Taglines: In their world, you can’t buy freedom, but you can steal it.
Bound movie storyline. Corky (Gina Gershon), an ex-con who has just finished a five-year jail sentence, arrives at an apartment building to start work as a painter and plumber. On her way up to the apartment, she encounters the couple who live next-door, Violet (Jennifer Tilly) and Caesar (Joe Pantoliano). After Caesar has gone out, Violet flirts with Corky and asks her to help retrieve an earring that has fallen down her sink.
After Corky extracts the earring, Violet admits she lost it on purpose in order to get closer to Corky, and starts to seduce her. They are interrupted by the arrival of Caesar and Corky goes back to work. When she leaves for the day, Violet follows her to her truck. 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.
Later, Violet overhears Caesar and his Mafia associates beating and torturing Shelly (Barry Kivel), a man who has been skimming money from the business. Upset by the violence and cruelty, Violet seeks solace from Corky. She tells Corky that she wants to make a new life for herself, but that she needs her help. Knowing that Caesar will find the nearly $2 million Shelly took and count it in their apartment, the two women hatch a scheme to steal the money. Corky, already wary of Violet’s intentions, is unsure whether to trust her.
Shelly is shot and killed by Johnnie (Christopher Meloni), the son of Mafia boss Gino Marzzone (Richard C. Sarafian), and Caesar returns to the apartment with a bag of bloody money. Angry at Johnnie for killing Shelly in a fit of rage and splattering blood everywhere, Caesar proceeds to wash, iron and hang the money to dry.
Violet explains to Corky 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 before he showers. Corky will be next-door, waiting until she hears Caesar turn on the shower. When he does, Violet will drop the bottle of Scotch that is for Gino and tell Caesar that she is going to buy more.
As she leaves the apartment, she will let Corky in, who will steal the money from a briefcase and leave. Violet will then return with the Scotch and tell Caesar that she just saw Johnnie leaving, but that Gino was not with him. Suspicious, Caesar will check the briefcase, find the money gone, and assume Johnnie has taken it. Corky and Violet think Caesar will be forced to skip town because Gino will assume he has been robbed by Caesar, not his son.
About the Filming
Bound was shot in thirty-eight days in Santa Monica, California.[6][7] The Wachowskis’ original director of photography resigned on the grounds that he could not do the film with the limited budget he had available, nor did he know anyone he believed could. Subsequently, cinematographer Bill Pope was hired, who knew “a bunch of cheap guys”.
Pope became heavily involved in creating the visual noir style of the film. He and the Wachowskis drew from their love of comics and were influenced by Frank Miller’s neo-noir Sin City series in particular. Pope’s sound counterpart was sound director Dane Davis. One of his ideas was to give Corky a cat-like quality by making a “swishing” sound every time she walks past the camera in the scene where she and Violet plan the theft.
The Wachowskis asked Joe Pantoliano to watch John Huston’s The Treasure of the Sierra Madre and to focus on Humphrey Bogart’s character in order to prepare the paranoia of Caesar. Gershon’s influences for her role were James Dean, Marlon Brando and Clint Eastwood. Both Gershon and Tilly were nervous about filming the sex scenes and prepared by drinking tequila.
Very little improvisation took place during the filming due to the directors’ extensive planning and clear vision for the film. Not everything went as expected, however, as the physical exchanges in the script caused some injuries. Barry Kivel, whose character Shelly was violently beaten in Caesar’s bathroom, received a head injury from his head being banged against the toilet. In the scenes between Corky and Caesar near the end of the film, Gina Gershon hit her hand so hard when she knocked a gun from Joe Pantoliano’s hand that she required stitches.
Bound is a 1996 American neo-noir crime thriller film written and directed by The Wachowskis in their feature film directorial debut. Violet (Jennifer Tilly), who longs to escape her relationship with her mafioso boyfriend Caesar (Joe Pantoliano), enters into a clandestine affair with alluring ex-con Corky (Gina Gershon), and the two women 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 crew members 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 also made a cameo appearance in the film.
Bound (1996)
Directed by: The Wachowskis
Starring: Jennifer Tilly, Gina Gershon, Joe Pantoliano, John Ryan, Christopher Meloni, Mary Mara, Susie Bright, Margaret Smith, Kevin Michael Richardson, Peter Spellos
Screenplay by: The Wachowskis
Production Design by: Eve Cauley
Cinematography by: Bill Pope
Film Editing by: Zach Staenberg
Costume Design by: Lizzy Gardiner
Set Decoration by: Kristen Toscano Messina
Art Direction by: Andrea Dopaso, Robert C. Goldstein
Music by: Don Davis
MPAA Rating: R for strong sexuality, violence and language.
Distributed by: Gramercy Pictures (United States), Summit Entertainment (International)
Release Date: October 4, 1996
Views: 731
