No mainstream American film has ever contained more nudity and sexual behavior than BULLY, and, like most sexually daring mainstream films, it's stark and pathological.
this makes it good? clark is a 60-something year old man obsesssed with teenage sex. something creepy about him if you ask me.
What I found great and strange about the photos of "Tulsa" when I saw them was not the "glamor" of the sleaze and degradation. The pictures show people whom Clark knew over a period of time--he was of that time and place and he was from their slice of the world.
The weird sense I had looking at them was feeling Clark's kinship and closenesswith his subjects--like family snapshots. That was the shock factor--much more than the external low-down. The kinship and intimacy hits first and then you see what they're doing in the next nanosec then there's the distress in between.
Clarke's subsequent photo series, "teenage lust" was exactly that and seemed like an attempt to recreate the success of "Tulsa", but more pointed titillation. It lacked that magic intimacy that made "Tulsa" more than a bunch of pics of speed freaks. I didn't like "kids," I thought it was boring and poorly constructed, a hack job, and I guessed that he had harmony korinne as his surrogate to get "close," but I don't think it worked. I'll see "bully," but I wonder if what Clarke lost was his ability or willingness to identify with his subjects.
I think that's both the lure and the drawback of the voyeurism he embraces. He gets the pictures, but there's no alchemy.
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this makes it good? clark is a 60-something year old man obsesssed with teenage sex. something creepy about him if you ask me.
- linda 3-04-2003 9:31 pm
What I found great and strange about the photos of "Tulsa" when I saw them was not the "glamor" of the sleaze and degradation. The pictures show people whom Clark knew over a period of time--he was of that time and place and he was from their slice of the world.
The weird sense I had looking at them was feeling Clark's kinship and closenesswith his subjects--like family snapshots. That was the shock factor--much more than the external low-down. The kinship and intimacy hits first and then you see what they're doing in the next nanosec then there's the distress in between.
Clarke's subsequent photo series, "teenage lust" was exactly that and seemed like an attempt to recreate the success of "Tulsa", but more pointed titillation. It lacked that magic intimacy that made "Tulsa" more than a bunch of pics of speed freaks. I didn't like "kids," I thought it was boring and poorly constructed, a hack job, and I guessed that he had harmony korinne as his surrogate to get "close," but I don't think it worked. I'll see "bully," but I wonder if what Clarke lost was his ability or willingness to identify with his subjects.
I think that's both the lure and the drawback of the voyeurism he embraces. He gets the pictures, but there's no alchemy.
- bunny (guest) 3-05-2003 6:52 pm [add a comment]