#51 in Best of the 21st Century?, a series counting down the most acclaimed films of the previous decade.
Of the two most cited interpretations, the most frequent reading of Gus Van Sant’s enigmatic title holds that it refers to “the elephant in the room,” which nobody wants to talk about. Yet this is facile – was it really true that nobody wanted to talk about Columbine in the wake of the 1999 high school massacre? Was this true even beforehand, given that Columbine was actually the climax to a spate of school shootings, all of which received ample press coverage, rather than the kickoff? Furthermore, what exactly is it that’s not being discussed? Social isolation? The influence of the media? Video games? Gun control? Violence in America? Not only were all of these issues seized upon after the killings, but Van Sant makes a point out of eschewing all these explanations in his film (giving each of them a bit of airtime before moving on to other matters). So no, there’s no elephant in the room here, and if there is, no one’s ignoring it. The second reading, the one that it seems Van Sant actually intended, references the allegory of the blind men and the elephant, each touching a different part of the body and varying wildly in how they describe the animal. Likewise, Van Sant’s meditative, almost cruelly cool film is, at 81 minutes, too vast to take in from one perspective – which is not to say it’s particularly deep.
After April 20, 1999, the most frequently asked question in the media was “Why?” Perplexity and sadness were the dominant emotions among adults, but I don’t recall many actually in high school asking that question. To most of us, the shooting seemed to be an exaggeration of the intensity, cruelty, and confusion of high school itself – and most people were not sad or quizzical, but frightened. It was taken for granted that this could happen anywhere, and that it was only a matter of time before we were hit too. In this sense Columbine was a microcosm-in-advance of national trauma: suspicion characterized our interactions with those who were “different,” terror gripped our guts as we shuffled between class, security clamped down in ways that tended to scare more than comfort us. The day of the killing, it seemed just another unfortunate incident, one which our generation had grown numb towards. Within days, weeks it was larger-than-life, the media having amplified the murderers into snarling adolescent demons looming over our consciousness, waiting just around the corner by the water fountain, or outside the school doors during a fire drill, finger resting on the trigger, anticipating the kill. A year later, on the anniversary, we still skidded from class to class, practically running through the hallways, hoping that it wasn’t our dumb luck to be the subjects of a candlelight vigil later that evening. Only by 2002, when those of us who were freshmen in ’99 were preparing to graduate and face the wide world, did 4/20 recapture its original, hazy, more benign connotation. By then we had another slashed date to mourn, an American rather than just an adolescent tragedy, with – much to our relief – external instead of internal enemies.
Elephant is not directly about Columbine; it changes the killers’ names, and some of the details of their actions. The victims all appear to be fictional. But to say the film is “inspired” by the incident is an understatement; one of the shooters even wears the trademark black duds and backwards baseball cap seen in security videos from the school. At the same time, Van Sant only uses the school shooting as a starting point, a hook for his exploration of high school (literally, given the preponderance of investigative, mobile long takes), and through it a general portrait of life passing by. The deaths to come heighten the eerie sensations of the moment, allowing us to see the beauty and sadness of the everyday; this could be seen as the film’s “point” if it has one (and until I wrote that sentence, I didn’t really think it did). The film’s aestheticized quality, the camera’s deadpan gaze and speechless gliding through hallways – the means by which Elephant achieves its meditative mood – has been criticized as cold, pretentious, and disrespectful. Is there something vaguely obscene about Van Sant’s “Columbine art project,” as critic Charles Taylor disdainfully dubs it? At times, yes.
When the approach feels too intellectualized, or when the weirdness slides over into gallows humor, the film does appear to be in poor taste. A long scene following three ditzy girls from the hallway to the cafeteria to the bathroom seems to be gently satirizing and humanizing the silly teenagers, until it concludes with a misogynistic joke about bulimia. It’s not the only time that the camera’s unblinking stare seems more dehumanizing than empathetic, or more interested in gags and grace notes than people: “Van Sant isn’t interested in exploring teenagers as much as in fetishizing them,” Taylor gripes again, concluding, “The camera lavishes more attention on one boy’s blond surfer hair, or on the clothes the kids wear, than on the kids themselves.” Indeed, Van Sant can take Bela Tarr’s inscrutable sarcasm wherever he likes, but doesn’t applying such an approach to mass murder seem callous, glib?
