My POLL Private Idaho: The Gus Van Sant Poll

drugstore cowboy by a pretty good margin for me.

I should probably watch those first two films before voting on this poll.

But I'm not, so Gerry.

I have only seen elephant, last days, & paranoid park. I loved all three tbh which I gather a lot of people hate on all three but especially last days so I don't know. of those three, elephant seemed the best-constructed, and the prettiest to look at, though parts of paranoid park were also really gorgeous. even though I haven't seen any of the works that sorta put dude on the map I think of him as a director I like just based on those three. I wish he would get into gore/slasher movies because I would statistically speaking be more likely to see more of his stuff if he did.

I liked PP and Milk for different reasons.

i've seen all of these, and i voted 'Idaho' because it is clearly his most astounding piece of work given the time it was released. i would have said 'mala noche,' but... i dunno, i really dig river phoenix and henry iv, so that's my vote.

i must say, tho, that recent readings have made me reconsider some of my opinions about his latest films... PP and Elephant are both very gorgeous, but sort of like softcore porn. Milk, in the end, is a travesty and makes me cringe.

I think Milk is neither a travesty nor a masterpiece. It just sort of is and can't compare to the real thing.

see idaho for me has always been sunk by its pretensions, shakespearean and otherwise. i love river in it and i don't even mind keanu, but that movie has always been an eye-rolling experience for me. where with drugstore cowboy, the lyrical moments i think really work. and matt dillon is really great. (or van sant makes him seem great -- i don't know how exactly he works with actors, but he gets good stuff out of them.)

i don't know, ghost-raping and making bourgeois fags feel great about ruining a neighborhood is sort of travesty-level for me.

i understand that, tipsy, because that's what my dad has always said. (that isn't a knock on you, by the way). i also must admit to some sentimental attachment to 'Idaho,' as it was the first New Queer film i saw that wasn't one of those ridiculous early Gregg Araki films.

It's impossible for me to be objective about Idaho; it's one of my favorite films, if not my favorite. The ramshackle structure has always made the Henry IV, Part One interpolations less awkward than it should be (it helps that William Richert is quite good as Bob/Falstaff). River Phoenix sails through the whole enterprise: that sequence from the campfire to the trailer with his stepbrother to the Italian sequence (you can feel the chill in the Italian air) is masterful, maybe the best thing Van Sant's ever filmed.

(that isn't a knock on you, by the way).

http://theflickcast.com/wp-content/uploads//darth-vader.jpg

but yeah, i can understand idaho resonating. (e.g., i have a friend who was just coming out to himself and everyone else at the time who loves that movie.) but i had loved drugstore cowboy and was just sort of disappointed by it. i should probably watch it again sometime, it's been years.

Ruining a neighborhood was, um, definitely not the first thing I thought about while watching either Milk or the vastly superior doc.

out of curiosity, is finding forrester as terrible as i have always assumed?

Cute, gay, 20-year-old French director waxes enthusiastic about Idaho:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=01tZuuP8J0s

finding forrester is pretty awful.

Idaho followed by DCowboy, Milk, Gerry, Mala Noche, Elephant.

I love Van Sant's films. I wish I understood why so many people think Paranoid Park is a masterpiece; I liked it, mind you, but I think I'm missing some essential understanding of it.

As of now, it's Idaho v. Elephant for me.

(And I loved Last Days, too. Not sure why it's so widely hated.)

Haven't seen a few including the last two but the isolation films progressively improved, I thought, and my vote's for last days. Idaho is funnier and more creative and tender but last days just for the strength of the physical feeling it left me with, I can't remember another film with a rhythm that stayed with me so long.

Elephant puzzled me somewhat the first time I saw it, even though its mood and strangeness made an impression. After a couple of more viewings, I now count it as one of the decade's great films. It also helped me connect with Paranoid Park immediately; that's a close second. I like To Die For, aren't as big on Drugstore or Idaho as most people, hated Last Days, and haven't seen four of the films listed.

in order for me:
'idaho'
'mala noche'
'elephant'
'paranoid park'
'drugstore'
'cowgirls'
'gerry'
'to die for'
'milk'
'psycho'
'good will'
'last days'
'forrester'

I think Elephant is really incredible. That film taps into something. It's just... ghostly. My favorite Van Sant and one of the best of the decade in my estimation.

