Background and production
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 make an entertaining film 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 described 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.
Casting
The Wachowski brothers struggled to cast the roles of Violet and Corky, seemingly because of the lesbian content of the film. Few actresses were interested. The part of Violet was expected to go to Linda Hamilton, and Jennifer Tilly read for the part of Corky. She loved the role and was looking forward to playing a character very different from previous parts in her career. When the part of Violet became available, and Gina Gershon came in to read for Corky, Tilly agreed that Gershon would make a better Corky. She realized that she identified with the character of Violet, a woman “underestimated by all the men around her” who has to “play the game”. She describes it as the best role she had ever had. Gina Gershon suggested Joe Pantoliano to the Wachowski Brothers for the part of Caesar. His first lead role in a film, he describes it as his favorite.
Filming
Bound was shot in thirty-eight days in Santa Monica, California. The Wachowski’s 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. The brothers subsequently hired cinematographer Bill Pope, 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.
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 Jesse, 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”.
Themes
The Wachowski brothers describe several themes present in Bound. They say that the film is about “the boxes people make of their lives”, that it is not only gay people who “live in closets”. They wanted to define all of Bound’s characters by the “sort of trap that they were making out of their lives”. Violet is trapped in her life with Caesar, and in the first scene, Corky is literally inside Violet’s closet, bound and gagged by Caesar. This scene is echoed later in the film when Violet says “I had this image of you inside of me…” This theme of being trapped is exacerbated by the claustrophobic feeling created by the fact that most of the film takes place in Corky’s apartment, Violet and Casear’s apartment, or the apartment next door where Corky is working.
Susie Bright described some of the specifically lesbian themes of the film. One is the concept of the hand as a sex organ, highlighted by lingering camera shots of Corky and Violet’s hands. Another is the repeated use of water as a symbolic motif to represent women, present for example when Corky is retrieving Violet’s earring from the sink. Bright describes it as a movie that is “wet” (feminine) as opposed to “hard” (masculine). She says the scene where Corky and Violet have their first conversation is full of “lesbian signs”. She highlights the fact that Violet, away from Caesar, is wearing jeans and able to be less overtly feminine. Jennifer Tilly says that whenever Violet is talking to men, her voice becomes high-pitched and “girly” — making her seem vulnerable and ensuring she is taken care of. Joe Pantoliano agrees, saying that the result is that “everyone in the film wants to be with Violet”. When she is with Corky, Violet can drop the act and talk at a more natural pitch. According to Bright, the more subtle lesbian themes of the film were noticed and appreciated at the LGBT film festival screenings.