Compounding this particular elephant-texture is the sense that Van Sant is rather out-of-touch with his subject. As they mope limpidly or make out in the shower, these schoolkids seem more like pawns of the director’s particular sensibilities than agents of their own consciousness. The movie does not really capture the texture of high school life at the turn of the millennium or probably at any point, come to think of it. Where’s the vitality, the energy – the devilish cleverness of bullies, the miserable dreaminess of the losers? Everything seems so relaxed, so casual. The cool kids strut around like Abercrombie & Fitch models but you can neither sense nor envy their hubris, that ineffable air of popularity they carry with them, as if flying the colors of some impeccable tribe. It isn’t that the students Van Sant shows us don’t exist – one unfortunate dweeby girl (Kristen Hicks) is perfectly realized, and quiet, genial photographer Elias (Elias McConnell) is the archetypal good kid. Rather, it’s the fact that Van Sant focuses on more withdrawn figures like these, mostly eschewing the extroverts who largely characterize the tempo of public high school.
I was going to criticize the film for making these characters islands unto themselves, unconnected in any broader sense. However, upon reflection, I don’t think this is true. The connective tissue in the film is the school itself, and Elephant could be considered a triumph of resonant geography. Not in the sense that we could understand or navigate the pathways of this rather upscale, massive layout by ourselves, but in the sense that – moment-to-moment – we have a dreamlike immersion in a particular place. As we repeat certain scenes from different perspectives (with different angles and focal lengths in tandem), we experience a weird and almost contrary sense of deja vu, in which actions are repeated yet something seems ineffably different. This too mimics a quality of dreams where we know what place we’re in, even though it looks nothing like it does in real life (in a way, the movie flips this phenomenon, but with the same effect). At the same time, the movie’s mystic streak is not fully explored, because we stick so strictly to the figures who guide our perspective like avatars in a video game. Hence, we’re never really allowed to immerse ourselves in our surroundings, studying light fixtures as if they’re holy stigmata or the vastness of hallways opening up like gateways into another consciousness. These possibilities are suggested but curtailed by the dominance of the human figure; perhaps, at any rate, that’s for another movie to explore.
Elephant concludes with the shootings, and they don’t settle any questions, but rather leave us even more unsettled and questioning of Van Sant’s approach. He plays cat and mouse with the viewer, sometimes candidly presenting gore, at others evading bloodshed when it would seem too indulgent. This game too rankles – perhaps he should either show all the violence point-blank, or refuse to represent any of it. To do both, ducking and preening, varying the speed and size of the notes as if composing a sonata, seems a coy cheat. One wonders if the whole Columbine angle isn’t exploitative, a way to magnify and heighten the melancholy mood and meditative displacement the director wants to explore in his setting. Reluctantly, one comes to the conclusion that it is necessary; that without this “exploitative” hook it would be difficult to become quite so immersed in the milieu. Whether this is an essential flaw in Van Sant’s conception or an honest acknowledgment of dramatic necessity remains an open question. Like many other aspects of the movie, judgment and analysis depend upon where one stands and what one is grappling with at that particular moment. The tactile quality of the movie, its sense of space and of the relationship between it and people (and between the people themselves in that space) are so rare that, however compromised, they deserves celebration. Like many notable films, one can be ambivalent about a movie’s effect but admire how it was achieved. And also wonder if that’s really the whole elephant one has in one’s grasp, or just the trunk, the tail, the leg…
Joel,
This is a wonderful look into this controversial film. I had heard this film was quietly powerful, but until I watched it, I didn’t realize it was inspired by school shootings (part. Columbine), so the violence at the end shocked, saddened and sickened me. As you said, it answers no questions–and perhaps that’s because such actions cannot be understood by those who don’t experience them. One thing I think I learned from those tragedies, and this film, is that empathy and compassion have intellectual limits. You simply cannot fully understand what would make a person take the life of others.
I particularly liked your description of the aesthetics; I experienced this hazy deja vu, not only in watching the film, but in my own memories of high school. The quietness of this film gives the audience an uncomfortable feeling; we are used to bombastic or lyrical scores telling us how to interpret the actions in a scene. (An aside, I wonder if anyone has attempted the same kind of sound editing experiment as Kuleshov did with visual montage? I suspect it would yield interesting results.) The absence of non-diagetic music or noise is a signal that something is not right with the world we’re seeing.
And that leads me to your point about the more extroverted people setting the tempo of high school life. Perhaps van Sant deliberately chose to marginalize the “popular” kids in an attempt to place the audience in the same position as the more (it is assumed) perceptive, introverted students. By placing the audience in this group, already marginalized by their lack of joc(k)ular popularity, van Sant makes us part of the world of students that he is privileging as somehow more vulnerable, and yet more authentic. Of course, I could just be babbling.
