"elephant" by Gus van Sant

A stunning piece of cinematography.

"pointless at best and irresponsible at worst." I think its responsibility comes precisely in its refusal to provide a point.

Are all kids in the states like this?

[edit on 6-8-2004 by Koka]

I saw this film a couple of weeks ago. It's absolutely fantastic.

I loved the normality of it, not just in the acting, which was brilliant, but the pace and tempo as well. It's really like being a fly on the wall. The dialogue, intentionally sparse and banal, allows the viewer to form their own image of the school and it's community.. nothing is forced.

Also John Robinson, who played the blonde lead character John McFarland, gave a particularly good performance in my view, and I'd expect so see a lot more of him in the future. He's got a hint of Keanu Reeves/River Phoenix about him.

Agreed, although I feel he'd probably do a lot better than Keanu.

I was vastly impressed with the exceptionally long/continous shots (Cinema Verite) and the way that the characters would appear in different scenes shot from different angles depending on whos story we were following.

Why "Elephant"...?

Initially, Van Sant thought Clarke�s title referred to the ancient parable of the blind men and the elephant. In the story, a version of which appears in Buddhist canons dated 2 B.C., several blind men examine different parts of an elephant � ear, leg, tail, trunk, tusk, etc.

Each blind man is firmly convinced that he understands the true nature of the animal, based on that one part he felt � that the elephant is like a fan, or a tree, or a rope, or a snake or a spear. But none sees the whole. For Van Sant, the parable�s theme seemed apt in the context of school shootings. "I assumed Alan Clarke called his film Elephant because it was about a problem that was hard to identify, because of different ways of looking at it," he says. "That was what I thought for a long time, until I read a quote where Clarke said that it was the elephant in the living room. But for us, when were making our film, it was more about the blind men."

[edit on 6-8-2004 by Koka]