Buffalo ?66

Buffalo ?66 is a 1998 film, and is writer/director Vincent Gallo's semi-autobiographical full-length motion picture debut. Vincent Gallo and Christina Ricci star in the lead roles and a distinguished supporting cast includes Mickey Rourke, Rosanna Arquette and Anjelica Huston. Gallo also composed and performed much of the music for the film.

Related Topics:
1998 - Film - Vincent Gallo - Motion picture - Christina Ricci - Mickey Rourke - Rosanna Arquette - Anjelica Huston

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Having just served 5 years in prison for a crime he did not commit, Billy Brown (Gallo) seeks revenge on the man he feels is responsible, Scott Wood. The character, a former Buffalo Bills kicker, is clearly a reference to Scott Norwood, the infamous Bills kicker who missed a potential game-winning field goal in Super Bowl XXV against the New York Giants. Whilst desperately searching for somewhere to relieve himself, he kidnaps a dance class student called Layla (Ricci) and forces her to pretend to be his wife.

Related Topics:
Buffalo Bills - Scott Norwood - Super Bowl XXV - New York Giants

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This film is as much comedy as it is drama; Billy's scornful attitude and his contemptuous memories are often offset by amusing dialogue and ironic, almost black, humour. Buffalo '66 is an indie feature with a dirty, minimalist look and boasts a rather faded and discoloured visual style, thanks to the use of 35mm and (for the flashback scenes) 16mm reversal film stock. This retro look, DIY sensibility and the comic mixture of irony and sentimentality, as well as the casting and music, have caused the film to be strongly identified with late-1990s hipster culture.

Related Topics:
Indie feature - 35mm - 16mm - Reversal film - DIY - 1990s - Hipster

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One particular scene features the use of a "bullet time" effect, where the action stops abruptly and the camera view then rotates around the frozen scene, a technique that was popularised a year later in The Matrix.

Related Topics:
"bullet time" - The Matrix

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The film also draws heavily from the condition known as "Stockholm syndrome."

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