Hacker Cinema
Gummo
1997 · Film · 89 min
Directed by Harmony Korine
Teenagers Solomon and Tummler kill time in Xenia, Ohio, a small town that has never recovered from the tornado that ravaged the community in the 1970s.
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4 comments on Hacker News
As with much of film making, Dogme defined a set of rules which were a departure point, and film makers went about finding ways to break them. Some of Harmony Korine’s most important films like Gummo were influenced by Dogme but are not pure Dogme 95 films. Films that do abide by most of the rules, like Von Trier’s The Idiots are almost unwatchable - and that film in particular would be considered porn in the US. Those films are like a reference implementation in the software world.
You can't really understand America unless you've seen "Gummo".
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0119237/
(Please note: I am not recommending watching Gummo. Once you've seen it you can't un-see it. I'm just saying that you're picture of America is incomplete if you haven't encountered that side of the nation.)
Apocalypse now, casablanca, bowling for columbine, etc. were made in a certain context. That context can't be captured and commercialized because history moved on and it isn't there anymore. They can't completely exist in a vacuum. When I look at today's aaa movies whether the context is lacking or the movie suffers from the formula and lack of originality or personal vision (as you point it).
I remember gummo, searching for the wrong-eyed jesus, american honey, chop shop, land of plenty and winter bones. I am pretty sure three of them will pass the test of time.
(I am not american nor living in america so I don't know the movie scene as well as the european one)
I'm now curious of where you lived in Appalachia and of what economic background you came.
I too grew up in Appalachia and quite poor ($6000 / year for a family of 5), and aside from the camaraderie of poorness, I wouldn't want to inflict that hardship on anyone: few jobs, poor food, poor housing, poor schools, poor hospitals, poor infrastructure.
Where I grew up there were two classes of people: the 'professional class' and the 'working class'. The professional class were multi-generational groups of irresponsible doctors, preying lawyers, slum lords, land owners, government cronies, and other sorts of con men. Their spouses, children, and cousins took most of the other middle class occupations. The rest of us were left with the scraps of broken 100 year economies of iron, coal, and steel. And, these two group rarely mingled.
When people ask me what it was like to live in Appalachia in the 80s and 90s, I tell them to rent Gummo http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0119237/.