Gus Van Sant

Originally posted on www.differentscene.co.uk

If I mention the name Gus Van Sant many of you may wonder, who? Unless you know a lot about film directing you probably wouldn’t have heard of him, but his films may ring a bell, Good Will Hunting anyone?

Van Sant is a two time academy award nominated director who’s background catalogue includes, films ranging from independent and art house projects such as My Own Private Idaho and the Palme d’Or winning Elephant to the Academy Award winning films Milk and Good Will Hunting. With an interest in film making that stems back to when he was boy, Van Sant attended the Rhode Island School of Design where he soon changed his course from painting to cinema after being inspired by the likes of Andy Warhol.

After spending much of the 1970s and early 1980s in Europe and Los Angeles where he worked as an assistant to Ken Shapiro, he moved to New York where he worked at an advertising agency before making his first filmMala Noche that he funded himself. The film gained Van Sant acclaim across the film festival circuit and introduced his themes that would become recurrent throughout much of his career such as unfulfilled romanticism and the refusal to portray homosexuality as something that required judgment.

As the 80s came to a close and the 90s began Van Sant was on top form after the success of his breakout pictureDrugstore Cowboy that stared Matt Damon. In 1991 one of his most well known films to date was released, My Own Private Idaho featuring Keanu Reeves and the late River Phoenix as two male hustlers. The film won him the Independent Spirit Award for his screenplay. As the 1990s progressed Van Sants next film Even Cowgirls Get the Blues failed to set cinemas alight and his subsequent directing venture To Die For met a similar fate. His directing career took a turn for the better and introduced him to huge worldwide success after the film release ofGood Will Hunting, which grossed $220 worldwide and was nominated for nine academy awards, including one for Best Director for Van Sant.

After another spate of films that failed to set the box office alight he returned to the Art House world where he directed his ‘Death Trilogy.’ He won the Best Director award at the Cannes film festival for the second film in the trilogy, Elephant.

His next major project once again catapulted him in the mainstream when he directed the film Milk, a biopic based on the first openly gay man to be voted to public office in California Harvey Milk. The film was a critical and commercial hit and received numerous accolades, including a second nomination for the Best Director Academy award.

At 58, Van Sant has endured some incredible ups and down in his directing career that looks as though it could be going for some time still, and I’m sure there is plenty more for us to see from this great director.