Dr. Ernie awoke in the middle of the night to some sad news, courtesy of the electronic beeping by his bed.
The 'hyper-real' Marty Puccio, actor Brad Renfro, was dead.
Renfro became known to many when he appeared in the The Client, a 1994 Grishamizer that saw the 12-year old hold his own among Tommy Lee Jones and Susan Sarandon. But his defining work, in Dr. Ernie's humble opinion (and never more humble than now, on this very sad day), was the 2001 Larry Clark classic Bully.
Bully is better known to Dr. Ernie and his motley associates as one of the films that ruined my life. In a good way, like taking bad medicine. Bully had a deep impact on me and several others...and all during separate viewings. It's almost as if we'd each discovered an underground drug, then one day found the paraphenalia in the others' house and came clean about having indulged. For Dr. Ernie, it was a late night in the early part of this fading decade when I happened upon the film on Cinemax and simply...could...not...turn...it...off.
Bully was based on Jim Schutze's book of the same name, which reads like a fiction-style true crime account of the real case of Marty Puccio and Bobby Kent. Long story short...Bobby Kent is the titular bully who is terrorizing his 'best friend' (Puccio) and an assorted circle of Floridian misfits, druggies, ex-teen-whores, and the like. Eventually, after cementing his status as of the cinema's most appalling human beings, Kent is murdered by Puccio and the rest of his motley crew.
No doubt there are descrepencies with the real case in both the book and film (the film follows the book, down to the dialogue the author could not have been privy to very closely). However, it's Clark who brings a whole lifestyle, an entire essence to the screen like no other 60-year old director obsessed with teens could.
Because of Renfro's depiction of Marty Puccio, Dr. Ernie and friends identified a 'Puccio lifestyle' and have been tracking its horrible path across our very neighborhood, so far from the subdivided streets of the Hollywood, FL setting. In fact, the Puccio lifestyle can be found all over the USA.
Wearing no shirt on a hot, aimless day. Lounging on the couch. Chugging an MGD out of your parents' fridge with your younger (shirtless) brother looking on. Smoking weed while sweating profusely in bed with a disturbed teen girl. Getting smacked around by your 'best friend'. Brutally murdering said 'best friend' along with some of the stupider people you could find. Getting the same disturbed teen girl pregnant. Saying "FUCK IT" at the breakfast table while your grandmother looks on. Getting arrested and led out the front door by an army of Florida PD while your family watches Wheel of Fortune.
Making a science out of an aimless, directionless, failed surfer, suburban American existence.
Doing nothing and wasting a day in total leisure, but without the criminality and significantly more brain cells could certainly account for a Puccio Day. Anywhere.
What
a
waste.
Renfro was a talented kid. Bully is Clark's best film and largely because of how good, and how real Brad Renfro was. Perhaps because he truly embraced the Puccio lifestyle off-screen, even getting arrested for attempting to steal a yacht while making the film. And dying from as-yet undetermined causes after a night of drinking. He's been battling addictions, including heroin, apparently. He was partying. He was only 25 years old. The Puccio lifestyle does not a long life make. The real Marty Puccio is doing life in a Florida jail cell after having been originally sentenced to die in Old Sparky. He has now outlived the fine young actor who gave him perhaps more life than he deserved--immortally--on film.
I hope Clark or perhaps Michael Pitt or Nick Stahl say a few words about this. It's been rather unsettling to read the news today, and see the press pictures, including stills of Bully.
Do yourself a favor...http://www.amazon.com/Bully-Ed-Amatrudo/dp/B00005U14H/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=dvd&qid=1200540638&sr=1-1
R.I.P. Brad Renfro---the hyper-real Marty Puccio
