The Use of Student Film Cliches

I found a thread named “Most Common Short Film Cliches” while searching in the forums. Instead of the cliches of professional short films, the cliches of the student shorts was listed. Like shakycam, voice-over narration etc.. While reading some opinions reminded me of Gus van Sant’s “Elephant” strongly. Some of those opinions were: ‘gun fetishes’, ‘Beethoven’s Moonlight Sonata’, ‘Cloud formations that are sped up’. All of these and more were used in “Elephant” with a professional way (in my opinion). This made me think about it. Do you think Gus van Sant might used these common student film cliches to express the youth’s feelings and life style? And if he might, can we say there is a special genre of ‘Student Films’ which is created unconsciously and has characteristic ways?

This was a conscious decision on Gus’ part. I was at a Q&A a couple years ago and Savides talked about this – how they approached the look of the film and shot it like it was a student film.

Cool…

Don’t forget that Van Sant’s Elephant is essentially just a copy of the vastly superior 1989 film, so one should also acknowledge the stylistic debt owed to Alan Clarke and the British school of social realism.