a Gus Van Sant film…81 minutes
Re: Elephant
Jag,
That looks like a very interesting movie. Thanks, I’m going to try to check it out.
Raphael Lasar
Matawan, NJ
Definately going to check this out. Has anyone seen “Bang Bang Your Dead” yet?
The beginning drama class at my school just put that on. It was our 5th production this year, I was so proud of them.
thread jacker!
Because THAT helped the thread get back on track (not that this post does).
Opposite of Michael Moore
I loved the movie. I wonder if it’s out on DVD yet. Ebert claims van Sant has no theories about violence. I think everyone does. He is just letting the viewer find his own way–He is the opposite of Michael Moore.
BY ROGER EBERT
Gus Van Sant’s “Elephant” is a record of a day at a high school like Columbine, on the day of a massacre much like the one that left 13 dead. It offers no explanation for the tragedy, no insights into the psyches of the killers, no theories about teenagers or society or guns or psychopathic behavior. It simply looks at the day as it unfolds, and that is a brave and radical act; it refuses to supply reasons and assign cures, so that we can close the case and move on.
Van Sant seems to believe there are no reasons for Columbine and no remedies to prevent senseless violence from happening again. Many viewers will leave this film as unsatisfied and angry as Variety’s Todd McCarthy, who wrote after it won the Golden Palm at Cannes 2003 that it was “pointless at best and irresponsible at worst.” I think its responsibility comes precisely in its refusal to provide a point.
Let me tell you a story. The day after Columbine, I was interviewed for the Tom Brokaw news program. The reporter had been assigned a theory and was seeking sound bites to support it. “Wouldn’t you say,” she asked, “that killings like this are influenced by violent movies?” No, I said, I wouldn’t say that. “But what about ‘Basketball Diaries’?” she asked. “Doesn’t that have a scene of a boy walking into a school with a machine gun?” The obscure 1995 Leonardo Di Caprio movie did indeed have a brief fantasy scene of that nature, I said, but the movie failed at the box office (it grossed only $2.5 million), and it’s unlikely the Columbine killers saw it.
The reporter looked disappointed, so I offered her my theory. “Events like this,” I said, “if they are influenced by anything, are influenced by news programs like your own. When an unbalanced kid walks into a school and starts shooting, it becomes a major media event. Cable news drops ordinary programming and goes around the clock with it. The story is assigned a logo and a theme song; these two kids were packaged as the Trench Coat Mafia. The message is clear to other disturbed kids around the country: If I shoot up my school, I can be famous. The TV will talk about nothing else but me. Experts will try to figure out what I was thinking. The kids and teachers at school will see they shouldn’t have messed with me. I’ll go out in a blaze of glory.”
In short, I said, events like Columbine are influenced far less by violent movies than by CNN, the NBC Nightly News and all the other news media, who glorify the killers in the guise of “explaining” them. I commended the policy at the Sun-Times, where our editor said the paper would no longer feature school killings on Page 1. The reporter thanked me and turned off the camera. Of course the interview was never used. They found plenty of talking heads to condemn violent movies, and everybody was happy.
Van Sant’s “Elephant” is a violent movie in the sense that many innocent people are shot dead. But it isn’t violent in the way it presents those deaths. There is no pumped-up style, no lingering, no release, no climax. Just implacable, poker-faced, flat, uninflected death. Truffaut said it was hard to make an anti-war film because war was exciting even if you were against it. Van Sant has made an anti-violence film by draining violence of energy, purpose, glamor, reward and social context. It just happens. I doubt that “Elephant” will ever inspire anyone to copy what they see on the screen. Much more than the insipid message movies shown in social studies classes, it might inspire useful discussion and soul-searching among high school students.
Van Sant simply follows a number of students and teachers as they
Re: Opposite of Michael Moore
It is. I have rented it and will be watching it over the weekend. Please don’t ask why I rented it last night, but wont be watching it until Saturday.
Raphael Lasar
Matawan, NJ
Re: Opposite of Michael Moore
I watched this movie on Saturday. I completely agree with Billy. I found after watching it that van Sant does have a point of view and that there are elements to tie the characters together. Given the general silence about ones own theories here, I will similarly refrain. All I’ll say is that this is a very good and important film and that rather than posing van Sant as the opposite of Michael Moore, I’ll pose him as a complement to him.
Cheers,
Raphael Lasar
Matawan, NJ