Defending Vincent Gallo (From Vincent Gallo)

If we’re to believe what Vincent Gallo says about himself, he’s a very bad man. He badmouths just about everyone he meets, he wholeheartedly approves of the W. Bush administration, he even wished cancer on the lovely Roger Ebert.

Yes, you, Roger, he doesn’t even care that you look like somebody’s nanna. But you did call his movie, The Brown Bunny, the worst film in the history of Cannes, didn’t you. You laughed when your buddy Roeper said it was worse than a steaming pile of excrement, didn’t you. Don't lie to me Roger.

But maybe it’s because I happen to love his first movie, Buffalo 66, so much, maybe it’s because I happen to think that The Brown Bunny is a steaming pile of heartbreaking independent cinema at its best, I just don’t think that Vincent Gallo is as much of a dick as he wants us to believe.

If Gallo’s political leanings are REALLY as far to the right as he claims, how can he justify making films which push the boundaries of conventionality as far as they do? I call bullshit. In his youth, Gallo was an artist (of the painting kind, not the artfilm kind) and it seems to me that he’s in fact still at it, pulling some kind of life-long performance piece.

Of course, it's impossible to defend the possibility that Gallo may have caused Mr. Ebert's throat cancer; such voodoo is best left un-examined. Gallo himself said he had been aiming for Ebert's prostate and 'missed'. But the fact that they're now best buds suggests that this exchange was never to be taken as seriously as Gallo might hope us to believe. Mr. Gallo is, in reality, a thoroughly nice, decent fella who doesn’t wish harm on anybody at all. I betcha. And if he stopped dicking around maybe everyone would start taking him more seriously as a filmmaker. Unfortunately, I don't think the performance is going to be ending any time soon.