Elephant

Director: Gus Van Sant, Gus Van Gus Van Sant

Overview

Director Gus Van Sant returned to the low-key style of his early independent efforts with this semi-improvised exploration of how violence makes its way into a typical American high school. Eric (Eric Deulen) and Alex (Alex Frost) are two close friends who are students in a well-to-do suburb of Portland, OR. Eric and Alex are at once ordinary and misfits; while they seem to be confined to the edges of the clique-oriented social strata of high school, little about their behavior draws attention to itself. Or at least not during a typical school day; on their own time, the two boys are fascinated by Nazi iconography, enjoy violent video games, tentatively explore homoerotic desires, and coolly begin to make plans for an armed ambush of the school, drawing up working diagrams of the lunch room during study hall and buying rifles over the Internet. Drawing an expected degree of controversy, Elephant had its world premiere when it was screened in competition at the 2003 Cannes Film Festival, where it won both Best Director for Van Sant and the Golden Palm award.

Product Details

Release Date:	05/01/2018
UPC:	0883316792292
Original Release:	2003
Source:	Hbo Archives
Language:	English
Sales rank:	40,189

Cast & Crew

Performance Credits

Alex Frost	Alex
Eric Deulen	Eric
Elias McConnell	Elias
Jordan Taylor	Jordan
Carrie Finklea	Carrie
Nicole George	Nicole
Brittany Mountain	Brittany
Alicia Miles	Acadia
Kristen Hicks	Michelle
Bennie Dixon	Benny
Nathan Tyson	Nathan
Timothy Bottoms	Mr. McFarland
Matt Malloy	Mr. Luce
Ellis E. Williams	GSA Teacher,GSA Teacher
Chantelle Chriestenson	Noelle
Kim Kenney	Assistant Principal's Secretary
Marci Buntrock	Assistant Secretary
Roman Ostrovsky	Red Haired Kid
Vana O'Brien	P.E. Instructor
Michael Paulsen	Bully
Alfred Ono	Mr. Fong
John Robinson	John

Technical Credits

Gus Van Sant

Gus Van Sant	Director,Screenwriter
Mali Finn	Casting
Diane Keaton	Executive Producer
Bill Robinson	Executive Producer
Colin Fowler	Special Effects
Danny Stoltz	Casting
Jor van Kline	Special Effects
Dany Wolf	Producer
Gus Van	Director
Felix Andrew	Sound Effects
David A. Cohen	Sound Effects
Leslie Shatz	Sound Effects

Editorial Reviews

In Elephant, Gus Van Sant takes the lessons in minimalism he learned while making Gerry and uses them to achieve socially relevant art. Van Sant utilizes very long takes that often involve slow, intricate, and complicated Steadicam work. The style serves the film's goals, not the filmmakers' egos. The viewer gets the sense that what is transpiring onscreen has not been painstakingly choreographed, but has simply been recorded on the fly. The unknown teenagers cast in all of the roles underscore the verisimilitude. While the film could easily slip into sensationalism and horror clichés, Van Sant keeps everything even-handed. He never wallows in gore and terror, but he still manages to show the attack in such a way that recognizes the horror without emotionally hijacking the viewer. One gets the sense that the director has cried all he can for the victims and now wants to figure out why this happened. Van Sant has said that the title of the film references the classic "elephant in the room" -- the thing affecting everybody that nobody wants to talk about. Van Sant does not appear to take a stand on why his characters commit these terrible acts -- he offers up no answers. But what he does offer, with the help of Harris Savides' observant camerawork, is a documentary-like presentation of two days in a place that experiences a school massacre. Great art often asks questions. With Elephant, Van Sant has created art that provides a reasoned, non-judgmental starting point for an important conversation about our culture.

All Movie Guide - Perry Seibert

By making the camera an observer, we get a perspective that often comes out of horror movies, a choice that whips the ordinary with the terrifying, an unforgettable mix.

New York Times - A.O. Scott

Many viewers will leave this film as unsatisfied and angry as Variety's Todd McCarthy, who wrote after it won the Golden Palm at Cannes 2003 that it was "pointless at best and irresponsible at worst." I think its responsibility comes precisely in its refusal to provide a point.

Chicago Sun-Times - Roger Ebert

The movie is an 86-minute cosmic provocation to rethink how we talk about the unspeakable, the scapegoats we look for, the effigies we burn.

Boston Globe - Wesley Morris