Buffalo 66 Essay, Research Paper
Buffalo ‘66, a movie directed and written by Vincent Gallo starts with a baby picture of Billie Brown (played by Vincent Gallo himself), and then goes into shots of Billie getting out of prison. Billie the fresh free man is looking for a bathroom but has no luck in finding one. The shots used in the scenes where he’s on the search for a bathroom are some handy shots (a bit shaky), they cut in the middle and they are also shot from above this is, in my opinion to emphasize on the situation Billie is in. He really needs to go to the bathroom but has no fortune, until he enters a dance studio. There he meets Layla (played by Christina Ricci) a young blond girl that simply wanted some dance lessons. Billie asked her for a quarter to call his mother, and then suddenly decided to kidnap her. The reason for that was that he didn’t want to disappoint his parents, his parents thought he was successful and married.
After all this Billie didn’t find a bathroom yet until they drove off to his house. In the scene where he finally pees, there is a close up shot of Billie’s face, to show the audience his reaction. He enters the car, and he is more calm he apologizes to Layla for being so aggressive, while he’s apologizing to her there is a close up shot of her and his voice in the background, this emphasizes on Layla’s reaction. During the drive back to Billie’s home there’s alot of shots of the neighborhood, in my opinion this is to enlighten the audience on the type of surrounding Billie grew up in, this helps in understanding his character.
Billy and Layla finally arrive to his house, in front of the house there’s a huge sign: “Go Buffalo” this is a clue on the environment Billie lived in at home. It is obvious his parents are huge football fans by the decoration of the house. Layla get in the character of being Billy’s wife, she makes up a story that Billy works for the CIA and that she really adores him. The next scene shows us three of the characters sitting around a table, and every minute it keeps switching. It seems like the camera is going through a point of view of one of the characters, and it keeps changing each time someone else speaks. In my opinion the cinematography in this scene is very well done, when i watched the movie i felt like i was looking through the characters eyes.
In the middle of the conversation between 4 of the characters, Billy reminds his mother that he is allergic to chocolate, suddenly in the frame appears a shot of a home video of when Billy was a little boy having an allergic reaction to chocolate. And in the background of this home video we hear the voice of the mother denying it. In this scene we understand why Billy doesn’t have a good relationship with his parents. His mother gave birth to him the day of a very important football game, that caused resentment in the family. Another home video comes out of the frame, this time , the dad is killing Billy’s puppy, in the background we hear the dad’s voice denying it. In my opinion these home videos are flashbacks that helps us understand the character.
In the next scene, we finally understand the reason why Billy went to jail for five years. Billy has a flashback of him betting too much on a football game, and he owned money to a loan shark. The loan shark said that if he doesn’t admit to a crime that someone else did something very bad will happen to him. Therefore he went to jail for a crime someone else committed.
Layla and Billy finally leave the house and they decide to go bowling, in this scene there are slow motion shots of them getting ready to bowl, the shots are shown in a kind of sexual way. In the bowling are the lights suddenly dim down and Layla starts tap dancing. After they finish bowling, Billy decides to take pictures of both of them so he can send to his parents. In this part of the scene the screen is cut in half, like we actually see the point of view of the picture booth. Layla and Billy end up going to a motel room, there they bathe together and lay in bed together. The part where they are in bad, it is shot from above, and the shot is cut in various ways.
At the end of the movie Billy goes to a strip club there he finds Wood ( a previous football player, that because of him Billy lost his money and was sent to jail) and he shoots him in the head. And then shoots himself. The shot in this scene are very well done, it seemed like everything was frozen. The next shot that appears is Billy’s patents overlooking his grave. This whole scene turned out to be a daydream in Billy’s mind. The actual thing that happens at the end, Billy enters the strip club and just walks out.