Gerry, Last Days, and Paranoid Park sort of reach for similar territory, and I like all of them, but Elephant is where it just really, really works.

I love Elephant and Last Days for the great acting by non-actors and the structure that allows him to create tension through filming everyday activities, instead of imposing a dramatic form on the day on which a historic event happened to take place.

Side poll: Which of his recent films has the best gay red-herring sequence? My vote in that one might actually go to Last Days.

in agreement w/ tipsy about MOPI

also french dude seems like a boring date

i've only seen mala noche, milk and elephant of the rest. might go w/ elephant just for being the most "interesting"

What would constitute a not-boring date is probably not going to last long on YouTube.

will anyone rep for the psycho remake?

The early ones (Drugstore & Idaho - never saw MN) were fantastic at the time, but don't hold up at all for me. The middle Hollywood ones remain an embarrassing puzzle. Haven't seen the last couple yet. The slow loopy death / suicide / whatever trilogy seems the most solid, interesting and watchable to me, though I doubt I would watch any of them again, except maybe Last Days and maybe, maybe Elephant. I should probably track down those last two though?

Not too much dreck in his filmography. I'm thirding or fourthing Elephant as one of the best films of the decade. And one couldn't ask for a more appropriate tribute to Cobain than Last Days. I'd say that Van Sant should now concentrate on a New Order biopic. But New Order's career seems like a dress rehearsal for Last Days anyway so said biopic might be beside the point.

If New Order's career were paced like Last Days they'd never have transcended cult status.

never cared much for early Van Sant, with Drugstore Cowboy as the exception. been ages since i saw To Die For and Good Will Hunting (remember liking them)

voting for Elephant, def the best one in the trilogy, and a truly scary film.

will take this opportunity to to rep for Psycho! it's underrated and funny in a goofy way. (like a raunchy comic book version of the original) (and Macy is pretty good)

Which of his recent films has the best gay red-herring sequence? My vote in that one might actually go to Last Days.

Don't remember that, but then I've tried to forget nearly all of LD.

Never directed anything even half as good as his first two films. Idaho is 50% good/50% overwrought garbage. Will never understand the love.

i haven't seen a few of these, including "drugstore cowboy," but voted for "paranoid park"

Paranoid Park is his best film ,and the best from the "art" trilogy.
Elephant is also awesome, but it loose some points in the end for stealing Beal Tarr ideas,though the combination between a minimal story and a complex way of telling it - is brilliant.
private idaho is good, but pretentious in parts, (the shakespear parts in particular),maybe even over expressive with no good cause.
from his more "hollywood" movies - good will hunting is the most perfect.drugstore cowboy id good, but kinda thin. milk is good too, but too sterile imo.

So it's newest films vs. oldest films with no one repping for the stuff in the middle.

just cashing checks there

I would venture a guess he was actually seeing whether director-of-more-generally-accessible-movies-that-are-also=beloved-by-cinema-types was a look he was trying out, Dr M - I think "what kind of director are you going to be?" is a big question for him.

i don't know if "to die for" counts as middle period but it's great. i never saw "good will hunting" but i caught most of "finding forrester" on tv once and was unexpectedly drawn in. it's not amazing but it's a well-made and watchable movie.

he gets written out of the "good will hunting" narrative though, it's usually framed as damon and affleck's movie it seems

To Die For is def middle period, but it's the best of them.

yeah to die for is pretty good. my favorite nicole kidman turn, and dillon's good again. illeana douglas too. he really is a good director of actors. (including nonprofessionals.) has anyone read anything about how exactly he works with his performers, whether he's more hands-on or hands-off, etc?

not much discussion here of cowgirls. it seems to me that it was more or less hooted at on first release but has accrued something of a cult since. it's a big mess and totally ridiculous, but i didn't hate it.

