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. With his first feature, the director and co-writer Tyler Taormina delivers something at first familiar and then increasingly but never ostentatiously strange. Director of photography: Carson Lund It uses material from the Wikipedia article "Ham on Rye". Subscribe for full access to The Hollywood Reporter. Its roots go that far down, and spread that far wide under the strange earth of the American suburb. But now, you see her curiosity throughout the first act of Ham on Rye, and what does it give her? in emptied-out spaces like bedrooms and street curbs, completing the articulation of a metatextual idea first initiated by those kids-television cameosthe image of the child stars left behind. The girls talk about fashion and popularity. . Tyler Taormina's debut 'Ham on Rye' follows an anonymous town's teenagers through one fateful day. Ham on Rye opened at the Brattle Theatres Virtual Cinema on October 23, where it remains available to rent now. Producers: David Croley Broyles, Michael Basta, Carson Lund, Sergio Uguet de Resayre, David Entin The Review of Contemporary Fiction. Whats established instead are countless signifiers of a semi-contemporary American upbringing: from overarching, stuff like scenes of characters preparing for something like a prom (three girls in frilly dresses being photographed by their overexcited parents, see above), and then carpooling there (the parents now waving at the door like the first day of school, another ceremony) to smaller details seen in briefer shots like the decor of a longhair musicians car (beads on the rear view, bandana on the passenger seat), or a particularly rebellious-looking kid scraping a stick against a fence (which in this context cant help but recall, , ur-text of the American coming-of-age storya narrative lineage that, Its a day were going to remember for the rest of our lives, says the opening dialogue, and the generic phrasing blurs certain lines to build upon the very particular biorhythmic point where Taorminas movie takes place: A kid who says that might be talking about their prom, or about having sex, or about moving out, or maybe even about school graduation, among other possibilitiesbut no matter what, theyre probably talking about something meant to happen in the period that weve come to calling. This stems in large part from his home life, in which he is beaten frequently (often for no reason) by his father. "Ham on Rye" was shot in and around the San Fernando Valley area, north of Los Angeles, a favorite of Paul Thomas Anderson, and the film's DP Carson Lund effectively evokes that neighborhood's. He has only slightly better results in baseball. Henry agrees to teach little kid how to play a game and by the end of it he just walks out. But what kind of dance is this? I doubt if it would be published in modern times (first published in 1982). fandango. And itll cause you a lotta grief. Calonne, David Stephen. 5 (3): 5, Fontana, Ernest. The Dig - Greater Boston's Alternative News Source, Written by JAKE MULLIGAN Posted December 1, 2020 And thats the beauty of LA: theres so many different landscapes to choose from you go two hours outside LA in any direction, and [you can find] anything., Which also helped because we were looking for a sense of the economic differences in the town, added Lund. Depressing and dark. I think you could read Ham on Rye along those exact linesits not cute anymoreand come away with a pretty fair understanding of the film. He taught Chinese and American History at the college level, worked with Eastern Kentucky Welfare Rights Org. This is emphasized by Bukowski's grave being engraved with the words: "Don't try." 16 poolside__convo 2 yr. ago Really enjoyed this take. Sad. He becomes alienated from the children at school simply for somehow being different in a way that none of them could ever coherently articulate. His young people reveal themselves in their dress and facial expressions. Thats suggested from the starta scene at a public park that under another director mightve been rendered chaotic but that under Taorminas eye is cut down into digestible insert shots which seem to archive each action or gesture: a hand trying to spark a cheap lighter, another working to retune a guitar, yet another grasping an ad-perfect glass of lemonade. 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. Anyone can read what you share. The mood is now fairly forlorn, best embodied by Sloan (Cole Devine), a 20-something cook at Montys whos mourning some kind of loss. This detailed literature summary also contains Topics for Discussion and a Free Quiz on Ham on Rye by Charles Bukowski. Charles Bukowski. We're pleased to share the exclusive trailer premiere for Tyler Taormina's Ham on Rye, which will be released virtually on October 23rd in 20+ theaters nationwide.An unorthodox teen coming-of-age movie with an increasingly sinister twist whose details are best left unspoiled, Taormina's debut feature premiered at last year's Santa Barbara International Film Festival before making its . Quiet and carefully made but cryptic, it relies on the viewer to complete its metaphors. This site uses cookies to help personalise content, tailor your experience and to keep you logged in if you register. 