Anyway, your writing has really got me thinking about this film again.
Thanks, jeopardygirl. That’s fascinating that you came to the film without knowing the ending – I wonder how that would have impacted my viewing. Initially, I even thought the kid with the yellow shirt was going to be the killer.
I also like your idea of the Kuleshov experiment with sound. The closest example that comes to mind is the work with Godard – his pre-68 films and, even more so I’m given to understand, his Dziga Vertov stuff. Though I think he tends to play with the soundtrack in a continuous line, rather than juxtaposing similar footage with different audio tracks.
As for the student body, it wasn’t so much that he didn’t focus on the more extroverted kids as that there didn’t seem to be any – except perhaps for the valley girls who turned out to be caricatures (especially once the mean-spirited punchline sinks in). Overall, the film did not seem to be in touch with the high school culture I remembered from just a year before the film was released – for better or worse.
“He plays cat and mouse with the viewer, sometimes candidly presenting gore, at others evading bloodshed when it would seem too indulgent.”
The film is anything but a realistic account of the events of this national calamity. Van Sant’s film instead poses to examine the events and motivations from the inside out, and he dwells on the slow boil, with walking as the dominant motif.
Great, thought-provoking review, by the way.
Thanks, Frank. In a way, I disagree though I see what you’re saying. It almost seemed as though Van Sant’s look at the massacre was resolutely EXTERIOR – while his visual style was subjective, it was unclear how dedicated it was to representing the individual character’s internal states and how much it was concerned with expressing Van Sant’s own sensibilities. Often, he seemed to be objectifying the teenagers.
The deliberate display of apparent normality gives the eventual carnage a jolting intensity. I have always agreed with Sam that this is Van Sant’s greatest film. There are some outstanding ideas in this review.
Thanks, Joe. I found the buildup to the killings more intense than the actual shootings, though they too had their pulse-quickening moments. I saw the film twice before writing this review and if/when I watch again, I’d like to take a closer look at how Van Sant varies the tempo and approach during the actual murders (a grisly task, but probably a worthwhile one). This was part of what made me somewhat uncomfortable with the movie.
The title ‘Elephant’ also refers explicitly to one of Van Sant’s key stylistic influences, Alan Clarke’s 1989 short film of the same name. Set in Northern Ireland it contains hardly any dialogue and consists mainly of tracking shots that follow a succession of gunmen carrying out sectarian murders. Sound familiar? Interestingly, the title of Clarke’s film IS taken from “the elephant in the room”, a phrase that writers and politicians often applied to the Troubles in the 80s and early 90s. Watch it at Google Video see just how big an influence Clarke was.
Thanks, Andrew. I did read that Clark’s film referred to the “elephant in the room” but that apparently Van Sant didn’t realize this until after he had already decided to reference it. I didn’t know that the film was a stylistic influence as well as a thematic one – I’m more intrigued than ever now to check it out. The google video has been bookmarked.
JOEL-This is, no question, THE FINEST ESSAY you have EVER dropped on us here at WITD!!!!! I was gripped from the first paragraph and, from that point on, couldn’t control myself from reading on. The questions and observations, both socially and critically, fuse together effortlessly in a summation that warrants further investigation of this unforgettable film and the incidents that inspired it. I was, and I don’t use this word lightly, mesmerized by the finite prose and deep intellect that brought the issues of the subject and the expertise of Mr. Van Sant to a analitical fine-point. this is a great piece of work!!! Dennis
Thanks, Dennis – though I prefer some of the others, I won’t quibble with your praise. 😉
There’s yet another possible context for the title. To have “seen the elephant” in the 19th century U.S. meant that one had undertaken the westward journey in the spirit of exotic adventure, with implicit disillusionment along the way, while during the Civil War it came to mean surviving your first battle.
I liked the film and I appreciated its apparent emotional flatness because the alternative approach seldom rings true for me. Elephant gave me a more realistic sense of the anomie prevailing in that world, the absence of a unifying social experience and the gaps through which horror could emerge.
Samuel, I didn’t know this – in a way this might be the most interesting interpretation of the film’s title. The “emotional flatness” gives this an ironic twist since we are held back from “seeing this elephant” to a certain extent; though witnessing the violence, at times we don’t seem to be “experiencing” it directly (even putting aside the obvious observation that we’re only watching a movie).
The reserved tone of this film makes the final tragedy so horrifying. As to the scene in the shower you bring up here, I think this is Van Sant imparting some of his own “sensibilities” on the material.
