Film director Gus Van Sant was born in 1952
Gus Van Sant has been behind many memorable and conversation-sparking films, including My Own Private Idaho, Elephant, Good Will Hunting and Milk, the biographical film about groundbreaking gay politician Harvey Milk.
Van Sant is one of the most prominent directors associated with the New Queer Cinema movement of the late 1980s and early 1990s. While many of his films feature LGBTQIA+ characters, their identities are often secondary to the broader stories being told.
Van Sant grew up in many different parts of the United States, as his father’s work required the family to relocate frequently. When he reached college in 1970, he initially studied painting before switching to filmmaking.
Living in Los Angeles during the late 1970s, he became fascinated by the city’s grittier neighbourhoods and the people who lived there. These experiences would become a major influence on his later work.
After spending two years working for an advertising agency in New York, Van Sant saved enough money to make his first low-budget feature film. Mala Noche was filmed in black and white and followed the doomed love story of a gay liquor store clerk and a Mexican immigrant.
The film was a critical success and attracted the attention of Hollywood. Although he pitched several projects to studio executives, none were approved. Van Sant instead moved to Portland, Oregon, where he began work on his next independent feature.
Drugstore Cowboy was based on James Fogle’s unpublished autobiographical novel. It followed a group of drug users travelling across America robbing hospitals and pharmacies to support their addiction. The film helped revive Matt Dillon’s career and featured future stars Kelly Lynch and Heather Graham. Writer William S. Burroughs also appears in the film.
Following the success of Drugstore Cowboy, studios were eager to work with Van Sant, and his next project was one that had previously been considered too risky. My Own Private Idaho starred River Phoenix and Keanu Reeves as hustlers Mike Waters and Scott Favor. The film draws on Shakespeare’s Henry IV Part 1, Henry IV Part 2 and Henry V.
Upon its release, the film attracted significant controversy. Some commentators were surprised to see two of Hollywood’s biggest young stars portraying male sex workers, while discussions also centred on the film’s depiction of same-sex intimacy. Most of the sex scenes are presented as a series of stylised black-and-white images. The film was a critical success and became a favourite among arthouse audiences.
Van Sant’s next film came with a much larger budget. He had US$8.5 million for his adaptation of Tom Robbins’ Even Cowgirls Get the Blues, which reunited him with Heather Graham, Reeves and Phoenix, alongside a cast including Uma Thurman, John Hurt, Angie Dickinson, Lorraine Bracco, Noriyuki “Pat” Morita, Roseanne, Crispin Glover, Sean Young and Edward James Olmos. The film was a major commercial and critical failure.
In 1995, Van Sant released To Die For, starring Matt Dillon, Nicole Kidman and Joaquin Phoenix. The black comedy earned Kidman a Golden Globe Award and helped establish her career in the United States as a leading actor. Van Sant also served as a producer on Larry Clark’s controversial film Kids.
Good Will Hunting remains one of Van Sant’s most commercially successful films. Written by Matt Damon and Ben Affleck, the film won Academy Awards for Best Original Screenplay and Best Supporting Actor for Robin Williams. Van Sant received a nomination for Best Director. His other studio films included a remake of Alfred Hitchcock’s Psycho and the Sean Connery drama Finding Forrester.
Returning to arthouse filmmaking, Van Sant directed Gerry, a minimalist film following two friends, played by Casey Affleck and Matt Damon, who become lost in the desert. His next film, Elephant, remains one of the most controversial of his career. It follows two teenage boys in the lead-up to a school shooting and won the Palme d’Or at the Cannes Film Festival.
The director concluded what he referred to as his “death trilogy” with Last Days, a fictionalised account inspired by the final days of musician Kurt Cobain.
In 2008, Van Sant worked with Sean Penn on the biographical film Milk, which charted the rise of openly gay San Francisco politician Harvey Milk.
Van Sant’s later films include Restless (2011), starring Mia Wasikowska; Promised Land (2012), featuring Frances McDormand, Matt Damon and John Krasinski; and Sea of Trees (2015), starring Matthew McConaughey and Ken Watanabe.
His most recent feature film is 2018’s Don’t Worry, He Won’t Get Far on Foot, which dramatised the life of cartoonist John Callahan. The film features Joaquin Phoenix, Jonah Hill, Jack Black, Rooney Mara, Beth Ditto, Udo Kier, Kim Gordon and Carrie Brownstein.
More recently, Van Sant has directed television projects, including episodes of the 2024 series Feud: Capote vs. The Swans. His latest film was Dead Man’s Wire.
OIP Staff, Hero Image: Harald Krichel, published under a Creative Commons license. This post was first published in 2022.
