This article contains spoilers. This is not a movie review, but is rather more like movie analysis. I don’t get too in depth on a blog post, so in these “Molecules to Movies” articles I focus on just a couple things about each film. Since I grew up in Buffalo and still live there, I’m not going to help but focus on how my city is presented in the film. So I will focus on:
- Buffalo’s culture and lifestyle
- Layla (Christina Ricci) serving as a prop to Billy (Vincent Gallo)
First, let’s get a brief summary out of the way. Basically, Billy lost a $10,000 bet on the Buffalo Bills in the 1991 Super Bowl when they lost to the NY Giants after the Scott Norwood’s (named Scott Wood in this film) infamous game losing “wide-right” missed field goal.
First off, as a native Buffalonian, this is the best setup you could possibly have for a film about Buffalo. If there’s anything I can say about old school Buffalo’s attitude, it is this pervasive idea that anytime you think you are getting ahead, you are going to lose and find things even worse.
And it does get bad for Billy. Not being able to come up with the $10,000, his bookie (Mickey Rourke) demands he admit to a crime he did not commit so that somebody else can be let off the hook. Billy gets the maximum five years in jail. The film starts with Billy released from prison. He has told his family a lie, that he is married and was out of the country working for the government for the past five years. He kidnaps Layla and demands she pose as his wife at a family dinner. He renames her Wendy, after his high school crush. After this he plans to kill Scott Wood and commit suicide. Hopefully that brings everything back to you if you haven’t seen it in awhile. I watched this last night for the first time in years, but I’ve probably seen it at least 10 times.
Vincent Gallo directed and starred in this film. He grew up in Buffalo and left for NYC as a teenager, where he pursued artistic success in both music and film. Buffalo ‘66 is his directorial debut. This is his story as well as Buffalo’s story. Is it a love note or a break-up letter to Buffalo? The film begins with Billy (Gallo) returning to Buffalo and looking for somewhere to piss. It’s a not so subtle metaphor for what he thinks of the city he grew up in. It’s also really a reminder of an old attitude a lot of people had about this city at that time. Suffering four Super Bowl losses in a row is depressing, despite all the joy and excitement of seeing a city’s team go all the way to the big game for four consecutive years. It’s like some kind of collective manic depression if such a diagnosis existed.
In an interview with a local paper, Gallo claimed to love Buffalo while simultaneously throwing around insults. You know what? It’s fine really. As a native Buffalonian, I felt the same way in the 90’s. We had a hard time not being seen as the city of losers. It was the city where nothing new was built. There was always talk of a new zoo, a new international bridge to Canada, an indoor amusement park and so many other things that never came to fruition. The past decade has seen a lot of new developments actually (Canalside, new downtown buildings, Harborcenter, River Works). Yet there are still many suburbanites who avoid the city and think the entire urban area looks like what is depicted in Buffalo ‘66.
For a look at what all the sites in the film look like now, this is a great article. The article is a couple years old. Recckio’s Bowling Center has since closed.
Christina Ricci’s character is terribly undeveloped and her affinity for her kidnapper makes little sense. She’s not so much the manic pixie dream girl, but rather just the dream girl. Gallo reserves the manic personality for his own character. Layla appears to serve little purpose but to take Billy’s abuse and somehow return nothing but praise and kindness. She attempts to win him over not really necessarily for any want of her own, but only to make Billy a better person.
In some sense Layla serves as the mother figure Billy is missing from his own life. He hurls abuse at her, as a stand-in for his own mother (Anjelica Huston). His mother was so obsessed with the Bills that she blames him for making her miss a game due to going into labor, which in her mind caused the Bills to lose a big game in 1966. When Layla asked to see photos of Billy as a child, his mother asks his father (Ben Gazzara) to get the Billy picture, as apparently they have only one. This leads to one of the most memorable scenes, where Billy takes Layla to a photo booth, to finally supply his parents with more photos of himself, along with his “wife.” It is apparent from his dead stare that he has no experience posing for photos. Layla’s playfulness just adds to the contrast between the two.
According to Ricci, Gallo was abusive on the set. It seems hard to separate his onscreen character from the real Vincent Gallo, as he appeared to treat the actress much like Billy treats Layla in the film. After seeing the way his parents treat him, it’s possible to have some sympathy for Billy up to a point (the kidnapping and misogynist abuse dissolves any sympathy right at the beginning of the film). He doesn’t deserve the redemption at the end, trading hatred for unearned love. After changing his mind about the murder-suicide plan, he has an epiphany that serves all of Buffalo. Yes the Bills lost but at least they had an exciting season. No other team has gone to four Super Bowls in a row before or since.