Yeah, that seems to have been the scene that got the most criticism, pretty much across-the-board. I wonder if it would have received so much notice had Van Sant not been directing.
Thanks for the comments – I will return later to respond.
Whether this is definitely Joel’s “best” review Dennis, is really a matter of semantics, as all his work over the past two months has been top-drawer, certainly the equal of any other blogger at any other site at any time, and I’m referring here to the very best bloggers. My single favorite of all his reviews was his poetic treatment of SUMMER HOURS, posted last week, as he turned that film inside out and imparted his most delicate sensibilities on the prevalent themes. Still, this insightful, scrutinyzing essay on this celebrated Cannes Film Festival Palme d’Or winner does push close enough, especially as he doesn’t remotely give Van Sant any kind of a free pass, and probes for what he feels as the aspects that don’t quite work.
My own feelings on the film have been voiced and documented a number of times at WitD, and I featured the film as one of the decade’s best in my photo presentation of last month, where this finished in a lofty numerical position. Despite Joel’s modest disclaimers, I steadfastly stand behind my high appraisal, and regard it as Van Sant’s greatest film, with the recent PARANOID PARK (a metaphysical “extension” of ELEPHANT) as a close runner up. Both Jeopardy Girl and Samuel Wilson have really raised the tone here with extraordinary comments, but I’ll leave our gifted author here to deal with them, as well as other excellent contributions by Dennis, Joe, Peter, Andrew and Frank. Jeopardy Girl’s rightful broaching of Joel’s exemplary discussion of the film’s aesthetics is a central accomplishment though for sure.
Basically this film recalls Kurosawa’s RASHOMON, where the story goes back and forth in time, and is told in varying character perspectives, though there’s not denying that much of the film’s comparitively short running time is inhabited by endless “walking” through the halls, the cafeteria, the outside paths and even the girl’s rooms. But Van Sant, remarkably, incorporates this seemingly tedious pattern into the pacing of the film, and succeeds in using it as a holding device for the exlosive denouement. In fact, he uses walking in a way that few others have, and it’s a fascinating and sustained observational tactic that literally “hypnotizes” the viewer, especially as it’s known where this story will lead. But Van Sant used the device in his experimental GERRY as well, though the results there were in large measure hollow and pretentious.
What the director set out to do with this film was simply to use his magnifying glass (Gifted cinematographer Harris Savides’s use of closeups, faces and textures to incorporate a realistic visual schematic to arresting metaphysical underpinnings) to show what it may have been like on that fateful day in the minds of the protagonists and bystanders. Wisely Van Sant keeps the script minimalist, and lets his visual design control the film in every sense, with the aid of an equally deft naturalistic sound orchestration, and exceedingly effective non-professional actors, who play the kids. Yeah, Van Sant’s homosexual sensibilities are incoroporated into the proceedings, (rightly suggested by my colleague Peter in his comment above) as per his artistic license. It was never revealed if the killers were gay, but this is a prospective angle the director suggests. Van Sant, of course, is not bashful in aiming his cameras as young blond boys and some of his intimations are more provocative than others.
But ELEPHANT is a disturbing, entrancing and brilliantly orchestrated look at one of the most infamous days in American history, and it’s intermittantly abstract focus adds to this singlar, enthralling experience.
Thanks, Sam. Some excellent observations. Another aspect of Elephant I find compelling, though I didn’t really dwell on it in the review, is the walking – I am a walker myself, and it’s interesting to see a movie really evoke this sensation, particularly the feeling of exploration that goes with it. How many extended walks are there in the cinema? None really come to find, though I can think of a few runs. (And I’m not talking about memorable short walks here, like the walk to the ring or the walk to the electric chair.) Maybe Antonioni, though he has us observing the walker as much as the walk, which is not Van Sant’s approach here.
Apropos, Matt Zoller Seitz put up a great little music video last year, sampling some of cinema’s memorable “following” shots:
http://www.thelmagazine.com/newyork/following/Content?oid=1185679
I agree this is probably my favorite Van Zant along with PARANOID PARK and PRIVATE IDAHO.
good post.
JEOPARDY GIRL-So good to see you back here at WITD! Your insightful and probing comment has lent terrific aspect to what I think is a masterful review by our dear friend MR. BOCKO. Hope you’ll be around here more often as we never get tired of intelligent participation in the discussions. SAM-What can I say? Your commentary here is almost as intricate and mammoth as Joels review itself. When a discussion gets this brainy and passionate I’m in nirvana. I plan to revisit ELEPHANT again, ASAP, TOOOOOONITE! The comments left by you, JeopardyGirl, Joe, Peter, Sanuel Wilson have, along with Joels take on the whole thing, reminded my this is an immediate, haunting and unforgettable work. One of the few recent films that, rightfully, deserves a place in the BEST OF THE DECADE.
