More Van Sant

What other Gus Van Sant movies have you seen, and how do you think they compare with "Idaho"?

(I've seen Drugstore Cowboy, Even Cowgirls Get The Blues, To Die For, Good Will Hunting, Psycho, Elephant. My favorite of these is "Drugstore Cowboy" with the fantastic Matt Dillon and William S. Burroughs. I also really liked "To Die For" with Matt Dillon and Nicole Kidman — and River's brother, Joaquin Phoenix. These films were far more mainstream, at least in presentation, than "Idaho," but still offbeat and dark and humorous and sad.)

And the barn

Any theories?

Psycho salmon

OK, what was with the fish?

Hustler heritage

After seeing "Idaho," I'm eager to revist the hustler movie to end all hustler movies, one that is at least visually referenced in "Idaho" and "Brokeback Mountain." Has anyone else seen "Midnight Cowboy" from 1969 (the only X-rated movie to ever win an Oscar)? I saw it a couple of times in college, but not since. If you've seen it recently, how do you think it's holding up?

Mom and Pop

What did you think of the parents and the parental themes in this movie?

Scott, like Shakespeare's Prince Hal with Falstaff, touts Bob as his true spiritual father; he denounces his real father but nevertheless accepts his financial inheritance. Mike's father has nothing to offer him, either spiritually or financially.

I love that Van Sant turns the typical Odyssean father quest into a mother quest for Mike. He seems to idealize her, even though it's not really clear why — he appears to have faith in the solidity and permanence of the parent-child bond, as we all probably do, even when it's clear that the bond has been shattered or never really existed in the first place.

Mike talks about how he might have been "normal" if his family had been normal. And Scott asks, "What's normal?"

And then there are the street kids who seem parentless, familyless, except for Bob and one another.

There seems to be a theme that, despite your actual blood relations and the things they give you or fail to give you, "what thou lovest well is thy true heritage." In other words, for a lot of people, especially outsider-types or people who weren't raised by June and Ward Cleaver, whatever love and comfort they eke out of life will be what they have managed to forge on their own.

Fast asleep

How effective did you think the narcolepsy element was? Did it add anything crucial to Mike's personality? And what did you think of the way it was introduced (the highlighted dictionary entry following Mike's initial bout)? I'm generally not a fan of "extracurricular" devices dropped into a film as explanation, but my objection to that may not apply here since the whole movie is a visual pastiche that doesn't even pretend to realism, except perhaps to emotional realism.

A good ending?

Christy alluded to a certain disjointedness in the film in an earlier comment. I agree with her on that. When I first saw it in the early '90s I really liked it, and even though I couldn't even begin to explain some of what was going on in the film, it made sense to me as a whole. I enjoyed the aesthetic experience of the film's journey, even though I found it enigmatic. On second viewing in 2007, the film seemed more flawed to me, or possibly dated, and I found myself being much more critical of it, though still appreciating it on the whole. One thing that really puzzles me is the ending. I sort of thought it might conclude with Mike's triumphant partying with the band of merry hustlers on Bob's grave, while Scott looked on rather jealously and contemptuously from afar. But instead it ended with Mike passing out on the road, robbed, then mysteriously carried away to some unknown future. I understand that the film's narcoleptic ending mirrors the beginning, and maybe it makes sense for Mike to be alone at the end instead of in a social setting, and there's sort of a theme of going where the road takes you, but the end still perplexed me. Any thoughts?

'Private' tunes

I thought the music choices in "Private Idaho" made a powerful statement. The recurring play of "America the Beautiful" was a disturbing undercurrent for comparing what American youths aspire to and what had become of Mike, Scott and the other film characters. Despite their freedoms — Mike, not tied to anyone or anything, and Scott above the law — both lived a piteous existence.

Though it was a contemporary hit when the movie came out, I also liked the contrast of Madonna's boppity love song "Cherish" playing in the background while different young hustlers recounted their graphic first experiences selling sex.

The Straight Story

Our next movie will be The Straight Story (1999), starring Richard Farnsworth and a John Deere mower.

pickin' and fiddlin'

Have we got a pick for July 2? Would that be by one of the esteemed Amys? Or Ben?

Only for money

Did you buy Scott's claim that he had sex with guys only for the money? Or did that strike you as a form of self-repression as in "Brokeback Mountain"? (In "Brokeback," the guys are clearly in love, but for one of them there still is a sense that two men can't truly be together — they can meet in secret and have sex, but they can't have a meaningful life together, only "vacations.")

Acting

Did you have a favorite performance in the film?

The bard of Portland

Did you like the Henry IV story line? Do you think it was well-executed?

Here's an excerpt from an Amy Taubin piece on "Idaho." I think it's a good big-picture description of the film:

What is striking about Idaho today in light of Van Sant’s later films is its extraordinary hybridity. Where Elephant (2003), Gerry (2002), and Psycho (2000) are structured by a single daring formal device—the extended tracking shots in Elephant and Gerry; the shot-by-shot mimicry of Hitchcock’s original in Psycho—Idaho is a collage that includes even a kitchen sink and some Little Dutch Boy cleanser to scrub it down. Van Sant mixes and matches scenes of documentary-style realism with campy musical set pieces, improvised dialogue with bowdlerized Shakespeare, dream sequences shot in grainy Super-8mm with 35mm vistas of the Pacific Northwest, and, on the soundtrack, Rudy Vallee with The Pogues. The main source materials for Idaho’s screenplay were two completely separate scripts and a short story, all written by Van Sant. One of the scripts was a modern-day adaptation of Shakespeare’s Henry IV.

