BULLY

US, 2001, 112 minutes, Colour.
Brad Renfro, Nick Stahl, Rachel Miner, Bijou Philips, Leo Fitzpatrick, Michael Pitt.
Directed by Larry Clark.

Bully comes from controversial director Larry Clark. Known as a photographer in the '70s and '80s (Tulsa, Teenage Lust, Perfect Childhood), he moved into film directing with the controversial Kids (1995), a glimpse of a day in the life of spoilt New York teenagers indulging in drugs and sex. As a photographer, he offers images of this way of life. Some people find the mere presentation of such a way of life offensive. Clark thinks that by showing the images, it influences the way people respond to the situations and the moral issues.

His second film was Another Day in Paradise, more upmarket with a star cast including James Woods and Melanie Griffith. In Bully, based on a novel: Bully: A True Story of High School Revenge by James W. Schutze who collaborated in the screenplay with Zachary Long and Roger Pullis, Clark returns to the kind of film of Kids by showing teenagers in Florida and their participation in a murder. The kids are self-indulgent, self-centred - and rather dumb, indulging in behaviour without very much understanding or thought of consequences. The consequences are hammered home in a fairly direct finale with the film recounting the sentences that each of the individuals receives.

1. Larry Clark and his attitude towards youth, the drug culture, sexuality? His background in photography? Unconventional film-making? The controversy about Kids? How exploitative in his presentation or not? His focusing on drug behaviour, explicit sexual behaviour, nudity?

2. The genre of youth movies, sex and drugs, the committing of a crime? This film fitting into that pattern - and yet different? A presentation of the kids and their way of life, the gradual insight into them and their selfishness, the instigation of the crime, the preparations (and lack of planning) and performance - with the aftermath?

3. The Florida settings, the beaches and the surfing, the city, the beachfront, shops and apartments, poorer families and the wealthy? The Florida environment? Musical score, use of songs?

4. The screenplay and its bluntness, its directness? Re-creating the world and placing the characters within it? Asking for audience identification and/or merely observing people and behaviour? The impact of the crime? The aftermath? The fact that so many of the characters lacked intelligence, that some were plain dumb? Their behaviour, moral collapse? Audience identification or judgment of them? (The seeming influence of Macbeth on the basic situation, the characters, especially Lisa and Marty?)

5. The title and its reference to Bobby, his behaviour towards Marty: from their boyhood, over a long time, verbal and physical humiliation, the verbal abuse, Bobby bashing Marty? Marty and his being subservient to Bobby? Her work in the shop, the sexual behaviour of picking up the girls, in the car? The homosexual contacts, the gay sex, the pornography videos, dancing in the gay bar? Going out with the girls? Bobby and his attitude towards the homosexuals? Deals, getting $100, forcing Marty to dance? His attitude towards women, brutality, rape? Screening the gay images? The contrast with his home life, affluence, manners, going to college, his studies, his dominance by his father and the expectations, talking about going into business with his father? Despising his father yet holding him on some kind of pedestal?

6. Marty as the focus of the film, the opening and his talking on the phone, his age, sex, the irony of the conventional family and the breakfast? His parents and his brother? At work, flirting with the girls, picking them up, out in the car, sexual encounters, the gay bar, dancing for $100? The attraction towards Lisa, his violent reaction to her pregnancy? Being humiliated by Bobby, physically hit, accepting it? His growing reactions to Bobby, especially under the influence of Lisa? Going out for the drives, the plan to kill him, Lisa urging him on? His relationship with Ali, Heather and Donny, the hitman, the fat young man who helped? The initial attempts and failure, the reality of the killing, Marty's viciousness in stabbing Bobby? The aftermath, the arrest at home - and his brother looking on? His getting the death sentence?

7. Bobby as a character, credible, selfish, vain, the irony of his not being killed initially, the build-up to the actual death, its violence and his reaction, being tossed in the canal for the alligators? His seeming to deserve his death - or not?

8. Ali, her friendship with Lisa, sexually provocative, her child? The sexual encounter in the car with Bobby (and his looking over the back seat at Lisa and Marty)? His later raping her? Her seductive behaviour towards him to lead him to death? The time of the killing, the aftermath, talking with her mother, ringing the police anonymously?

9. Lisa and her friendship with Ali, lonely, wanting sex, grasping on to Marty, the pregnancy? Her reaction, her reaction to his violence? Bobby and his verbal humiliation of her and her pregnancy? Her mother trying to control her but unable? Her growing malice, talk against Bobby, instigating the killing, repeating it, at the time of the murder and her trying to opt out, the nightmares, telling her girlfriend in detail? Responsible and irresponsible?

10. Donny, bringing him down to the beach, setting him up with a scenario and his inability to follow it through? On drugs, dumb? His relationship with Heather, Heather and her friendship with Ali? Their participation, Heather frightened during the murder and hiding in the car, Donny and his viciousness? Later disclaiming any responsibility?

11. The fat boy, the influence of Lisa, the influence of the group, his getting the baseball bat, not wanting to participate in the killing, carrying the body to the creek? His later fears, confiding in others?

12. The hitman, pretending to be in a gang, his brother, tough friends, his father? Lording it over the group, always talking about a plan - but there being no plan, the strategy at the end, getting rid of the body?

13. The glimpses of the families, Marty's ordinary family, Bobby's wealthy family - and the father looking at Bobby's empty room and his grief for his son? Ali and her mother, Lisa and her mother and her bewilderment at the behaviour? Trying to get the kids out while they were lying in the room planning?

14. The court case, the sentences?

15. The overall impact of this film - a glimpse of contemporary adolescent life, amoral, violent, self-absorbed?