We’ll agree to disagree, Dennis/Sam/Joel, I find Van Sant the ultimate pretentious hack and this film just as typically mediocre as his other work (I think I actually prefer Alan Clarke’s original, and that was by no means one of his best). The greatest trick Van Sant ever pulled was convincing the world he was a genius.
I’d like to know what Bob Clark will say to Allan’s summary dismissal here!
Allan, I’m more or less agnostic on Van Sant. He has the most basic requirement of a great filmmaker – a vision (though, oddly enough, he burnishes it and buries it at will) – but I’m not convinced he’s as great as some seem to feel. But there are so many of his most acclaimed films I haven’t seen, the vast majority in fact (heck, I hadn’t even seen this until about a week ago) that I should fairly suspend judgment. Anyway, I seem to like him more than you do!
I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again; this is Gus Van Sant’s most enduring contribution to the world: http://www.yourethemannowdog.com/
Either this is Van Sant’s most transgressive media stunt yet, or that site’s down (down, down, down, wooo…)
Eh, it’ll be back up and running before you know it. You can’t keep a good meme down for long!
MovieMan I like this essay, well done. I’m not the biggest Van Zant fan (more indifference, he’s not the type that when he releases a film I HAVE to see it opening night), but I do like many of his films and think a number of them are quite good.
I like your inclusion of many of the initial reviews of this film, the fact that so many hated, were repulsed, called it ‘controversial’, sought definitive answers/conclusions, etc of this film makes me think that is precisely the reason terrible things happen in real life.
Thanks, Jamie. I find I mostly try to avoid reading reviews of films being I write about them – trying to keep my own impressions somewhat fresh – but sometimes I actively seek out other perspectives. This, obviously, was one of those latter cases.
Btw, what do you mean exactly by the last statement? That the quest for facile answers breeds facile actions (i.e. shooting up a school to “show ’em all?”). Not sure I’m with you here – though it does remind me of an anecdote Ebert shares in his review. He was interviewed for the news following Columbine, and fed some leading questions about violent movies. Instead of pointing a finger at these films, he pointed a finger at the media and said that by hyping up the killers they were probably doing more damage than anything else. Well-played, but this seems to be a bit unfair. If the media is “responsible” for creating sociopathic murderers, than so are movies – intent wouldn’t really matter in that case.
But that’s a whole other argument (which has already been waged on these boards – speaking of which, where’s bobby j?)
I mean partly that.
I also mean the indefinite need for any kind of authority: ‘THIS IS THE SINGLE reason that this tragedy happened’. People need to realize this world is a rather terrible place were terrible people do terrible things to others for reasons another will never understand. It’s the ‘what’ or ‘how’ that is the only answerable question, the ‘why’ is never attainable. When the ‘why’ is attempted one just becomes pretentious, sanctimonious, and extremely uncaring.
I also mean the juvenile aspect of our media. When a terrible thing happens an adult frank conversation cannot be called anything other then ‘controversial’. What’s controversial about this film (I’m not asking you per say)? It’s an artist showing something that happened in a realistic way. Is the fact that is was a tragic and thus ‘taboo’ make it such? I loathe this type of mindset.
It’s also the condescending tone (‘repulsed’) people take in reference to work like this. This idea that someone, anyone (in this discussion Van Zant) would labor on something personal and in a second someone would write it off in the worst way possible. To an artist this is an incredibly damaging thing to do.
And part of it is a little of our already lengthy conversations with BobbyJ touched on, and you note. So I don’t need to get into that.
All this in a blender is what creates an inhospitable world that produces highly isolated, angry, depressed individuals, in my humble opinion (sure a few other things too, but that’s a whole new conversation).
I hope this answers my initial ‘teaser’.
or I mean the Smiths lyric:
“It’s so easy to laugh
It’s so easy to hate
It takes strength to be gentle and kind
Over, over, over, over
It’s so easy to laugh
It’s so easy to hate
It takes guts to be gentle and kind”
Pointing fingers, placing blame to combat tragedy? I just don’t see this as an acceptable way for humans to converse.
