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Gus Van Sant: Life
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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
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In To Die For (1995), Van Sant zeroed in on America's compulsive obsession with celebrity fame and fortune; another overworked theme into which he breathes new and, not incidentally, hilarious life. He uses black humor like a painter uses primary colors to bring his creations to life. Lesser known, yet no less significant are Van Sant's shorter autobiographical films of which he has made one each year since 1984 and into which he plans to assemble a cinematic diary. A true visionary maverick, Gus Van Sant embodies those characteristics which Cinequest celebrates and most admires.
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Van Sant's poetic yet clear-eyed excursions through America's seamy, skid row underbelly have yielded some of the more potent independent films of the late 1980s and early 90s. "I guess I'm interested in sociopathic people," he has stated, "in life and in my movies". With art school training in painting as well as film, Van Sant worked in commercials before entering the film industry by making small personal films that played the festival circuit, notably in highbrow gay and lesbian venues. Openly gay, he has dealt unflinchingly with homosexual and other marginalized subcultures without being particularly concerned about providing positive role models.
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