For independent filmmakers, Los Angeles is a city of contradictions: it's both an ideal place to congregate with likeminded artists and craftspeople, and a truly daunting place to actualize on . So to both make and spruce up the required disclosure, let me say that I not only consider Carson Lund a close friend, but that I also consider myself a dedicated fanof his film criticism (which also includes notes for the programs of the Harvard Film Archive), his music, and now of course his filmmaking practice, which in addition to his cinematography for Taorminas feature also includes a short film that he produced and directed in 2016, Starr Farm, and a screenplay that he co-wrote and hopes to direct sometime in the near future. The passage of time from adolescence to early adulthood is an uncanny experience for I presume just about everyone, but the ephemerality of modern digital life must only make it worse. It focuses instead on the vaguely insidious side of life that we not only tolerate, but embrace. The Review of Contemporary Fiction. The 1960s were about pushing boundaries and breaking societal rules to make a strive towards enjoyment and the American dream. A stylish twist on the end-of-high-school dramedy, Tyler Taormina 's " Ham on Rye " offers the ethereal echoes of "The Virgin Suicides" with the gossamer veil of a humid summer's day . By accepting all cookies, you agree to our use of cookies to deliver and maintain our services and site, improve the quality of Reddit, personalize Reddit content and advertising, and measure the effectiveness of advertising. ), being told to make the most of the big night by parents while occasionally expressing some ambivalence about attending. All Rights Reserved. Written in the first person, the novel follows Henry Chinaski, Bukowski's thinly veiled alter ego, during his early years. Press J to jump to the feed. Taormina splits Ham on Rye into two tonally and thematically distinct segments: a sunny teenaged slice of life, followed by a grimmer, quieter look at what happens after the sun goes down. Jake disappears and appears. In the beginning, and just for a little while, Tyler Taorminas Ham on Rye seems like every other no-budget suburban coming-of-ager youve ever seen, if maybe better shot. And with the exception of a couple of surprising mood changes on the dance floor and off, thats about all in the film you could describe as a plot. Erections, Ejaculations, Exhibitions, and General Tales of Ordinary Madness, The Captain Is Out to Lunch and the Sailors Have Taken Over the Ship, Portions from a Wine-stained Notebook: Short Stories and Essays, Charles Bukowski: Locked in the Arms of a Crazy Life, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Ham_on_Rye&oldid=1056996657, Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License 3.0, This page was last edited on 24 November 2021, at 20:05. Today is David Lynchs birthday, so its appropriate to be thinking about rotting picket fences right now. These films are unlike earlier genres of self-satisfied materialism or later rebellious promise. The Review of Contemporary Fiction. In a varied ensemble of more than a hundred (many of them nonactors), just a few of them get names, and only a few more get to say or do enough things to project any kind of identity beyond their appearance. Production designer: Emily Scott Simpson His young people reveal themselves in their dress and facial expressions. A puzzling but artful look at teenage alienation. And so by the time it reaches the mythic ceremony that occurs near its halfway point, Ham on Rye has successfully conjured up a cinematic space where all those aforementioned experiences have been quite purposefully blended together, forming a sunlit anxiety dream of a generic suburban upbringing. Its depiction of the American Suburbs feels less like a screenwriters nostalgia trick and more like the visual translation of a genuinely mental image, rich with detail and specificity. Though calling them characters is a bit of a stretch. Of course the same is true of books, films, and everything gathered under the sunit all goes eventually. Anyone can read what you share. Football is difficult for him, but he enjoys the violence that comes with it. All the dread and the emptiness is what comes up after the big Monty's scene, when day turns to night, and when most of Ham on Rye's first-half cast disappears from the picture. As Chinaski progresses through grammar school, the focus of Henry's attention is on sports, violence, and girls. Charles Bukowski. Same goes for something that Taormina said to, in early 2019, which seems way too key not to reproduce here: The script was born through that feeling of nervous confrontation to [rituals] and then it bloomed into What happens to those who dont get selected?,, Yet by placing its emphasis on the shared cultural detritus of American teenagerdom, like all those tokens of first cars and first kisses seen in the loving insert shots that dominate the first halfrather than underlining its more specific themes or subtexts (which Broyles, Lund, and Taormina say were pared back even further than expected during editing), reaches a very interior place: an evocation of an experience, or maybe even just a feeling, rather than a, Transgression becomes even more unfathomable when an entire global generation seems to share the same path in gentrifying the cities, Taormina, (also suggesting one of his films many productive contradictionsthat its a lament for the loss of a suburban experience produced almost exclusively in urban spaces). 