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. What's immediately delightful about Ham on Rye is the ghostly sense of escalation. Carson Lund's superb cinematography, apparently influenced by photographers like William Eggleston and Stephen Shore, picks out boys riding skateboards, borrowing Dad's Volvo, and talking about the crucial [] And so by the time it reaches the mythic ceremony that occurs near its halfway point. 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). 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)Ham on Rye reaches a very interior place: an evocation of an experience, or maybe even just a feeling, rather than a meaning. The destination of the walking kids is, well, a delicatessen, and this is where the films similarities to coming-of-age movies like Dazed and Confused ends. Henry agrees to teach little kid how to play a game and by the end of it he just walks out. Reddit and its partners use cookies and similar technologies to provide you with a better experience. Taormina sets us in suburban America, among high school students, walking through a social ritual of conversation, dance, and food at a local deli. This study guide consists of approx. Ham on Rye is a 1982 semi- autobiographical novel by American author and poet Charles Bukowski. Twayne Publishers, New York, 1997. p. 40, 41. Ham on Rye can be taken as an allegory for middle-class suburban life in America, but its got added value as a potent mood piece, accomplished with a bare minimum of means. Whats established instead are countless signifiers of a semi-contemporary American upbringing: from overarching universal stuff like scenes of characters preparing for something like a prom (three girls in frilly dresses being photographed by their overexcited parents, see above), and then carpooling there (the parents now waving at the door like the first day of school, another ceremony) to smaller details seen in briefer shots like the decor of a longhair musicians car (beads on the rear view, bandana on the passenger seat), or a particularly rebellious-looking kid scraping a stick against a fence (which in this context cant help but recall Tom Sawyer, ur-text of the American coming-of-age storya narrative lineage that Ham on Rye is of course very much bound up in). Then the ba-boom of a Phil Spector-ish anthem kicks in (by a 60s girl group called The Teardrops), and things get serious. As Lund has written about himself in an indispensable piece for Filmmaker Magazine headlinedOver 100 Cast Members and No Permits: How I Shot Ham on Rye in Los Angeles, the films faceless neighborhood locations were stolen from various spots across that cityso for example Ham on Ryes semi-decontextualized meeting spot Montys is in real life actually Berges, a deli in the La Caada Flintridge area of Los Angeles County. Has. As Chinaski progresses through grammar school, the focus of Henry's attention is on sports, violence, and girls. The first part of the picture bounces around in an unnamed town (it was shot in the San Fernando Valley) that is dubiously situated in time: We see cellphones only a few times, and nothing about costumes, hair or background music roots us firmly in the present. 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. 1985. READ MORE: The 100 Most Anticipated Films Of 2021. but you can choose how you rise above, some with words, other with action. 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. The few friends he made he drove away with his hatefulness. a simple language is used, and bombs go off without much fanfare. Which have a bit of psychedelia to them, and that gauzy look. The reader eventually follows Chinaski to college and reads of Henry's attempt to find a worthwhile occupation. Ham on Rye, the feature film debut of Long Island-native, Los Angeles-beached Tyler Taormina, is one of the strangest and most discomfiting "coming-of-age" films of recent memory.I put "coming-of-age" in quotes because, yes, ostensibly it follows children between the ages of 15 and 18 becoming Something Else, Something Bigger. State Wire: Affordability Limits MAs Higher-Ed Attainment Goals, So Much For Contracts: State Report Blasts MBTA Contractor. Screenwriters: Tyler Taormina, Eric Berger 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. Though of course Taormina can pull the episodes whenever he wants, or Youtube or Vimeo could take them down for any reason including none whatsoever, and then theyd be left to a small handful of hard drives, at most, where a random crash might erase them on any given sunday. Beginning as an examination of rites of passage, neighborhood malaise, the loss of adolescence, it soon develops into a textured portrait of the suburbs as a transitory space, where teenage posturing and the act of 'finding yourself' takes on a quality of