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| Larry and Andy Wachowski |
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| Gina Gershon and Jennifer Tilly |
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| Lana and Andy Wachowski |
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| Lana and Lilly Wachowski |
BOUND B USA (109 mi) 1996 d: Lana and Lilly Wachowski
I’m not apologizing for what I did. I’m apologizing for what I didn’t do. —Violet (Jennifer Tilly)
Lesbians against the mob. What could go wrong? This is a film that views men as a noxious disease. Prior to 1990, there were very few lesbian-focused films to speak of, basically just a handful in more than sixty years, which would include Louise Brooks in G. W. Pabst’s Pandora's Box (Die Büchse der Pandora) (1928), Leontine Sagan and Carl Froelich’s MÄDCHEN IN UNIFORM (1931), Yasuzô Masumura’s MANJI (1964), Fassbinder’s The Bitter Tears of Petra von Kant (Die Bitteren Tränen der Petra von Kant) (1972), Chantal Akerman’s JE, TU, IL, ELLE (1974) and LES RENDEZ-VOUS D’ANNA (1978), Robert Towne’s PERSONAL BEST (1982), John Sayle’s LIANNA (1983), Tony Scott’s erotic vampire film THE HUNGER (1983), and Donna Deitch’s DESERT HEARTS (1986), the first lesbian movie that didn’t involve a love triangle with a man, or end in tragedy, while this film was preceded by Peter Jackson’s thrillingly inventive Heavenly Creatures (1994). Very few actually contained a lesbian love story that was overt and intact by the end of the film, as historically most films present lesbians as deviant threats to the male-dominated social order, typically getting punished for their transgressions, while this film was produced and oriented towards a very particular audience, perhaps a 90’s feminist counterpart to the gay subtext in Hitchcock’s ROPE (1948), with a more liberating outcome. A neo-noir erotic thriller financed by producer Dino De Laurentis, there’s some terrific use of music early on, told with an ironic twist, applying elements of queer theory to the femme fatale archetype, as we hear Aretha Franklin in a dyke bar, Aretha Franklin - I Never Loved A Man (The Way I Love You) YouTube (2:47), becoming an expression of female desire, while a Ray Charles song becomes an expression of post coital lesbian bliss, Ray Charles - Hallelujah I Love Her So YouTube (2:37), with both songs screaming with subversive humor in this context. Written and directed by the Chicago-born brothers Larry and Andy Wachowski, perhaps best known for their MATRIX Trilogy (1999, 2003), a critical and commercial smash that remained in theaters for an incredulous six months and set a new standard for special effects, earning close to half a billion dollars, the first film to sell a million DVD’s, while in the last ten to fifteen years the trans brothers have subsequently transitioned to sisters Lana and Lilly, with Lana (formerly Larry) coming out in 2012, and Lilly in 2016, though at the time this film was made they referred to themselves as the “married, heterosexual brothers from the Midwest.” Known for their electrifying focus on tension, visual action, and detail, what distinguishes this film, despite the iconic queer aspect of making a film that expresses the authentic experience of lesbians, is that it’s the only Wachowski-directed project outside the sci-fi genre, with this one firmly rooted in the film noir tradition, with its mingling of sex and violence, becoming a lesbian cult classic, appealing to both gay and heterosexual audiences alike. The film centers on the steamy affair of femme mob girlfriend Violet (Meg Tilly) and butch ex-con Corky (Gina Gershon), as they actually contemplate double-crossing the mob, where much of what we witness could be described as acts of disobedience. Silently grabbing one another’s attention on the elevator, scoping each other out with burning glances, "Bound" - elevator scene YouTube (45 seconds), Corky turns out to be the girl next door, literally, as she’s hired to renovate and paint the apartment next door, seen painting to the music of Hopeless Faith - The Hail Marys YouTube (3:51), where the paper-thin walls allow her to hear everything that goes on in the neighboring apartment. Violet then lures her into her posh, upscale condominium apartment, having accidentally dropped one of her earrings down the sink drain, which are easily retrieved by Corky, the building handyman, which the Wachowski’s make hilariously suggestive, revealing that she’s interested in more than just plumbing, Bound- lost earring scene YouTube (1:04). Sensing Corky’s disbelief in her sincerity, accusing her of not being a real lesbian because she has sex with men, Violet takes her hand and places it under her dress as proof of her arousal, reassuring her “you can’t believe what you see, but you can believe what you feel,” which sends both women reeling afterwards, Bound (1996) - “I’m Trying to Seduce You” YouTube (1:57).