He's very collaborative. Phoenix rewrote the campfire scene in MOPI, and it's ten times more affecting for it.

"what kind of director are you going to be?"

The kind that likes jailbait.

To Die For is kinda the same joke over and over. I keep forgetting that Buck Henry adapted the book.

morbz, you really hate GVS don't you? we may not be able to be friends any longer. and i actually mean that.

Morbs is, like, ILX's only gay Milk fan.

actually Milk was the first thing to reinvigorate my early admiration for GVS sinceGerry.

I may vote for Finding Forrester just for introducing the world to YOURTHEMANNOWDAWG!

Wow.

Seriously I couldn't be more surprised if Finding Forrester won.

Ewwwww. Yeah, I really don't understand that result at all.

xpost

Why is that result so surprising? Several people on this thread called Elephant one of the best films of the decade. So it's perfectly understandable that it won.

Cuz it's not as good as two other films from this decade, or three films from the other decades.

ILX <3 Columbine

also, not gay enough

haa wow these are prob the worst results ive seen on an ilx poll

xpost
I think it's the gayest movie he's ever made. Gay with a vengeance even. (Or did I misunderstand you?) I still think it's his best film

xxpost

Anger I can understand; but poll surprise almost always baffles me. If a bunch of people say they love x film/album/song on the thread, then how can one be surprised when x wins?

yeah but you guys gotta admit that elephant & paranoid park are visually his most sumptuous movies and that counts for something (I was one of the 3 "last days" loners btw because I am a sucker for a well-broken narrative)

I find Idaho way more "sumptuous" (or at least non-ugly) than PP.

(J0hn have you seen the Criterion disc of Idaho?)

I always cite Idaho as a film with one of the best uses of 'natural' light of the last 20 years (the Italy sequences for example).

(J0hn have you seen the Criterion disc of Idaho?)

I have not, and I will remedy this when I get a chance

i voted gwh cuz it's hilarious, like the scene when he burns the proof in front of stellan skarsgard or when robin williams is all like IT'S NOT YOUR FAULT, IT'S NOT YOUR FAULT ._.

"Why is that result so surprising?"

Cuz the movie is complete garbage.

yer so fuckin hilarious

xp

It is a little bizarre that Drugstore and Idaho appeared to have split votes whereas Elephant didn't have to compete much with Gerry or Last Days.

Or maybe that's not weird at all. Another day and I'd probably have voted for Elephant too.

I've never seen gerry, I thought Last Days, Elephant and Paranoid Park were the sorta trilogy

There are kinda four movies in the trilogy now.

Mala Noche on right now on SHO WOMEN

We're QUITE obnoxious in this thread.

as in "posts you'd like to SB" kind of obnoxious.

haa wow these are prob the worst results ive seen on an ilx poll

― ice cr?m, Friday, September 18, 2009 8:26 PM (1 year ago) Bookmark

The new one stars Dennis Hopper's son, yes?

y

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1498569/

I need to watch more of this guy's stuff. Kinda gave up on him after Even Cowgirls and never watched anything afterwards, even tho I love Idaho and Drugstore Cowboy always cracks my shit up ("never leave a hat on a bed!")

caught Paranoid Park randomly on cable awhile ago and really enjoyed it (dude-cut-in-half sequence was alarming/totally jarring, that was very odd)

didn't like Cowgirls, Shakey? I have the notion that GVS's first five featurelengths would make for an awesome weekend

(Mala Noche is great btw; snubbed by this poll = unforgivable)(esp when GWH has 5 votes; you ppl oughtta be ashamed...!)

I suspect its recent DVD availability had something to do with it? I'd put it in my top three VS now.

oh right on duh

*kicks false sense of superiority to the curb*

so I attended this last night....

http://www.indiewire.com/article/james-franco-talks-my-own-private-river-at-lincoln-center

Maybe 40% of this consists of takes of scenes that were cut from MOPI, and a few are revelatory. There is a girl in the hustlers' coffee-shop hangout who is mostly just seen in GVS's film, but she and River fuck under the arched bridge (from the rock-promoter robbery) in a daylight scene, then talk about their favorite numbers and how people die in threes.

