Today I watched Elephant,
the best American film I’ve seen so far this year. Gus Van Sant’s film,
photographed by Harris Savides, is also one of the most achingly beautiful
pictures since Stanley Kubrick’s Barry Lyndon.
Elephant won the Palme d’Or at the Cannes Film Festival in May, and the
selection was seen as a statement against American violence. At that time, Todd
McCarthy wrote a scathing review of the film in Variety. If Mr. McCarthy feels
the need to attack this wholly original work while anointing each consecutive
Martin Scorsese misfire a masterpiece, he should resign his post as a film
critic at once and concentrate on making documentaries.
The film chronicles, for the most part, the final 15 minutes at a high school
before two troubled teens arrive with machine guns and homemade bombs to take
out as many of their classmates as possible. While the initial thought that
comes to mind is Columbine, there are no specific references – it’s more
concerned with school violence as a general phenomenon.
Time sequences are constantly folding back over themselves and we see various
moments – most of which are mundane and spontaneous – from various angles as
the narrative progresses. Yet at no time is there any attempt to manipulate the
pace. Savides’ stedicam glides along in extended takes, often with a long
lens, following characters through the in-between moments that are usually cut
out of films. There is no: “Cut to the chase!”
The performances, mostly by amateurs who retain their real first names, are
first rate. In fact, Van Sant based his screenplay around the actors once they
were cast and began assuming their roles. I was also glad to see Timothy Bottoms
back on the big screen as the drunk father of one of the kids.
I can’t say Elephant will be for everybody, and I don’t imagine there
will be much of a middle ground in opinion. It will be divisive. But isn’t all
great art?
TOMORROW:
The Fog of War
-Copyright 2003 by Jamie
Stuart