Bound (film) Erotic thriller
Cast
Jennifer Tilly - - Violet,
Mafia moll, who wants to get out of "the business".
Gina Gershon
- Corky, ex-con working on the apartment next-door to Violet and Caesar.
Joe
Pantoliano - Caesar, Violet's boyfriend and money-launderer for the Mafia.
John
P. Ryan - Micky Malnato, Caesar's Mafia friend.
Christopher Meloni - Johnnie
Marzzone, son of Gino and Caesar's rival.
Richard C. Sarafian - Gino Marzzone,
Mafia boss who tries to make peace between his son and Caesar.
Mary Mara -
Sue, the bartender of the gay bar that Corky visits.
Susie Bright - Jesse,
a girl in a bar who Corky tries to pick up.
Margaret Smith - Woman Cop, Jesse's
girlfriend who recognizes Corky as an ex-con.
Barry Kivel - Shelly, Caesar's
associate who steals mafia money and is killed by Johnnie.
Peter Spellos -
Lou, Mickey's Mafia associate.
Ivan Kane - Cop #, called to Violet and Caesar's
apartment after gunshots are heard when Caesar kills Gino and Johnnie. Gino convinces
them the shots were on his turned-up television.
Kevin Michael Richardson
- Cop #2
Gene Borkan - Roy, Gino's driver.
Bound is a 1996 neo-noir crime thriller film directed by the Wachowski Brothers. It is about a woman (Jennifer Tilly) who longs to escape her relationship with her Mafioso boyfriend (Joe Pantoliano). When she meets the alluring ex-con (Gina Gershon) hired to renovate the next door apartment, the two women begin an affair and hatch a scheme to steal $2 million of Mafia money.
Bound was the first film directed by the Wachowskis, and they took inspiration from Billy Wilder to tell a noir story filled with sex and violence. Financed by Dino De Laurentiis. the film was made on a tight budget with the help of frugal crewmembers including cinematographer Bill Pope. The directors initially struggled to cast the lesbian characters of Violet and Corky before securing Tilly and Gershon. To choreograph the sex scenes, the directors employed sex educator Susie Bright, who was an extra in the film.
Bound received
positive reviews from film critics who praised the humor and style of the directors
as well as the realistic portrayal of a lesbian relationship in a mainstream film.
Detractors of the film criticized the excessive violence and superficiality of
the plot. It won several festival awards during 1996 and 1997.
Plot
Corky
(Gershon), a lesbian ex-con who has just finished a five year jail sentence, arrives
at an apartment building to start work as a plumber and decorator. On the way
up to the apartment she encounters the couple that live next-door, Violet (Tilly)
and Caesar (Pantoliano). Shortly after Corky starts work, Violet asks Corky to
help her retrieve an earring from her sink. Corky extracts the earring and Violet
gives her a beer in return. Violet admits she lost the earring on purpose, and
begins to seduce Corky. They are interrupted by the arrival of Caesar. When Corky
leaves, Violet follows her and apologizes for not finishing what she started.
They go to Corky's apartment and have sex. The next morning, Violet tells Corky
that Caesar is a money launderer for the mafia and they have been together for
five years (a sentence similar to Corky's).
In Caesar and Violet's apartment, Caesar and some others start beating and torturing a man called Shelly (Barry Kivel), who has been skimming money from the business. Violet tells Corky that she wants to make a new life for herself, but that she needs Corky's help. She knows that Caesar will find the missing money, about $2 million, and count it in the apartment, giving them the opportunity to steal it. Corky is unsure whether or not to trust Violet.
Later, Caesar returns to the apartment with a bag of bloody money. Shelly is dead, shot by Johnnie (Christopher Meloni), the son of Mafia boss Gino Marzonne (Richard C. Sarafian). Caesar proceeds to wash and iron the bloody money, hanging it up to dry.