There's also a single-take handheld scene of River walking into a supermarket, grabbing about 6 items as he dances through the aisles, then checks out. These all have a more funky, '70s vibe than the original film, probably bcz Franco gravitated toward the improvisations.

There is, in the theater's gallery, a Franco installation playing two (16mm, I think he said?) filmed versions of 2 of the 3 old scripts that GVS consolidated into MOPI. One features Udo Kier reprising his role of Hans. One has the Mike & Scott characters as younger and Latino.

The interview included in the MOPI shooting script I bought in '94 mentios that the trick who admits to having a Coke bottle stuck in his butt was the inspiration for Mike (and had been originally cast).

right, I remebered that. It's probably mentioned on the Criterion somewhere.

On his first edit: “To me, it was like, 20 years later, my favorite American film, my favorite American filmmaker, my favorite actors, every minute should be seen,” said Franco. “There was 25 hours worth of dailies and I made a 12-hour cut.” However, River’s brother Joaquin was uncomfortable with the idea of screening the 12-hour cut, so Franco’s film has only been released in its current 105-minute version.

does joaquin run the river phoenix estate or something

dunno, he was the only family member JF mentioned.

However, River’s brother Joaquin was uncomfortable with the idea of screening the 12-hour cut, so Franco’s film has only been released in its current 105-minute version.

i regret that i have only so many hairs to tear out in aaaaaaargh. would kill to see this.

at this point i'm almost totally immune to the charms of this guy's films. i think the utterly despicable "trilogy of death" or whatever critics are calling it really soured me on him (see epic "elephant" thread) and colored my appreciation of his better films. i do have a small fondness for mala noche and i genuinely like discipline of d.e. and while i can easily understand the impact of a drugstore cowboy or private idaho at the time, in retrospect they feel derivative to me. they feel a bit like wim wenders' lesser films: more like rough drafts, mood pieces than movies of full flesh. oh well.

what about the impact of Matt Dillon and River Phoenix's full flesh

i see what you did there

new movie, lukewarm reviews:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/film/9860858/Berlin-Film-Festival-2013-Promised-Land-review.html

I liked it, and wrote a bit about it on another Van Sant thread. It came and went quietly here. If you skim a review, you'll peg it as one of his Good Will Hunting/Forrester films and skip it. The characterization is mostly true, but I think it's worth seeing for the overall mood (with a bit of rah-rah mixed in).

apparently the BR of Private Idaho restores color closer to the film than the Criterion DVD had.

I don't care how tonally 'wrong' or whatever those Henry IV, Part One scenes are in Private Idaho: they're loose, funny, don't violate the rhythm of the film.

I hadn't watched the film since buying the Criterion DVD in 2005 and teared up all over again.

Mala Noche still holds up.

i really like paranoid park. grainy skateboard footage set to tape loop ambient :)

rewatched Private Idaho after buying myself the Criterion bluray

it’s still perfect & beautiful & i think i love it even more than i already did

Dead Man's Wire starts slight but acquires more heft as it goes along.

I need to rewatch all of these, it’s been over a decade— and I haven’t seen any of Gus’s films since Milk.

The one controp that I have is that “Psycho” is a masterpiece— not as a film on its own but as a Warholian art project— I think of it as being equal to “The Five Obstructions” and superior to the remake of “Funny Games”, both of which I also adore

The new film has a fantastic score. I'm rather meh on the rest of the film, and wonder if I am applying too heavy a contemporary-relevance filter (especially the tribute to John Wayne).

FWIW, Van Sant was very aware of the news coverage on Luigi Mangione as they were making the film and how certain aspects of it alluded to the same populist anger being analyzed by everyone. But it didn't sound like they were moved to do anything differently with the film, much less expand on that idea.

(Van Sant didn't bring it up, the moderator at my Q&A did, hence why he discussed it, but he didn't have much to say about it beyond what I just typed.)