reckoning with the disappointment of the world as a . Were not told when the film is taking place, or where the film is taking place, or even whats the deal with this big local event all the kids are moving towards. Written in Bukowski's characteristically straightforward prose, the novel tells of his coming-of-age in Los Angeles during the Great Depression. Ham on Rye is a captivating story that makes you attached to the book all the way to the end. Filed Under: A+E, Film. However, he rarely is completely confident with his own abilities and often second-guesses himself. Without giving away too much, lets say the rest of the plot recalls the great Shirley Jackson story The Lottery. But theres no overt horror element, or violence, here. The novel focuses on the protagonist, Henry Chinaski, between the years of 1920 and 1941. 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. Detail fetishism, he begins, before starting a new thought. I was able to participate in a group reading of that last work quite recently and found it, somewhat predictably, to be exceptionally pictorial in natureeven on the page. Create an account to follow your favorite communities and start taking part in conversations. To make matters worse, Chinaski develops horrible acne so severe that he has to undergo painful, and mostly ineffective, treatments, essentially becoming a human guinea pig for various experiments thought up by his uninterested doctors. The post-facto rationalizations they concoct for their hostility, however, involve his inability to play sports and his being viscerally revolted by cruelty to animals, the latter being one of the favorite past-times of neighborhood men and boys alike. The film premieres at the Santa Barbara International Film Festival this week, and the official site is here. special is how dutifully it avoids the lack of depth that usually accompanies utilizing deliberately generic settings. Charles Bukowski. The unease is existential, as the fates of some of the couples make clear. Its held at a local sandwich shop called Montys, and begins with everyone dining quietly. As a subscriber, you have 10 gift articles to give each month. Taorminas youth are on their way to adulthood through ritual. Ham on Rye Review: Coming of Age, With Existential Unease, https://www.nytimes.com/2020/10/22/movies/ham-on-rye-review.html, From left, Haley Bodell, Gabriella Herrera and Audrey Boos in Ham on Rye.. But with all these signifiers, as well as the title, which sends us back to Charles Bukowskis coming-of-age memoir of the same name, which itself refers to The Catcher in the Rye, pretty soon the references multiply to the point you have to give in and call Ham on Rye its own, pretty unique thing. Chinaski has been compared to both Frankenstein's monster and Kafka's Gregor Samsa, because of his alienation and outcast resulting from his "monstrous" appearance. Director Charlie Kaufman (Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind) ratchets up American gothic to psychological horror as he distorts time, place and relationships, scattering uneasy references to the musical Oklahoma, the film Woman on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown, and poetryIntimations of Immortality. Louisa may be thinking of ending itbut Jake may actually be the one to end it after all! I dont get it. Not at all. But I am really interested in seeing how these objects flow from person to person, and then get cast out into space.. The main character was a boy, born in Germany, then moved to the US, where he grew up. So, , was the realization I made about her character.. Now, as a memory growing more distant every day, all thats left is the dreamlike impressions of these places Ive loved so much and then abandoned. And itll cause you a lotta grief. Whether his thoughts are good/bad, right or wrong, he said them! 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. As Henry begins High School, his father, who is experiencing downward inter-generational socioeconomic mobility, makes him go to a private school where he fits in even less amongst all the well-heeled, spoiled rich kids with their flashy, colorful, convertible sports cars and beautiful girlfriends. Chinaski has been compared to both Frankenstein's monster and Kafka's Gregor Samsa, because of his alienation and outcast resulting from his "monstrous" appearance. Bukowski's Ham on Rye and the Los Angeles Novel. 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Like a hoagie sandwich filled with meat and lettuce, thats a quintessential American suburban item.. 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. You are using an out of date browser. As Chinaski progresses through grammar school, the focus of Henry's attention is on sports, violence, and girls. The post-facto rationalizations they concoct for their hostility, however, involve his inability to play sports and his being viscerally revolted by cruelty to animals, the latter being one of the favorite past-times of neighborhood men and boys alike. And I think we took that philosophy and mindset and applied it to everything. A puzzling but artful look at teenage alienation. Chinaski relates that he has an abusive father, and his mother does nothing to stop his father's abuse. 