In a follow-up scene in Corky’s rundown apartment, with a bare mattress lying on the floor, this time Violet takes the lead, captured in one uninterrupted shot, both completely naked, revealing Corky’s many hidden tattoos, their bodies obscuring what their hands explore, with carefully placed shadows hiding away the most graphic details, yet portraying the intimacies and technicalities of lesbian sex without any hint of gratuitous romanticism. Using a combination of close-ups on various body parts, we see lips, bare legs, curling toes, exposed cleavage, and fingernails caressing an expression of pleasure on Corky’s face, allowing the spectator to relate to these scenes through voyeuristic visual identification with these women, as the film takes a more explicit approach to graphic lesbian sex, where some of the credit must be due to the sexual consultant input from Susie Bright, the editor of the lesbian erotica magazine On Our Backs, known for her irreverent wit and sharp social critique, who also appears in a cameo role in a dyke bar. Even the lesbian press was surprised by the erotically-charged intensity of these scenes, with Judith Halberstram from Girlfriends magazine describing it as “one of the most sexy and surprisingly authentic lesbian love scenes on celluloid.” Mainstream films often alienate lesbian viewers by employing lesbians to fulfill some kind of male fantasy, which this film has no interest in doing, while accentuating the performances of the actresses involved, the only two people who really matter in this film, each delivering some of the best work of their entire career, Bound (1996) - Gina Gershon & Jennifer Tilly | Kissing Scene YouTube (1:21). This was an era where having a gay relationship at the center of a mainstream film was practically unheard of, as studios were convinced that nobody wanted to see queer women in the mainstream. Both actresses were respectively told that accepting their roles would damage their career trajectory irrevocably. With that being said, it might be surprising that these scenes, while having a huge impact, only constitute a small portion of the film itself, which is a male-dominated gangster film about stolen mafia money, becoming a tale of trust and mistrust. The formula for this film seems to fit the heterosexual male genre, as there’s heated girl-on-girl sex to watch, featuring two very sexy Hollywood starlets, while watching guns blazing through the rest of this macho movie action. Various thugs are trotted out before the camera performing revolting and despicable acts, where the sadistic nature may turn off many viewers who might otherwise be inclined to like this film, resembling the excessive torture and violence of Tarantino’s Reservoir Dogs (1992) and Pulp Fiction (1994), another director who’s simply not for everyone. Very slick and stylish, with its use of exaggerated shadows, this is a dramatic rollercoaster, where in typical noir fashion nothing seems to go according to plan, yet one intriguing aspect is the cross-over appeal of both Tilly and Gershon, two attractive actresses who have previously been used to sensually titillate male audiences, seductively dressed to fit the ideal of heterosexual beauty and eroticism. The characters of Violet and Corky, however, both intelligent and trustworthy, fit a clearly defined cultural representation of lesbian femme and butch roles, with Corky decked out in a black leather jacket, work boots, men’s white briefs, multiple ear piercings, and a preponderance of tattoos, including a readily identifiable labrys ("My labrys, my self"), while Violet is a gangster’s moll, a femme fatale dressed in short, slinky skirts with plenty of exposed stocking-clad legs, with low-cut velvet cleavage and high heels, where her face always has perfectly applied make-up, dominated by red lipstick, speaking in that near-whispered little girl voice that seems to drive men wild.
Where this film subversively breaks the mold is allowing the queer couple, who are typically the villains in mainstream movies, to outsmart and out-muscle the men, in this case personified by a jittery, small-time mafia money launderer in Caesar (Joe Pantoliano), the manipulative, lowlife boyfriend of Violet who is completely overshadowed by the strong-armed mafia family he works for, including Gino Marzzone (Richard C. Sarafian), the crime boss and head of the family, along with his hot-tempered son, Johnnie Marzzone (Christopher Meloni), who is Caesar’s nemesis, as he often screws up, but there’s never any consequences, while if it was anybody else there would be a bullet in the back of their head. Just under the boss in the crime hierarchy is Mickey Mainato (John P. Ryan in his last screen role), a humorless and dour-faced individual who pretty much runs the show, but has a sweet spot for Violet, demanding absolute obedience, for which there are no exceptions. These guys dominate the thrust of the narrative, but as they’re such an unpleasant bunch, Violet has grown very tired of being around them, suffocating from their vicious brutality, finally seeing a way out, as Mickey discovered one of his men was skimming off the top, leading to an excruciatingly painful torture sequence and death sentence that reveals he had over $2 million dollars stashed away, an astonishing feat, with Mickey asking Caesar to count and hold the money until Gino can fly into town the next day to pick it up. Desperate to run off together, Corky and Violet see that money as their opportunity to make a clean start, but they need to get Caesar out of the picture while making it look like he stole the money. In earlier decades, they would never be allowed to get away with it, as they’d be punished for their moral sins, as evidenced by the heavily oppressive environment of William Wyler’s THE CHILDREN’S HOUR (1961), a film adaptation of playwright Lillian Hellman’s stage play in the 1930’s when the mere mention of the word “homosexuality” was deemed illegal, and Mark Rydell’s THE FOX (1968), two films where one of the same sex partners would have to die by the end, one by suicide while the other was crushed by the falling of a tree. This film, on the other hand, allows a minority group of lesbians to escape from any predestined persecution or marginalization, suggesting they are not a threat to society, sharing the same values and ambitions as everybody else. Corky contends femmes have it easier, as Violet comfortably blends into mainstream society, where no one can tell the difference, yet Corky’s mannish look fits the prison girl appearance, using her hands to fix things much like a man, where she’s looked upon suspiciously. Early in the film we see her in a seedy dyke bar, which quickly conjures up images of a dark underworld of lesbian subculture. By playing on the audience’s expectations, they’ve taken a negative and turned it into a positive, where the two lead characters demonstrate enough moxie that they somehow manage to subvert the patriarchal system and survive the stench of the cesspool-filled landscape they find themselves in, at one point bound and gagged like wild animals, yet somehow they manage to escape with their wits intact, setting a new standard for future generations, where they can actually be viewed as figures of empowerment for women and lesbian viewers. Despite the fact they do end up stealing more than $2 million dollars from the mob and get away with it, they are still the two most redeemable characters in the film, as there’s no more morally reprehensible subculture than the mafia, leading to a much more optimistic outcome than the two likeable women in Ridley Scott’s overwhelmingly popular THELMA & LOUISE (1991), a film that opened the doors for films about exploring women in greater psychological detail.