Thanks, Jamie, that’s a compelling fleshing-out of your point. As previously established in slightly different contexts, we have somewhat different worldviews and sensibilities, though not necessarily diametrically opposed. I have a tendency to look more for explanations, for the “big”, the totalistic, things which you – rightly, in many regards – distrust. At any rate, that aside, I do think “why” matters.
Look at 9/11 – there was a mindset that it doesn’t matter why we were attacked, all we have to do is strike back. While there is truth in this defensive stance – more than some public scolds would allow, anyway – it is also severely lacking as strategy. For a long-term attempt to defuse terrorism, one HAS to consider “why they hate us.” The what and the how are important, but until one grapples with the motivation, one is going to be firing shots in the dark.
This is not as applicable to Columbine, of course, where the actions are traceable to two isolated individuals. Nonetheless, the actions were part of a spate of school shootings and as random as human behavior is, as inscrutable as motivations can be, I can’t resort entirely to mystification. There is a thought process behind most actions, and I think there is something worthwhile about figuring out “why.” I agree that most of the “why”s thrown around in this case though were quite glib and limited, however.
“To an artist this is an incredibly damaging thing to do.” This is interesting to me. I’ve always felt that the most discouraging reaction is no reaction at all – to provoke disgust at least shows your work pushed buttons! But I hear what you’re saying.
At a certain point creatively this is were I break from most.
I suppose your reference here to ‘look for explanations’ is what I don’t feel (or I do feel, I just keep my explanations personally in my head with my other beliefs). It’s really a larger point how you socialize with other human beings and your desire to be a critic. Criticism on any aesthetic subject is something I like a great deal but would never want to do it for any length of time, in any sort of serious context. It’s how I feel I’m wired. I love films, so I want to write them and make them, and that’s all I think about. Being an inactive participator in any medium I love is not an option for me. Now stretch this to a world view and one can see how I feel about artists, and how I feel about journalists or other media types covering this (and other) tragedies.
I remember a quote way back when in a music magazine somewhere… it was from a clever brit pop singer I think. He was condemning a critic and saying, “his job is to basically review his mail” (since he received the new record releases in the mail). There are two types of people: the creators, and the created, one can not be both.
I of course understand, we are becoming widely off topic, and it could be misconstrued that I’m championing the shooters for their mere action instead of inaction. I’m not, I’m merely stating how I think in matters like this, and how I approach movies and art of this sort.
““To an artist this is an incredibly damaging thing to do.” This is interesting to me. I’ve always felt that the most discouraging reaction is no reaction at all – to provoke disgust at least shows your work pushed buttons! But I hear what you’re saying.”
I also meant by this that if we look at the shooters, damaged people/damaged youths, dangerous people are generally sensitive people that feel more then others. Being continually written off is a dangerous thing to do. So when I say ‘artist’ I also mean any inward person. The only interesting stuff happens in our heads (along with creation), and it’s pointless to try and sort this stuff out after the fact (such are critics). But god bless the ones that try.
This is pretty nonsensical. And off topic. Oops.
‘This is not as applicable to Columbine, of course, where the actions are traceable to two isolated individuals. Nonetheless, the actions were part of a spate of school shootings and as random as human behavior is, as inscrutable as motivations can be, I can’t resort entirely to mystification. There is a thought process behind most actions, and I think there is something worthwhile about figuring out “why.” I agree that most of the “why”s thrown around in this case though were quite glib and limited, however.”
But see to me, distilling this act to ‘two isolated individuals’, is correct physically but also mystification or abstraction. It’s taking you, or anyone else who says this type of thing, as ‘normal’ or ‘correct’ and the killer as ‘wrong’ or ‘another’ (like you and him aren’t even the same species). To me what separates ‘the best’ and ‘most kind’ from ‘the worst’ and ‘most hateful’ is a line that does not exist. This is an incredibly reassuring thought to me, and one that promotes transcendent togetherness– though most would abhor the idea of feeling togetherness with both great individuals and awful ones. But hey, it takes all kinds.
I’m reading a book called ‘The Dynamite Club’ which I like about a French anarchist, Emile Henry (I swear I’m not an anarchist, lol) and he bombed this bar, killing many. Henry has this quote, “Love can lead you to hate” (he loved humanity so much that he could not bear to see people suffer because others), fantastic, no?
Jamie,
Actually I agree with you. I can’t see myself as a critic ten years or perhaps even a year from now. Last November, which not so coincidentally marked my 26th birthday, I vowed to myself to completely put aside thoughts of filmmaking for a year, because ideas just weren’t coming and financial resources were altogether absent. It wasn’t practical, meanwhile writing ABOUT films was bearing some fruit. But even as I resolved this, I knew that the resolution held ONLY for a year and that terms were entirely re-negotiable come the next November 1.
