To say it couldn't have been made today is an understatement. It's a bold film for any time, and it's incredible pissed off. If you wanted to see white men taken down a peg or two, this takes them down to uh... Hell. It's not scathing. It's scalding. And as a film, moving across just several hours of time in one afternoon, it has amazing energy and you can tell Cohen is having... A blast making this! This is significant because if Bone had been more like a sermon, if it had even tried to play everything super serious and straight, it wouldn't have the same impact.
I should be surprised it was made at all... Cohen had a mountain full of tenacity. It's all over the place in some ways - at a certain point this felt a bit like Cassavetes's Faces but with Yaphet Kotto in the Seymour Cassel part...and for the whole movie. But its also a thriller... Sorta. Its something that feels so wholly original I can't quite compare it to anything else. It's not sleazy enough for the usual exploitation of the period, and it's too wild and packed with insane digressions for a studio. Bone is an unkenpt beast of a satire, made as a first feature (though Cohen had worked in TV for years), and clearly he had a lot on his mind... A lot.
Cohen takes on race, sex, class and even policing and how to make your pool cleaner and... it makes for something special. I dont know if it all *works*, but I feel like I've experienced something daring and need a little more time to put the pieces together. By the last act it isnt so much funny as it is totally fascinating - perhaps if Kafka remade Guess Who's Coming to Dinner?
And Yaphett Kotto... Whoa - one of his major performznces. Good jazz/r&B score and songs, too.
I should be surprised it was made at all... Cohen had a mountain full of tenacity. It's all over the place in some ways - at a certain point this felt a bit like Cassavetes's Faces but with Yaphet Kotto in the Seymour Cassel part...and for the whole movie. But its also a thriller... Sorta. Its something that feels so wholly original I can't quite compare it to anything else. It's not sleazy enough for the usual exploitation of the period, and it's too wild and packed with insane digressions for a studio. Bone is an unkenpt beast of a satire, made as a first feature (though Cohen had worked in TV for years), and clearly he had a lot on his mind... A lot.
Cohen takes on race, sex, class and even policing and how to make your pool cleaner and... it makes for something special. I dont know if it all *works*, but I feel like I've experienced something daring and need a little more time to put the pieces together. By the last act it isnt so much funny as it is totally fascinating - perhaps if Kafka remade Guess Who's Coming to Dinner?
And Yaphett Kotto... Whoa - one of his major performznces. Good jazz/r&B score and songs, too.