It was the blowjob seen 'round the world. Or at least, the one that nearly broke the Cannes Film Festival back in 2003. When people talk about The Brown Bunny Sevigny scene, they usually do it with a sort of hushed, scandalous tone, like they're sharing a secret from the back of a video store. But honestly? Most of the discourse around Chloë Sevigny’s role in Vincent Gallo’s road movie misses the point entirely. It wasn't just some random act of provocation. It was a career-defining risk that almost tanked the reputation of one of indie cinema's most respected "It Girls."
Vincent Gallo wrote, directed, produced, and starred in The Brown Bunny. He also edited it. He probably would have catered it if he had the time. The plot is thin, following a motorcycle racer named Bud Clay as he drives across the country, haunted by the memory of a lost love. That love is Daisy, played by Sevigny. The movie is long. It’s sparse. It’s undeniably self-indulgent. Then comes the ending. The scene.
We’re talking about unsimulated oral sex. In a non-pornographic, mainstream-adjacent independent film. It wasn't a body double. It wasn't a prosthetic. It was real. And in 2003, that didn't just ruffle feathers—it caused a full-blown nuclear meltdown in the press.
The Brown Bunny Sevigny Backlash: Why the Critics Went Nuclear
Roger Ebert famously called it the worst film in the history of the Cannes Film Festival. He and Gallo ended up in a legendary war of words where Gallo cursed Ebert’s colon and Ebert retorted that his colon would eventually be more interesting than the movie. It was messy. But while the boys were fighting over ego and runtimes, Chloë Sevigny was the one caught in the crosshairs of a much nastier conversation.
The industry basically asked: What was she thinking?
People assumed her career was over. She was dropped by her agency, William Morris, shortly after the film premiered. There’s this weird double standard in Hollywood where "bravery" is celebrated until it makes people actually uncomfortable. Sevigny has always been an experimentalist—think about Kids or Gummo—but The Brown Bunny pushed the boundary of what the industry was willing to forgive.
The funny thing is, if you watch the movie now, the scene isn't even the most shocking part. It’s the loneliness. The scene is incredibly bleak. It’s not erotic. It’s a moment of desperate, pathetic connection between two broken people. Sevigny has defended it for decades, noting that it was an artistic choice meant to convey a specific type of grief and stagnation. She wasn't a victim; she was an actor making a choice.
Artistic Integrity vs. Public Perception
There is a huge difference between being exploited and being an iconoclast. Sevigny has always landed in the latter camp. She knew the risks.
"I was a bit naive, perhaps," she once mentioned in an interview with The Guardian. "I thought people would see it as a bold artistic statement."
They didn't. At least not at first. They saw it as a stunt. But looking back, The Brown Bunny Sevigny moment served as a litmus test for how we treat women in film who take control of their own sexuality, even in ways that are unpleasant or jarring. Gallo was the "tortured artist," but Sevigny was the one who had to answer the uncomfortable questions for the next twenty years.
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The Technical Reality of the Performance
The film was shot on 16mm. It has this grainy, nostalgic, almost home-movie feel to it. This makes the final sequence feel even more intrusive. It’s not "glossy" like a modern HBO show where everything is lit perfectly. It feels raw.
- The Context: Bud Clay is a shell of a human being.
- The Act: It’s a literal manifestation of his obsession with Daisy.
- The Result: Total emotional emptiness.
Gallo eventually re-cut the film after the disastrous Cannes screening, trimming about 26 minutes of driving footage. This actually made the film better—or at least more watchable—but it didn't change the ending. The ending is the movie. Without that specific, visceral moment, the rest of the film's build-up has nowhere to go. It’s the climax of a very long, very sad road trip.
Why Chloë Sevigny Didn't "Ruin" Her Career
Despite the immediate fallout, Sevigny didn't go away. In fact, she did the opposite. She went on to star in Big Love on HBO, winning a Golden Globe. She became a fashion icon. She directed her own short films. If anything, The Brown Bunny solidified her status as the queen of the underground.
It showed she wasn't interested in the "America's Sweetheart" trajectory. She wasn't looking for a Marvel movie. She was looking for truth, even if that truth was ugly and made people want to walk out of the theater. You have to respect that. In a world where every actor’s brand is carefully curated by a team of twenty publicists, Sevigny did something that could have destroyed her because she believed in the vision of the film.
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Critics like Manohla Dargis eventually came around to some aspects of the film, acknowledging that while flawed, it was a singular piece of work. It’s a movie that lingers. You might hate it, but you don't forget it.
The Long-Term Impact on Independent Cinema
We don't see movies like this anymore. The current landscape is so risk-averse that the idea of a lead actress performing unsimulated sex in an indie drama feels like something from a different century. In a way, it was.
The controversy around The Brown Bunny Sevigny basically marked the end of a certain era of "transgressive" cinema. After this, and maybe 9 Songs or Antichrist, the industry pivoted. Everything became more regulated. Intimacy coordinators became the standard (which is a good thing for safety, obviously), but the wild-west nature of 90s and early 2000s indie film-making vanished.
Sevigny’s legacy isn't "the girl from that movie." Her legacy is being the actor who wasn't afraid to be hated.
What You Should Take Away From This
If you're going to watch the movie, don't go into it looking for a thrill. You'll be disappointed. It’s slow. It’s quiet. It’s mostly just a guy in a van. But if you want to understand a pivotal moment in film history—a moment where the line between art and reality was completely blurred—then it’s essential viewing.
- Understand the Intent: It wasn't meant to be "sexy." It was meant to be devastating.
- Acknowledge the Agency: Chloë Sevigny was a grown woman and an established star who made a conscious decision.
- Watch the Edit: If possible, find the "Cannes Cut" just to see how much of a difference the pacing makes, though the theatrical version is much more coherent.
Next Steps for Film Enthusiasts:
To truly understand the weight of this era, watch Sevigny’s performance in Boys Don’t Cry (1999) immediately followed by her work in The Brown Bunny. The contrast shows the range of an actor who refused to stay in the lane Hollywood carved out for her. Then, read the original 2003 Cannes reviews from Variety and The Hollywood Reporter to see just how visceral the anger was at the time. It provides a fascinating look at how much social standards have—and haven't—changed in the last two decades. Finally, seek out Vincent Gallo's Buffalo '66 to see the director's more accessible, but equally idiosyncratic, earlier work. This gives you the full context of why people expected so much from him, and why the "failure" of his follow-up felt so personal to the critics of the time.