Point being, I could be 99 years old and have never made a feature or written a screenplay, and I’ll still think of myself as a filmmaker first and foremost, and a commentator on films secondarily. It’s just in my nature, as you seem to suggest it’s in yours. At any rate, from my own experience, I’ve feared negative reactions to work – feared it deep in my guts – and then been far more dismayed by indifference. The real disappointment in my eyes, is failing to reach another person and watching all your blood, sweat, and tears fall flat (not that that’s always happened, of course – but I sure remember when it has).
As for the rest of your points, I’m ambivalent. The “isolated individual” comment was completely superfluous – I could have phrased it another way and kept the same meaning, and I wish I had as it led you off on a tangent. I don’t think the Columbine killers are impenetrable. Indeed, I thought it was you who was saying this, and I was trying to counter it. It’s funny, because I get in jujitsu arguments with my best friend all the time, just like this … I say something, and he offers a counterpoint that suddenly outflanks me on the matter I thought I was arguing against, and then suddenly I’m arguing the other way (and so on, and so on, with roles reversed too). Ad nauseum!
Anyway, you admonish me about judging the killers as “wrong” but in your previous comments, you were just as vitriolic as you perceive me as being – just that your vitriol was directed at commentators on the tragedy, rather than the perpetrators! I’d say that’s a little misguided… I do remember having a kind of empathy with the shooters, not at all with their actions but imagining that they were picked on and felt bitter. Then I read about the video they created before the spree in which they laughed about causing their peers pain – not just the bullies but newfound victims, with themselves now the bullies. They celebrated Hitler and Nazis and they targetted fat kids, geeks, dorks on their random shooting spree. I’m NOT saying it would have been ok if they killed jocks or popular kids, but my point is that these weren’t merely victims lashing out. These were bullies, worse bullies than the ones who picked on them, robbing innocent people of the chance to live because they enjoyed the sensation of power they got gunning them down – this from their own words. I don’t think that’s inhuman or “different” – I think it’s all-too-human, albeit taken to extremes. That doesn’t mean it shouldn’t be condemned.
That attitude of “loving so much that we hate” I find to be bs, personally. A self-indulgent excuse to allow elitists to feel like they’re populists, fascists to dress up in left-wing paraphenalia.
“This is pretty nonsensical. And off topic.” – All the best conversations are! 😉
“There are two types of people: the creators, and the created, one can not be both.”
I think one can be both – but one will predominate. Truffaut and Godard were both, but the creative side was privileged – as it usually is; most folks seem to enjoy creating more than criticizing (and no, I don’t think most critics are failed creators, but then again are any creators failed critics?)
Joel –
This is a fine analysis of an amazing film. Unfortunately, I missed this in the movie theaters and only saw it on DVD – but I watched it four times in a row. I think what mesmerizes me about the film is its very powerful minimalism, how the following shots introduce you to entire lives and to an entire school, and the “dreamlike immersion in a place” that you describe here. Also, the film’s powerful minimalism was an inspiration to me for my own modest filmmaking. This is definitely one of the best films of the past decade.
Regarding why Columbine happened, Dave Cullen presents some riveting answers in his excellent non-fiction book Columbine – one of the best books I read last year.
Hokahey–
Sam here. I don’t mean to hijack this (deservedly) enthralling thread, but I don’t think a quick reference here to another matter will be lethal. I tried again last night to enter a comment at your ‘Little Worlds’ site under your ASSSASSINATION OF JESSE JAMES review. Again I was stymied by the restrictions, as every time I have tried to secure a google account it says I am already registered. This has been very frustrating. In any case, I just added your site to our blogroll–finally–and hopefully we’ll be able to find a way so that I can place comments at your site. That was a tremendous review, by the way.
I’ll leave Joel to address your excellent commentary here.
I’m glad you brought up Cullen’s book, hokahey. I haven’t read it though its stark cover and subject matter have caught my interest numerous times in bookstores.
There is something about Elephant that compels re-viewing. I have a very packed viewing/writing/working/etc schedule yet I made time to watch this twice before writing it up. I think it’s in part the aesthetic texture you describe.
When you say that this film is “not particularly deep” you basically confirm Van Sant’s intentions. It would be difficult, if not impossible to get into the minds of the killers, without a strong current of speculation. Van Sant chose to show the lack of remorse by incorporating these unspeakable events with every day routine.
