Humor by Vincent Gallo

The reviews were unanimous: “Metal” – “The hardest image of all time has just been released” – “That jacket is so damn beautiful.” There was little discussion about the last point; the jacket was “so damn beautiful.”

The former president stuck out his thumb and smiled from ear to ear. The rugged man to his left, whom few outside the confines of cinema or politics could name, had a matching grin on his face. It was good to see Vincent again, anyway.

“Next to the greatest president the United States has ever produced,” wrote Vincent Gallo, the Golden Palm-nominated filmmaker behind cult classics Buffalo 66 And The Brown Rabbit“I’m so proud to be in this photo.”

While some in the comments below expressed shock, most who have followed Gallo’s erratic career were less surprised. The former Mafia intern turned bandmate of Jean-Michel Basquiat and catwalker for top fashion designer Saint Laurent has long been an eccentric if somewhat celebrated figure in America’s new right.

Gallo added four more images to his Tuesday Instagram post, including one showing a young, smiling Gallo making a peace gesture next to then-President Ronald Reagan. Gallo also included an image of Fox News host Greg Gutfeld tearing apart a space heater. “Thanks to Gutfeld for making this possible,” the caption read.

The self-proclaimed “Donald Trump of Cannes” also included an image of his long-awaited girlfriend, Afton “Star” Burton, the former fiancée of That Charles Manson. Gallo reportedly met Burton, who was wearing a Trump hat at the TPUSA event, when the former (who looks remarkably like Manson) was in prep for a biopic about the Family that never got off the ground. The rest, as they say, is history.

Gallo and Star were odd but welcome figures at the Turning Point USA event. If MAGA is anything, it is the wildest political movement in the history of American politics.

It wasn’t the first time Gallo had appeared at a Republican event. In 2014, he was spotted with the Bush twins at New York City Fashion Week. A month later, he spoke at the Women’s National Republican Club in New York City.

“The Republican Party needs hipsters,” the rugged filmmaker told a room full of wily Manhattanites. “If it wants to broaden its base, it needs hipsters.”

Gallo is not the first punk to break free from the grip of liberalism.

Former Mumford & Sons guitarist Winston Marshall and American basement rocker Ariel Pink teamed up in early 2021 to parody the Hunter Biden laptop scandal, after both men faced criticism for their right-wing spin. Fans of Smiths frontman Morrissey felt “betrayed” when they learned of the rocker’s nationalist beliefs.

And punk legend Joey Ramone once wrote a song for his favorite TV host, Fox News presenter Maria Bartiromo: “I look at her every day, I look at her every night, she’s really out of sight, Maria Bartiromo, Maria Bartiromo,” the late rocker sang.

Despite all the controversies he’s had (and there have been many controversies), it was still interesting to see Trump with Gallo, if only because of Gallo’s track record as one of the most unyielding independent filmmakers in the history of American cinema.

No one could have made it Buffalo ’66 but Gallo. Fighting the snow, fighting Christina Ricci (in more ways than one), and fighting himself, ’66 is revered to this day for its unsparing look at the hidden sides of the forgotten America that Trump helped bring to power.

Gallo’s 1998 masterpiece tapped into the struggles of America’s white working class in a way Hollywood never could. Lonely, dysgenic, left to die in the blizzards of upstate New York, Gallo’s tour de force is one of the most unashamedly real films since John Cassavetes, the pioneer of American independent cinema, laid the foundation years earlier.

The film was a hit for Gallo, who was invited to screen it at the 1998 Sundance Film Festival.

Writing for Film commentaryGavin Smith noted that ’66 was “probably the best film of the festival” and that it “would have gone home unaffordable, of course.” The controversy found Gallo at the jury table, where he got into an argument with the Taxi driver screenwriter Paul Schrader after a heated question-and-answer session in which Gallo didn’t hold back his opinions on the unfolding Clinton-Lewinsky scandal.

“Schrader was so offended by my comments during the Q&A that he walked into the voting booth and said, ‘Under no circumstances will Vincent Gallo win an award tonight,’” Gallo said in response to the charade.

But another witness suggested that Gallo had been “his own worst enemy” at the festival. A raving lunatic, relentless to his very core, a blatant and unforgiving ball of dizzying energy. Sound familiar?

“I like Donald Trump very much and am extremely proud that he is the President of the United States,” Gallo wrote in a 2018 article published by the fashion magazine Another man“I’m sorry if that offends you.”

Years later, Gallo stood alongside the party leader and his unwavering support for the Republican Party finally earned him an image that would never go away.

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