6 reviews. 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. Bukowski keeps his descriptions of his hometown grounded in reality, paying more attention to the people that make up Los Angeles than to the city itself. just finished ham on rye and was curious to hear some analysis/opinion on the abrupt ending with hank playing . Were not told when the film is taking place, or where the film is taking place, or even whats the deal with this big local event all the kids are moving towards. You might even feel the anticipatory dread of the familiar: oh no, not another prom movie tenderly observed, with just enough acne-ridden raunch to give a little edge to its otherwise placid, complacent lament for childhoods passing not again. 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. As the story progresses the reader follows his life through the school years and into young adulthood. Ham on RyeNot rated. I couldn't put it down. Its such a music-driven filmwere all musiciansand one of the things we did talk about a lot in preparation, especially for the Montys party sequence, was 80s music videos, Lund mentioned later. 1985. and I read PO, HOR, Women in that order, personally, just because I found PO first. It is an uneasy journey where some find purpose, escaping their suburban constraints, as others remain behind, their blank faces reflecting more circumscribed lives. They literally haunt my dreams.. Running time: 1 hour 25 minutes. Brewer, Gay. We were pulling from those reference points a little bit. and come away with a pretty fair understanding of the film. A hauntingly. Increasingly fearful Louisa insists on returning to her own apartment. Ham on Rye is roughly age 0-20, Women is in his fifties, and Post Office is somewhere in between those. It seems like in some poems somewhere I've seen Bukowski talk about reading the great philosophers and he seemed to work his way out of the classes, to become his own man free from all the constraints of the working man.It took a hell of a long time, but he did it through perseverance. Nothing but alienation. Ham on Rye isn't a film about buried secrets. Has. 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. "Let the boy play the piano," said my grandmother. Same goes for something that Taormina said to AwardsDaily 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?, he said back then. Ham on Rye explained Ham on Rye is a 1982 semi- autobiographical novel by American author and poet Charles Bukowski. His writing skills make it empowering. This study guide consists of approx. [Bodell and I] worked on Suburban Legends, then a short film Wild Flies, and finally Ham on Rye, Taormina said. It may not display this or other websites correctly. is the key word there: During this first movement of, whats most narratively engaging is the matter of whats been established for sure vs. whats left deliberately unclear. The specifics are never explained, but we suspect that some years ago, he was in Haleys shoes. Henry is not athletic but wants to be and therefore tries hard to improve. She was 12, and now shes 18 going on 19 The fun little tidbit I like to say about working with her on these projects is that I only realized during the rehearsals, which was a months-long process, that the character of Haley in Ham on Rye is actually the same character as Poll Flowerpot from Suburban Legends but grown up in Suburban Legends, her curiosity always brings her closer to other peoplethats what her youth afforded to her. One passage that always reminds me of Nietzsche was from factotum ". Carson Lunds superb cinematography, apparently influenced by photographers like William Eggleston and Stephen Shore, picks out boys riding skateboards, borrowing Dads Volvo, and talking about the crucial importance of boning, like its a philosophy, like theyre the first ones ever to have had so original a thought. Thats as misleading as calling Eraserhead a reluctant-groom rom-com. Ham on rye ending explained - international conference on. thats eventually revealed to be a literal ceremony at the center of Taorminas debut feature. He never experienced love. 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. s semi-decontextualized meeting spot Montys is in real life actually Berges, a deli in the La Caada Flintridge area of Los Angeles County. However, this thread would be disingenuous if I did not say that I identified so strongly with Hank. As recently as four years ago the films now-29-year-old director, Tyler Taormina, maintained a website for his then-new webseries Suburban Legends, which starred Haley Bodell as Poll Flowerpot, a 12-year-old cynic [who] discovers the absurdities of the world; the site is down now, but if you search around you can still find all three episodes on certain video-uploading hubs.
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