Yes, I think Van Sant definitely wanted to stay on the surface here – for better or worse. What’s weird – both sometimes frustrating and ultimately quite fascinating – is how he mixes objective and subjective styles, sometimes even within the same gesture (those long tracking shots at once streamline our views, eschewing a broader perspective, and yet keep us outside of the characters onhand – often we’re looking at just the back of their heads). Like I said before, definitely a film that demands multiple viewings…
I rewatched this on the big 50 inch screen in Sam’s dungeon last night. The tracking shots following the characters, in my mind, are representative of the straight-ahead, no worries attitude that has become a commom practice in high-schoolers and young adults within the past 20. That it takes the Blonde-Haired-Twink a double take at the bags and the cargo the killers are carrying into the back door of the school just solidifies that most of today’s youth see only what’s immediate to them as important and this, is coming from a society of parents and parent figures who take little or no time in this fast moving world to talk with, observe and truly interact with their children. Notice how the brains of the murderous operations mother skampers out of the house the moment she has fulfilled her tiny duty of making pancakes. No real connections, no real care. Then the guns start firing.
As for the homosexual “overtones” that have been alluded to, I think they’re a moot point. Gay has nothing to do with it in the grand scheme of this incidents depiction. Just because the film is directed by a openly gay man doesn’t necessarily mean we have a gay film here. Increasingly I find that more and more teen-agers refer to themselves as bisexual. The shame of admitting to anything other than heterosexuality in my generation has slowly dissapated over the years and it seems to become a prideful thing for todays youth to be “open-minded”. I once heard a kid in my cab tell his friend he was “bi” because it increased his chances to get a date. The killer in the film, and his accomplice, seem to be very old friends, I summize that their sexual tryst in the shower was a farewell fuck knowing, full well, that they were probably never coming back home again (jail, death, suicide). I see it as not so much about homosexuality as much as a farewell to life. Kamikaze’s often partied before dawn.
FURTHERMORE… As depicted in this film; I get the sense that the killers were living in a world that only included them. There is a deep feeling in their scenes in the basement that they have been alone together, seperated from a world that doesn’t “understand” or “accept” them. Again, due to todays fast-paced attitudes of making as much in as little time as possible, this could be seen as a paralyzing atmosphere that breeds resentment in kids that are, already, showing signs of social dispellment. So, they fuck in the shower. I think, probably, they were fucking for a long time prior to this day because of their fear of going out into a world they resented to find someone else to fuck. Its this closed in atmosphere that breeds a violent boil, like cabin fever. Once out and shooting, the freedom is regained. The killer kills his partner so as not to be reminded of from where he came. Fascinating. This film has remained in my head all day.
FINALLY… The view we get of the killer, even in his earliest scenes, is one of a short fuse. He is seen becoming an unwitting target to a messy prank in biology class. The artistic often tend to keep to themselves, are very aware and in keeping of their appearance. The flecks of food in his hair and on his shirt, while no big deal, are an affront to a carefully modulated persona that he is/has tried to maintain. Part of his “superiority” is his “aura”. Neatness, fashionably styled, organized, talented (drawings on his bedroom walls, he plays piano) and hard on himself to succeed (notice the frustration when he can’t master the final chords of Beethoven’s MOONLIGHT SONATA?). He is a finely realized figure of isolated control that has been evident in school systems as far back as when I was a kid. My mother always said its the silent ones you need to keep an eye on. I think she meant that as a double edged comment. They often take a good and successful route, but go the other way???????
I DON’T AGREE WITH ALLAN THAT VAN SANT IS A HACK. This film, although only 80 minutes, is a deliberately paced, probing examination of the lifelessness our youths bring upon themselves in social environments they’re too lazy to fight to rise above. School is, whatever clinical definition, supposed to be a challenge to exude yourself, find your inner purpose, talent, lot in life. School is that rite of passage that is so often squandered these days by lazy kids made lazier by adults that have little or no time to guide. Rather, we see here, most times its adults floundering in the example and technology and media becoming the guiding force. The Blonde-Twink’s father (Timothy Bottoms) is an alcoholic driving his son drunk to class. The Principal has nothing nurturing to say. Every kid knows better. There’s the rub. Assumed superior thinking through default. Is it any wonder the shakey artist bought a rifle? Van Sant is right on target here. This ia a brilliantly modulated and observed film, his best work yet.
Sam – I’m glad you enjoyed my review of The Assassination of Jesse James.. Yeah, it’s a bugger when you’ve registered long ago with a password you don’t remember – or whatever problem you’re having getting into the comments section. I appreciate your efforts!
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