soul and it is in full exhibition here. Classification avant-garde.
Vincent Gallo wrote the story and screen play, directed the film, and was the main star. Vincent Gallo fresh out of a five-year prison stint who really needs to take a leak but can't find a bathroom anywhere.
Easily one of the best contemporary actresses ever, Christina Ricci (who plays Layla), enters and is literally kidnapped by Vincent's character. This happens realistically, with a dark sense of humor-- (in a building where he almost finds a toilet), brings her to his family and poses her as his wife. We then get a wonderful half-hour of the biggest generation gap in history in which Gallo, Ricci and his parents, Angelica Huston and Ben Gazzara, have the most complicated anti-bonding dinner in history.
This indie gem is downright brilliant with wonderful imagery, antique film stock, strategically placed camera-angles and split screens that all work to embody the dreamlike... or rather... nightmarish quality. Also, needing to be mentioned it the soundtrack of this movie which personally I believe to be among the best, featuring original music from writer, director and star Vincent Gallo as well as prog-rock artists like Yes and King Crimson. Buffalo '66 is an exceptional film IMO.
Interesting cinematography note: Buffalo '66 was shot on a Reversal stock that the NFL used to use to film games back in the 1970s. It was out of production and Gallo's production gathered all they could to shoot the film and give it it's gorgeous wintery palette.
In real life : Ricci and Gallo did not fancy one another.
Model, actor-director and sometimes singer Vincent Gallo has a very good memory ... and very, very loose lips to match. Gallo, who wrote, directed and starred in the darling indie film "Buffalo 66" in 1998, has reportedly talked smack about Christina Ricci, his co-star in the film, to a New York Post Page Six columnist, according to a Mr. Showbiz report.
Gallo: "It was OK when she wasn't drunk on the set. I think she's an alcoholic -- it was either that, or she was on cough syrup the whole time," Gallo allegedly said about Ricci.
Hold on, it gets better/worse .
"I don't like her," Gallo reportedly blabbered on. "She's an ungrateful c***. But it was OK. She's basically a puppet. I told her what to do, and she did it."
And better/worse.
"She lost 17 pounds, and that was because I only let her eat one whole pizza pie every day," he said.
And this was Ricci's response in an interview from 2007 (questions bolded this time):
Quote:
It's ten years since you made 'Buffalo 66' with Vincent Gallo.
I was seventeen, yeah. It was my first movie away without my mother. Not a wise choice. I really didn't understand what was going on most of the time working with a crazy lunatic man. I'd never encountered such insanity.
He said some nice things about your weight.
Oh yes, I've been there. Horrible things. He waited three or four years and then decided to make fun of my weight at the time that we were shooting 'Buffalo 66'. He waited that long to make fun of a seventeen-year-old. It's so bizarre, and I hadn't seen him in years, I hadn't done anything to him. It was just like: okay, a. s . s hole.
Did you get on with him when making the film?
No, not really. He's one of those people who sometimes he's so nice to you and then the next he imagines that you've done something horrible and he'll start screaming at you. It's difficult to get on well with someone like that.
Did you see his next film, 'The Brown Bunny'?
Oh, I didn't see it. I have no interest in seeing anything he ever does again.
