Gus Van Sant (1952 - )

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Pink: A Novel by Gus Van Sant

Independent filmmaker Van Sant's first novel recalls his My Own Private Idaho's collage-like texture, its central male-male relationship, and, under the transparent pseudonym Felix Arroyo, its costar, the late River Phoenix. Dead from a drug-induced "misadventure in the gutter . . . in front of [a] nightclub" (sound familiar?) when the book begins, Felix starred in many of the "informmercials" made by 52-year-old still-aspiring director Spunky Davis. He was homosexual Spunky's obsession, too, and it isn't surprising that Spunky is now gaga over blond Jack, who greatly resembles Felix and who is inseparable from dark Matt (Phoenix was paired with Keanu Reeves in Idaho). As Spunky lives out his infatuation, he discovers that both young men are visitants from the Pink (the place referred to by the expression in the pink), where Felix is now permanently ensconced. Spunky tells most of what story there is, but other narrative continuums frequently interrupt him (two of these concern a dead rock star whose avatar Matt may be). Imagine a William S. Burroughs extravaganza without the grotesque sex, the drug taking, and the wild-and-woolly humor. That is Pink. How odd. -- Ray Olson

My Own Private Idaho (1991) 

Gus Van Sant's often-beautiful 1991 film stars River Phoenix as a narcoleptic, Seattle male prostitute and Keanu Reeves as the rich friend who agrees to help him find his mother. After a solid hour or so of the two traveling on this quest through Idaho and Italy, Van Sant throws a wrench into the works by conjuring a gay version of Shakespeare's Henry IV, Part I, with Reeves's character as Prince Hal and filmmaker William Richert (who directed Phoenix in the 1988 Night in the Life of Jimmy Reardon) as a variation on Falstaff. The experiment is interesting to watch, but you can't help wondering what on earth happened to the movie. Still, the film has a cult status one can't argue with, and Phoenix gives a tragic performance that stays in the memory. --Tom Keogh

Even Cowgirls Get the Blues (1994) 

If someone ever put together a what-were-they-thinking top 10, this film would surely make the list. Based on Tom Robbins's '70s ode to freedom, whooping cranes, and ambisexuality, this Gus Van Sant film sat on the shelf for almost a year before its brief release. More of a curiosity than anything else, it tells the convoluted story of Sissy Hankshaw (Uma Thurman), the world's greatest hitchhiker by virtue of her mammoth, um, thumbs. She falls in with a lesbian collective at a dude ranch and, well, the rest is kind of a mess. Kind of? Let's say it's a monumental mess, one of those films that's like a 25-car pileup on the interstate that you have to stop and look at, just to figure out what people like Keanu Reeves, Roseanne, John Hurt, and Angie Dickinson are doing there. A great score by k.d. lang, by the way. --Marshall Fine

Gus Van Sant Biography

Excerpt:

"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, and troubled geniuses. Following his first major success, Good Will Hunting, Van Sant directed a re-make of one of the classic paeans to dysfunction, Alfred Hitchcock's Psycho...

Tribute to Gus Van Sant

Excerpt:

Born in Louisville, Kentucky and educated at the Rhode Island School of Design, Gus Van Sant emerged from the nether-world of producing commercials to become one of the most exciting new directors working in independent film today.

Graced with a style that could best be described as lyrically eccentric, Van Sant's early films have probed that other America; the one lying underneath the perfect country depicted in advertisements and commercials. His landscapes are those of the underbelly of society; the skid rows populated by drifters, drug addicts, and the otherwise dispossessed. While it's true this territory has been explored previously by other filmmakers, Van Sant's perspective of these seamy underworlds is refreshing in its wit and starkly comic honesty.

From Mala Noche, his inner city tale of a doomed relationship between a Mexican migrant worker and a liquor store clerk, to Drugstore Cowboy, Van Sant's characters say and do the unexpected; unlike those of many Hollywood movies, they are anything but predictable. For example Bob (in Drugstore Cowboy ), addicted to chemical substances, freely admits what so many of us refuse to acknowledge; we sometimes engage in dangerous behavior simply because it's fun and we like it.

Gus Van Sant Filmography

This website lists all films made between 1980 and the present, with information about his directing, acting, producing, writing, editing and more.

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