A smaller project meant to convince Warner Brothers that they could direct THE MATRIX, literally serving as their audition, having already written the blockbuster sci-fi saga prior to the making of this film, it nonetheless continues to be critically ignored as an example of New Queer Cinema when compared to the breakout films of the period, Gus van Sant’s My Own Private Idaho (1991), Todd Haynes’ Poison (1991), Cheryl Dunye’s THE WATERMELON WOMAN (1996), and Kimberly Peirce’s BOYS DON’T CRY (1999), which are considered classics of twentieth-century queer cinema, but this film received Hollywood funding, so is not considered an independent film, and at the time they made it the Wachowski’s were not recognized as queer and transgender filmmakers, By now, however, it’s clear they bring a unique perspective, where this perfectly captures the two sister’s psychological frame of mind prior to transitioning from men to women, arguably the most personal work of their careers, completely identifying with two women trapped in a world in which they don’t fit, both busting to get out. Informed by the morally duplicitous nature of Billy Wilder’s Double Indemnity (1944) and John Huston’s TREASURE OF THE SIERRA MADRE (1948), a hybrid of the Western and the darker, film noir, this film also explores gender, class, and desire as constructed by cinematic genre, capitalizing on the inherent ambivalence of film noir and its unpredictability, where you never know what will happen next, with a remarkably queer exploration of the lead characters’ mutual desire for freedom. What they discover is that they’ve both spent the same amount of time in captivity, as Corky spent five years in prison, betrayed by a former partner, while Violet has spent that same five years married to Caesar, living under the ferocious rule of male patriarchy. While coming from distinctly different class backgrounds, they’ve experienced the same sense of being trapped by patriarchal oppression. In one of the more intriguing scenes, Violet reveals “We make our own choices, we pay our own prices,” "Bound" - Jennifer Tilly, Gina Gershon YouTube (1:52), where a central theme of mistrust leads to a temporary setback, reflecting the early stages of a relationship, eventually overcome by a redemptive rebuilding of trust through their sheer dedication and protection of one another, as they come to realize they not only need and love each other, but it’s their road to liberation, as “Love liberates all” is a dominant theme for the Wachowski’s. When concocting their plan to steal the money, Corky reveals, “For me, stealing’s always been a lot like sex. Two people who want the same thing: they get in a room, they talk about it. They start to plan. It’s kind of like flirting. It’s kind of like...foreplay.” The hyper-stylized cinematography by Bill Pope captures much of this as if hovering above them using overhead shots, where the opening shot finds Corky bound and gagged in a darkened closet, where viewers aren’t exactly sure where this is taking place, but this camera method accentuates the feeling of the characters being boxed in, confined to their own space, while cleverly utilizing a limited number of locations, mostly taking place in two rooms. The film suggests not only gay people, but everyone lives in closets of restricted space, like traps designed to keep them from growing and experiencing the world at large, offering a comment on how the structure of identity encloses us and keeps us apart, confined to only a limited perception, like heterosexual marriage, organized crime, incarceration, and parole. Corky questions Violet’s allegiance by pointing out her marriage, but Violet rejects the implications that she cannot be a dyke by redefining her sex with Caesar as “work,” wanting Corky to look past the appearance and sense that she needs to be felt rather than merely seen. It’s their developing desire and sense of trust that allows their queerness to push against the restricted boundaries of the traditional film noir structure by adding complexity to their character, easily overlooked by the arrogant toxic masculinity and macho prejudices of men who simply don’t view than as equals or as a threat, making gross miscalculations, turning this into one of the most radical lesbian films to come out of Hollywood, where the queer and feminist context offer a stark contrast to the sexist Tom Jones lyrics of “She’s a Lady” on the soundtrack in the finale, where their future is suddenly wide open, "Bound" - the ending: Jennifer Tilly, Gina Gershon YouTube (1:15).
