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Overview

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Elephant, 2003

Starring: John Robinson, Elias McConnell, Alex Frost, Eric Deulen

Directed by: Gus Van Sant

Written by: Gus Van Sant

Language: English, German

Country: USA

Runtime: 81 min

MPAA Rating: R

Rating:7.3

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Profile of Elephant

The mood of Elephant is disturbing, gloomy, and atmospheric. The plot centers around a murderous pair, estrangement, and a violence spree. It is a drama and independent movie. Stylistically, Elephant is nonlinear. In approach, it is serious and realistic. The pacing is slow. Elephant takes place, at least partly, at a high school. It happens in contemporary times. It is originally a true story. Elephant is known for being a Cannes festival winner. Note that it includes violent content.

Summary of Elephant

Gus Van Sant's drifty, eloquent, and effortlessly poignant Elephant is loosely based on the massacre at Columbine High School. (On April 20, 1999 in Littleton, Colorado two 17-year-old boys fired semiautomatic weapons on their high school classmates, killing 13, injuring 25, and then taking their own lives.) Van Sant's film is set in Portland, Oregon and uses non-actors chosen from an open casting call of high school students. On a crisp, sunny fall day, with colorful leaves on the trees and puffy clouds drifting across blue skies, students arrive at school as usual. Eli takes photographs for his portfolio, John manages problems with his alcoholic father, Acadia attends a gay-lesbian meeting, Nate plays a game of tag football, and Michelle works in the library. Meanwhile, two outsiders, Eric and Alex, harbor hatred for their peers. Each of Elephant's students have unique interests and personalities, and the film respectfully emphasizes their individuality. It also demonstrates how school is an unpredictable blender where students' differences are constantly agitated. Harris Savides' excellent photography--shot in 1:33 aspect ratio, making the movie a cube in the center of the screen--follows and floats, sometimes blurring and juxtaposing the light to achieve an ethereal mood; while Leslie Shatz's ambient sound design and a soundtrack of soft Beethoven piano music completes that feeling. The film is structured in brief overlapping chapters all taking place the morning of the 11:35 A.M. attack.

Elephant won the Palme D'Or and Best Director at the 2003 Cannes Film Festival.

Details

Language:	English, German
Country:	USA
Release date:	29 August 2003
Runtime:	81 min
Awards:	Cannes

Awards

Gus Van Sant for Best Director at the 2003 Cannes

Awarded Palme d'Or at the 2003 Cannes

Cast and Crew See all

John Robinson

as John McFarland

Elias McConnell

as Elias

Alex Frost

as Alex

Eric Deulen

as Eric

Photos See all

Alex Frost in Elephant (2003)

Alicia Miles and John Robinson in Elephant (2003)

Alex Frost, producer Danny Wolf and director Gus Van Sant on the set of Elephant (2003)

Clips See all

Elephant: Theatrical

Critics Reviews See all

Washington Post

An understated, hypnotic stroke of brilliance. Full Review

|
by: Desson Thomson

Los Angeles Times

Working with cinematographer Harris Savides and serving as the film's editor, he (Van Sant) has fashioned a visual style and a narrative shape that has the quality of a waking dream, then a nightmare. Rarely do form and content add up with such... Full Review

|
by: Manohla Dargis

Users Reviews See all

I love to hate this film

02.January.2011
|
by: Erik
Erik rated this movie0/10Terrible

I love to hate this film

When people ask me "What's the worst movie you've--" I say "Elephant" before they can finish their sentence. I've enjoyed Gus Van Sant's work. Sometimes I thought he was a bit hit or miss. But I never thought he could make a film so masturbatory that it's boring to almost everyone else. I really thought this film would be enjoyable. When one mentions "school shooting", many things come to mind. The emotions of other students, the regret some students might feel about contributing to the shooters' social isolation, the emotions of parents, fear, a build up of some sort. Actually, thinking up all of these things is about as good as it's going to get. Much better than this film. Anyone who says this film was "hypnotic" or "dreamy" was trying their hardest to not come off as the philistines they truly are. The shots in this film are usually set up behind some pseudo-hipster with no character. Their names are given to us before we watch them walk around for a good ten or fifteen minutes and the only thoughts provoked are "When is this going to end?" The splitting up of time line was pretentious and with no purpose. It's as if it was done only to say "Hey, look at this mildly intriguing thing I can do with filmmaking!" Nothing relevant ties itself to another event. Except for the shooting at the end. The film is called Elephant. In one scene, there's a picture of an elephant on the future-school-shooters wall of his bedroom. That is the only connection the title of the movie has with the actually movie. Interpret that however you'd like. By the end of this movie, you really want your time back. Or to shoot a bunch of people involved with the making of this film and the yourself.

02.January.2011
|
by: Erik

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I wanted to like this movie so much... There were so many things that could have been done to make the movie more tense. It is too self-indulgent and there wasn't enough going on to keep me interested. If you're going to rent it, fast forward to the... Read and rate it

31.March.2010
|
by: Caitlin Higgins
Caitlin Higgins rated this movie5/10So-so

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