Corky and Violet plan
to steal money from the Mafia.At Corky's place, she and Violet make plans. Violet
explains that Caesar and Johnnie hate each other, and that Gino and Johnnie will
be coming to pick up the money from Caesar. The plan is as follows: When Caesar
has finished counting the money, Violet will get him a drink to relax him. Corky
will be next-door, waiting until she hears Caesar start running the shower. Violet
will drop the bottle of Scotch that is for Gino and tell Caesar that she is going
to get some more. As she leaves the apartment, she will let Corky in, who will
then steal the money from its briefcase. Corky will then come back with the Scotch
and tell Caesar that she just saw Johnnie leaving, but that Gino was not with
him. Caesar will check the money, find it's gone and assume Johnnie has taken
it. He will have to run.
Everything goes as planned until Caesar discovers that the money has gone. He realizes that if he runs, Gino will know he took the money. He decides he has to get the money back from Johnnie. Panicking, Violet threatens to leave. Caesar pulls out his gun and forces her to stay, thinking that maybe she and Johnnie are in it together.
Corky waits next door with the money while Gino and Johnnie arrive. Caesar pulls a gun out and tells Gino that Johnnie stole the money. He ends up killing them both. He tells Violet that they are going to have to find the money, get rid of the bodies and pretend they never turned up.
Unable to find the money at Johnnie's apartment, Caesar telephones Micky (John P. Ryan), a Mafia friend, telling him that Gino has yet to arrive. Caesar discovers that it was Corky and Violet who stole the money. He ties them up and demands to know where it is, threatening to torture them. When Micky arrives to see what is going on, Caesar tells him Gino was in a car accident and Micky leaves for the hospital. Corky tells Caesar where she has hidden the money. He goes next-door to find it and Violet escapes. She makes a phone call to Micky, telling him that Caesar stole the money, then pulls a gun on Caesar, telling him that Micky is on his way and that he should run while he can. Caesar tells Violet that he know she will not shoot him, but she does, and kills him.
Later, Micky, who believes Violet, tells her that he will find Caesar, that there is no need to get the police involved. She thanks him and tells him that she has to make a new life. She drives off with Corky who remarks that there is no difference between them.
Sex scenes
The sex scenes were choreographed by
feminist writer and sex educator Susie Bright. The Wachowski brothers were fans
of Bright and sent her a copy of the script with a letter asking her to be an
extra in the film. When she read the script she loved it, particularly as it was
about women enjoying having sex and not apologizing for it. Disappointed that
they never described exactly what was happening in the sex scenes, she asked if
she could be a sex consultant for the film and they agreed. The main sex scene
set in Corky's apartment was filmed in one long shot. The Wachowski Brothers believed
that this would look more realistic than several shots edited together. Although
it should have been a closed set, there were actually many people present, moving
the walls of the set in order to allow full movement of the camera around the
actors.
Bright appeared as Jessie, the woman Corky tries to talk to in
the bar. Comedienne Margaret Smith played Jessie's girlfriend and the extras in
the bar scene were Bright's friends — "real life San Francisco dykes".
Conception
Film producer Joel Silver has said that after working
as scriptwriters on Assassins, the Wachowski Brothers made Bound as an "audition
piece" to prove that they knew what to do on a movie set. They had the idea
to write a story about how one might see a woman on the street and make assumptions
about her sexuality, but how those assumptions might be wrong. They wanted to
play with stereotypes and while making a film that was entertaining and that contained
sex and violence, because those are the kinds of films that they like to watch.
Seeing film noir as a genre within which they could tell a contained story and
twist conventions, they describe Billy Wilder as a big influence.
When
executives at some studios read the script, they told the Wachowskis that if they
changed the character of Corky to that of a man, they would be interested. The
brothers declined, saying "that movie's been made a million times, so we're
really not interested in it." Dino De Laurentiis, the executive producer
on Assassins, offered to finance Bound and his company produced it, giving them
"free rein" over the story. The film's budget was $6,000,000.
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