"Last Days"

35MM, COLOUR, DOLBY DIGITAL, 97 MINUTES, USA, ENGLISH / DIRECTOR/SCRIPT/EDITOR: GUS VAN SANT / CINEMATOGRAPHER: HARRIS SAVIDES / PRODUCTION CO: HBO FILMS, PICTUREHOUSE, PIE FILMS INC. / PRINT SOURCE/RIGHTS: RIALTO FILMS, 2005

Last Days is the concluding chapter of Gus Van Sant’s ‘death trilogy’ and a sensuous, contemplative study of Blake, a reclusive rock star styled on the late Kurt Cobain, who committed suicide in 1994. Blake (Michael Pitt) spends his last days in an exhausted, drug-induced malaise, muttering and stumbling around a remote mansion and its surrounding forests and evading contact with the outside world and his entourage of friends. Van Sant shows restraint, offering little insights or reasons for Blake’s eventual suicide; Blake seemingly already embodies a version of the living-dead.

Gus Van Zandt's, "Elephant"

35MM, COLOUR, DOLBY DIGITAL, 81 MINUTES, USA, ENGLISH / DIRECTOR/SCRIPT/EDITOR: GUS VAN SANT / CINEMATOGRAPHER: HARRIS SAVIDES / PRODUCTION CO: BLUE RELIEF PRODUCTIONS, FEARMAKERS STUDIOS, HBO FILMS, MENO FILMS, PIE FILMS INC. / PRINT SOURCE/RIGHTS: RIALTO FILMS, 2003

Gus Van Sant’s Palm d’Or winning Elephant is an examination of violence made explicit by the 1999 Columbine massacre. The title references Alan Clarke’s 1989 film about violence in Northern Ireland, and that film’s proverbial ‘elephant’ in the room that no one wants to acknowledge. Extended tracking shots survey the school’s topography, repeating the interaction between students from different perspectives, all interconnected as the film spirals towards tragedy. The film points simultaneously to the senseless consequences of the scenario, the cultural context of modern entertainment, the co-opting of historical signifiers and the confused sexuality of the two killers.

"Now remember to have fun."