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Werent most of us? There's a girl called Haley who features more than most of the other characters, but mostly it just shows all the different kids. But part of what makes Ham on Rye special is how dutifully it avoids the lack of depth that usually accompanies utilizing deliberately generic settings. Gleaning a sense from all these excessive details, these things you dont strictly need to see for the sake of narrative momentum, but that maybe overwhelm the characters, who are young, angsty, and kind of overwhelmed by life. As Henry grinds his way through Junior High School, he discovers the manifold pleasures of alcohol and masturbation. 1985. Except where otherwise indicated, Everything.Explained.Today is Copyright 2009-2022, A B Cryer, All Rights Reserved. As a prequel to Bukowski's previous novels, Ham on Rye depicts the origin and development of many of the reoccurring themes of his work as well as the persona of Henry Chinaski. but that said, it doesn't really matter. Henry agrees to teach little kid how to play a game and by the end of it he just walks out. Then the ba-boom of a Phil Spector-ish anthem kicks in (by a 60s girl group called The Teardrops), and things get serious. Ham on Rye book by Charles Bukowski ISBN: ISBN13: Expositions On the Book of Psalms: Psalms 37-52 by Charles Bukowski See Customer Reviews Select Format Hardcover -- Paperback $7.69 - $16.46 Select Condition Like New Unavailable Very Good Unavailable Good $8.09 Acceptable $7.69 New $16.46 See All 19 Editions from $7.69 Recommended Format: Paperback 'Ham on Rye.' | Factory 25 Director Charlie Kaufman ( Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind) ratchets up American gothic to psychological horror as he distorts time, place and relationships,. [2] The story takes place at home, at his different schools, at the doctor's office (for his never-ending acne treatments) and at various other locales around town. The air is often dead, even when people are ostensibly being social: Asking a question or making an observation is no guarantee anyone will say anything in reply. Are we here alone? Thats as misleading as calling Eraserhead a reluctant-groom rom-com. In a mainstream teen film, that sense of social abandonment is a unifier, redeemed in one way or another with the promise that life has something better in store. I just thought, I knew the actor, the kid wed hired for that role, and I knew I wanted to have an object kind of move from the kids space to the [adults] space, and I also very pointedly wanted it to be handled very differently by these two people I dont know. This was a book I would rather not have read. Ham on Rye opened at the Brattle Theatres Virtual Cinema on October 23, where it remains available to rent now. [1] Scenes outside of Los Angeles show Chinaski as an intruder, as with an early scene where he and his family are chased out of an orange grove. this is going to be fun to shootits like shooting a bunch of still lifes, , he continued. 65. He becomes alienated from the children at school simply for somehow being different in a way that none of them could ever coherently articulate. Its late spring in the suburbs, and boys and girls of high-school age are dressing up not quite in prom wear, but in sundresses and ties and jackets, headed to some kind of event. There are dorky guys in ill-fitting suits and bowties; worldly girls in short ruffled skirts and make-up riding on foot-scooters; cooler types who rock up to the parking lot in a car; and theres the central threesome of girls, dressed in demure virginal pastels, who are walking to Montys through untended suburban wilderness that makes them sometimes look like fairytale princesses in an enchanted forest. Henry is not athletic but wants to be and therefore tries hard to improve. Cookie policy. His life never became better. Written in the first person, the novel follows Henry Chinaski, Bukowski's thinly veiled alter ego, during his early years. Director of photography: Carson Lund He becomes alienated from the children at school simply for somehow being different in a way that none of them could ever coherently articulate. and come away with a pretty fair understanding of the film. 7. Its kind of about how you grow up and curiosityespecially curiosity about systems and societal functionsis not welcomed. With the snow falling heavily, the ride back itself may only substitute one danger for another. And Tyler loves grunge from the 90s. While its eventually seen that some of the kids have mobile phones, Taormina purposefully dresses his cast and designs their environment in a way that throws them into a sort of temporal never-never land. 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