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Elephant

United States

2003

81 Min
Color
1.37:1
German, English
  • Currently 3.7/5 Stars.
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DIR Gus Van Sant

EXEC Diane Keaton, JT LeRoy, Bill Robinson

PROD Dany Wolf

SCR Gus Van Sant

DP Harris Savides

CAST Alex Frost, Eric Deulen, Elias McConnell, John Robinson, Timothy Bottoms, Matt Malloy, Jordan Taylor, Carrie Finklea, Nicole George, Brittany Mountain, Alicia Miles, Nathan Tyson, Kristen Hicks, Bennie Dixon, Ruben Bansie-Snellman

ED Gus Van Sant

PROD DES Benjamin Hayden

SOUND Leslie Shatz, Felix Andrew

Cannes (In Competition): Palme d'Or, Best Director, Telluride, New York, Karlovy Vary (Horizons - Awarded Films), Toronto, Vancouver, Rotterdam (Homefront USA)

Synopsis

Director Gus Van Sant returned to the low-key style of his early independent efforts with this semi-improvised exploration of how violence makes its way into a typical American high school. Eric (Eric Deulen) and Alex (Alex Frost) are two close friends who are students in a well-to-do suburb of Portland, OR. Eric and Alex are at once ordinary and misfits; while they seem to be confined to the edges of the clique-oriented social strata of high school, little about their behavior draws attention to itself. Or at least not during a typical school day; on their own time, the two boys are fascinated by Nazi iconography, enjoy violent video games, tentatively explore homoerotic desires, and coolly begin to make plans for an armed ambush of the school, drawing up working diagrams of the lunch room during study hall and buying rifles over the Internet. Drawing an expected degree of controversy, Elephant had its world premiere when it was screened in competition at the 2003 Cannes Film Festival, where it won both Best Director for Van Sant and the Palme d’Or. –IMDb

Director

Original

Gus Van Sant

A director who is capable of crafting both deeply unconventional independent films and mainstream crowd-pleasers, Gus Van Sant has managed to carve an enviable niche for himself in Hollywood. Since debuting in 1985 with Mala Noche, Van Sant has become one of the premiere bards of dysfunction, populating his films with a parade of hustlers, junkies, psychopathic weather girls, homicidal teens, and troubled geniuses.

The son of a traveling salesman, Van Sant was born in Louisville, KY, on July 24, 1952. One constant in the director’s early years was his interest in painting and Super-8 filmmaking. Van Sant’s artistic leanings took him to the Rhode Island School of Design in 1970, where introduction to Avant-Garde cinema quickly inspired him to change his major from painting to cinema. After mobving to LA, Van Sant became fascinated by the existence of the marginalized section of L.A.‘s population, especially in context with the more ordinary prosperous world that surrounded them… read more

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Jim Laczkowski

29Jan12

I warmed up to this very cold and clinical film on a 2nd viewing. I wish the performances were stronger and the last confrontation is really an unspectacular note to end on. It plays like The Shining in high school, which is both good and bad. There's a better movie to be made about this subject matter but Van Sant took an interesting approach regardless. GRADE: B

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Caue Ueda

4Jan12

just watched again. i've forgotten how similar to "the shining" is this film.

Jim Laczkowski likes this

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răpciune

17Dec11

he likes beethoven, he is gay & he is keen on documentaries that assert for the millionth time the "uniqueness" of the nazi totalitarianism in the history of the 20th century - this makes him the perfect, cold-blooded killer. for the general information: hitler was a graduate of fine (visual) arts, so what about making the same film, but with john, the photographer, or any other artsy fellow there being the assassin.

Daniela Maria likes this

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    răpciune

    17Dec11

    i thought this flic would win me over, especially because of the first shot of that reverted F of an antenna over a green sky, like the first rebel letter of a "fuck off" manifesto poured onto the world's indifferent face. but then.. then it just sucked. maybe i am too sick of films associating a "sensitive" year with a cruel heart. it's like saying that punk aficionados would never kill a fly.

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Carbish

8Dec11

This movie does raise a lot of questions, and that is its best quality. Dangerous shortcuts are made though, between mediums and thoughts, and one should definitely be cautious while watching this very interesting movie.

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Reviews

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Elephant (2003)

By fleurar​e on January 3, 2012

With this film, Gus van Sant depicts the Columbine High School massacre in his death trilogy beginning with Gerry and ending with Last Days. The disclaimer at the end of the film is, if to be taken…  read review

Elephant

By Evnad on December 14, 2011

Because the noughties have come and gone, I am trying to revisit all the Palme d’Or winners of the past decade. I started with my most favourite Cannes winner of them all, Gus Van Sant’s Elephant…  read review

Unflinching Observation

By johnnyd on May 31, 2010

In Gus Van Sant’s Elephant, there are no easy answers. The film is not about finding answers or reasoning an incomprehensible tragedy; that would be hubristic. No one has answers, and Van Sant…  read review

Turner Stewart Reviews Elephant

By Turner S on April 8, 2010

Gus Van Sant has made some pretty good movies so far in his career, like Milk and Good Will Hunting, but I believe that this film about Columbine is his best. The film is not directly about Columbine…  read review

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The Use of Student Film Cliches

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What would you do?

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