The Albatross Perch

Thursday, October 30, 2003 :::

Fascinating tidbits from upcoming Van Sant movie Elephant (reviewed here):

It's based on Columbine.

The dad of one of the killers is Tim Bottoms, who is known for playing President Bush in shows like That's My Bush! and the "Tragedy in DC" 9/11 made for TV flick. So, the dad of the killer is a shoe-in for President Bush? Does this suggest that our national leadership, like the raising of a child, can send us into psycho territory?

One scene shows the killers hanging out- one is playing violent video games, the other is playing Fur Elise on the piano. Are both equally encouraging of violence? Why does the music not soothe, while the entertainment stimulates? Why are their murderous intentions not overwhelmed by the beauty of the music, the grace and higher order that classical Beethoven seems to suggest? Are they that fucked up by their society?

There's a scene where the killers are a little gay together in the shower. It's fucked up, Dylan Klebold and Eric Harris shot up Columbine because jocks were calling them "fags", and now Van Sant pretty much does the same thing. The reviewer suggests that it shows they crave human closeness, but I still think it's ghey.

Much of the movie is filmed from behind the perspective of the students as they wander the halls. Hm, is Van Sant evoking the "videogame" perspective? I always thought the Tomb Raider movie would be a bazillion times better if they had just ONE shot of Lara Croft from behind- one single, long take, just like the videogame. If you can use a computer to make Lara do a bunch of cool shit in one long take from a 3rd person perspective, why wouldn't it work with real actors? Anyways, Elephant features this type of shot a lot, which is cool, the reviewer also suggests it makes us feel bad for the kids, for whom bad shit is right around the corner.

The title, I love this, refers to "The elephant in the room that nobody talks about". That is absolutely what Columbine was about, the bad shit in high school, the bad shit in the world and in society that we ignore, the guns and hate and picking and teasing, the frustration and the ease in which we let eachother hurt eachother, that's the fucking Elephant, and it seems Van Sant hit it on the head. So did Michael Moore, with Bowling for Columbine, but I can't wait to see this new one.

Now, as for the opinion that you could tell "a Columbine story" a bunch of different ways and make a bunch of little creative decisions and use it to make some sort of giant sweeping statement about America, well I guess you could, and Van Sant went ahead and did. I think there will be odd bits that don't belong, like this is some artifact from an alternate dimension of Columbine. Anyways, I get fucking goosebumps when kids in military camo walk onto school grounds with a duffel bag full of firearms, because that's a distubring image that is new to our generation, one we're still trying to make some goddamn sense out of.

::: posted by Andrewski at 1:13 PM