On Gus Van Sant's 'Elephant'
[from a January 2004 letter to Johnny S.]
I was surprised that Van Sant had a scene with them kissing, since he's gay and it seems like a cliche that weird, alienated boys who become killers must be gay too. Maybe for him it was more a measure of their loneliness and detachment -- the only people they could take a shower with were each other, but humans still crave intimacy, so...
I thought the three girls vomiting together in the bathroom was a bit of a cheap shot. Yeah, the shallow pretty girls are all bulimics. Just seems like a stereotype.
There was some style in all the tracking shots, the camera just following people around and alighting upon the same moments over and over again. Some decisions he made just seem inscrutable -- "Benny" gets a name card like the others but absolutely no other screen time, so we can see that he stalked them for a minute bravely before getting killed. The girl in the library -- wear your shorts tomorrow. Was it all one day or was he conflating several days? Did they skip school that day so they could receive the package and gear up etc., but wasn't he in school getting pelted in a classroom and then sketching out his "plan" in the cafeteria? Isn't he shown on the gun website at one point -- and then the M-16 arrives by UPS a few sequences later? (I find it hard to believe you can order an M-16 through the mail with no background check, but whatever. The Columbine killers got their weapons at a gun show, not the Internet. Same point I guess.)
I guess my feeling is that Van Sant is experimenting with narrative (the absence of narrative?) and the banality-of-evil theme of course, but also creating this delicate mood where we have the POV of a silent observer eavesdropping on these ordinary lives and this content-free dialogue, so that when the shootings come at the end they seem much more insane and horrifying than if they were part of a conventional story.
Because, otherwise, if the alienation of those two boys and the nightmarish ease with which they slaughter people is the bulk of what we're supposed to take away from the movie, then all the time he spends on the rest of the characters -- carefully delineated with name cards for no reason -- seems sort of wasted.
I was surprised that Van Sant had a scene with them kissing, since he's gay and it seems like a cliche that weird, alienated boys who become killers must be gay too. Maybe for him it was more a measure of their loneliness and detachment -- the only people they could take a shower with were each other, but humans still crave intimacy, so...
I thought the three girls vomiting together in the bathroom was a bit of a cheap shot. Yeah, the shallow pretty girls are all bulimics. Just seems like a stereotype.
There was some style in all the tracking shots, the camera just following people around and alighting upon the same moments over and over again. Some decisions he made just seem inscrutable -- "Benny" gets a name card like the others but absolutely no other screen time, so we can see that he stalked them for a minute bravely before getting killed. The girl in the library -- wear your shorts tomorrow. Was it all one day or was he conflating several days? Did they skip school that day so they could receive the package and gear up etc., but wasn't he in school getting pelted in a classroom and then sketching out his "plan" in the cafeteria? Isn't he shown on the gun website at one point -- and then the M-16 arrives by UPS a few sequences later? (I find it hard to believe you can order an M-16 through the mail with no background check, but whatever. The Columbine killers got their weapons at a gun show, not the Internet. Same point I guess.)
I guess my feeling is that Van Sant is experimenting with narrative (the absence of narrative?) and the banality-of-evil theme of course, but also creating this delicate mood where we have the POV of a silent observer eavesdropping on these ordinary lives and this content-free dialogue, so that when the shootings come at the end they seem much more insane and horrifying than if they were part of a conventional story.
Because, otherwise, if the alienation of those two boys and the nightmarish ease with which they slaughter people is the bulk of what we're supposed to take away from the movie, then all the time he spends on the rest of the characters -- carefully delineated with name cards for no reason -- seems sort of wasted.
posted by Will @ 1/17/2005 04:59:00 PM
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