The Gus Van Sant Touch

by Vicari, Justin

• ISBN13: 9780786471836
• ISBN10: 0786471832
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2012-09-30
• Publisher: McFarland Publishing

Summary

Beloved, controversial, influential, the creator of such fascinating and award-winning films as My Own Private Idaho, Good Will Hunting, Elephant, and Milk, Gus Van Sant stands among the great international directors, equally at home in Hollywood and the avant-garde. Examining his films thematically, this book finds consistency of vision in Van Sant's unique approach to cinema, which deploys postmodernist techniques such as appropriation, nonlinear narrative, and queering--not in the service of the chic but to apply an all-inclusive viewpoint to ageless tales of life, love and death. Van Sant's films are viewed through a multi-genre prism, including the work of Bruce Weber and Derek Jarman, the westerns of Sam Peckinpah, the music of the Velvet Underground and Nirvana, the fiction of Sam D'Allesandro, and especially the "cut-up"/collage practice of intertextual authorship pioneered by William Burroughs.

Author Biography

Justin Vicari is an award-winning poet, essayist and film writer. It lives in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.

Table of Contents

Preface: My Own Private Academy Awards	p. 1
Introduction: Filmmaking as Sampling	p. 9
Experiential Texts	p. 19
Van Sant and Intertextualty	p. 20
Cloudscapes and Pietas: Visual Intertextuality	p. 50
Schizo-ing Psycho: Quotational Intertextuality	p. 62
"Where's Dad?" Thematic Intertextuality	p. 80
Finding Forrester. Postmodern Skin, or, The End of Whose History?	p. 112
Time Names	p. 127
Van Sant and Queer Cinema	p. 128
The Mirror in the Mirror: Gerry	p. 146
Queering the Iconographies of Fashion and Militarism in Even Cowgirls Get the Blues and Elephant	p. 159
Back from Interzone: Reading William Burroughs' Sexual Politics Through the Films of Van Sant	p. 180
Secret Histories	p. 201
Conclusion: Beyond "Private"	p. 226
Chapter Notes	p. 233
Works Cited	p. 243
Index	p. 247
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