Did this work for you? Did you find a coherent whole?

Before "Brokeback"

One thing that really intrigues me about this film is when it was released: 1991 — almost 15 years before "Brokeback Mountain," which we all tend to think of as the breakthrough "gay" movie using popular straight actors as the male leads. "Idaho" was notable because it took two teen idols — River and Keanu — and cast them in queer roles. (Apparently, Keanu accepted the role immediately, but River had to be talked into it). "Idaho" is talked of as a "gay classic," and its director is obviously highly esteemed — so the film has prestige through that connection, but the artsier "Idaho" was not a mainstream sensation like "Brokeback," despite the wildly popular actors in it. Do you have any thoughts on that (apart from the "artsy" factor)?

And do you think of it as a "gay" movie?

(My own experience, on second viewing, is that the gay theme is almost incidental in "Idaho" and is crucial in "Brokeback.")

Incidentally, the campfire scene in "Idaho" — two "cowboys" in the wilderness — made me think of "Brokeback."

Rick!

We miss you! Get your butt off that rock and back in front of your computer!

Literary tie

I know no one has time to do this, but if you want to greatly enhance your Own Private Idaho experience, I recommend reading John Rechy's 1963 novel "City of Night," which, along with Shakespeare, was Gus Van Sant's inspiration for his film. Apparently Van Sant gave copies of the book to River Phoenix and Keanu Reeves to model their gay hustlers on. River just skimmed the first page or so, Van Sant says in the DVD extras, but Keanu went on to read all of Rechy's books.

I'm reading it now, and it's beautiful and addictive. It was named one of the 25 all time "best gay novels" and is widely taught in literature courses. Rechy himself was a gay prostitute and hid the fact that he was also a really brilliant writer; apparently, men buying boys off the street like them to be pretty dumb. Anyway, Rechy, pictured at right, hustled and wrote himself into a professorship at USC.

Hollywood ending?

At the end, when Olivia, Joe and Fin are drinking on her porch, there's a hint that Fin might hook up with the librarian girl. Those two had a sweet exchange at his place, and he attempted to intervene when the bullying boyfriend (the father of her expected child?) was being mean to her. Did you think the two of them as a couple seemed plausible? I didn't feel any spark from Fin for her until at the very end. Was that line about their hooking up sort of contrived? I felt the movie had a satisfactory ending with the three friends reconciling. I'm not sure that the hint of romance added much to it. What did you think?

Take a look

(from Kim)

What was your reaction to Fin's climbing on the bar and shouting "Take a look"? I had the sense that the hurt feelings from earlier that day and the copious alcohol played the major role in the outburst, but also the hurt feelings from a lifetime. And the scene, I thought, was well done (the camera work — the crowd, the dizzying feeling); it gave a good sense of how all these factors were roiling together to produce an emotional tornado. And it was a situation where he wasn't overtly under attack, where the "provocation" didn't necessarily merit the response; but one more subtle, where he could "feel" all these sidelong glances and whispers, some real, some imagined, not just from the bar that night, but from everywhere his whole life, and he was so desperate for it to STOP.

What did you think?

Kim's pick

Olivia

Patricia Clarkson's character, Olivia, was quite brilliant, even if rather cliche on the surface: the zany, absent-minded artist who runs the same person off the road twice (i.e., doesn't learn from her mistakes, at least not right away), who dislikes cell phones and comforming to social expectations. She's something of a type, but then there are surprises: the profound grief of losing a child, the bitterness of a separation, the giving up on life. She's sunny and dark at the same time. Zany and solemn. And beautiful and ugly — the ugliness referring to the way she treats Fin when he is trying to help her. Did that seem in character to you? I was taken aback by her bahavior, but then it quickly made more sense to me. When she harshly said, "I'm not your mother, and I'm not your girlfriend," she was asserting her own identity rather than trying to run Fin off, like saying I have stood in that relation to people all of my life, and now I'm just me. I'm just me in my own right. And Fin understands that. His loneliness and his own struggles to find a comfortable place in life have prepared him to understand that and to be an honest-to-God friend to her.

Cleo

I was delighted to see Raven Goodwin, who was so great in "Lovely and Amazing." Cleo was an interesting character to me because we never really know who she is -- other than that she likes trains -- or who her parents are or where she comes from. Any thoughts on Cleo's role in the film?

Isolation

What do you think this film has to say about loneliness and isolation? The three main characters are each alone: Fin because he has withdrawn from the cruelty and constant spectacle of being a dwarf, Olivia because of her persistent grief, and Joe because of his overbearing good humor and neediness. This may be the only thing they have in common, but they forge a very touching friendship.

Dwarfism

I have heard people with dwarfism on television talk about the way they are treated in society -- that people stare, point at them, pat their heads, make fun, etc. Even so, it was surprising to me to see Fin treated as such an oddity. I assume this was partially because he was in such a remote area of New Jersey, but really, have these people never seen a dwarf before? The woman who took his picture in the convenience store? Fin's reaction was priceless.

Characters

I was very impressed with the characters in this movie. We get a sense very early on of who these people are and what makes them tick. Very little actually happens in "The Station Agent," but I found it fascinating to watch the characters interact and their relationships develop. Did you have a favorite character?