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Well, looks like Van Sant is now finished with the Tarr-esque trilogy to start on something new. Glad Chris Doyle will be working with him again.

Here is the article from Screendaily:

MK2 starts shoot for Gus Van Sant's Paranoid Park
Nancy Tartaglione-Vialatte in Paris 01 November 2006 04:00

French outfit MK2 has announced the beginning of principal photography on the latest film from Gus Van Sant. Filming begins this week in Portland, Oregon on Paranoid Park, a project adapted from the book of the same name by Blake Nelson, which was released in the US in September.

MK2 will produce with Neil Kopp and David Cress. Several of Van Sant's films have been released by MK2 in France but this film marks the first time the company will also produce and handle world sales for one of his projects. Van Sant will also re-team with his Psycho director of photography Christopher Doyle on the film.

Van Sant has called the film a sort of "Crime and Punishment set in the skating world" about a young skateboarder who kills a security guard in Portland's Paranoid Park. In a twist, the director launched a casting call on a MySpace blog this summer and ended up with a cast of six unknowns for the lead roles.

I wish I could get excited about this news, but once a new Van Sant movie comes along, the city just won't shut up about it. Trust me, Elephant would never have swept Cannes had the jury been subjected to weeks of gossip about where the leads went to high school, what sports they played, who they dated, etc.

This is absolutely one of the worst films I have ever seen in my life. Frankly, I have never hated any single film as much as this one. It shows a complete lack of interest in understanding human beings, their interactions, their emotions, and their motivations. Instead, the interest rests in cheap humor, vacuous slow-motion shots (which aren't even visually appealing), exasperatingly conventional voice-over, and an awful, awful soundtrack that attempts so much to fabricate an atmosphere. What's more appalling than the film itself is how it has won the admiration from several people I admire, including Grimfarrow.

I detest this film to the extent that I will never ever see that motherfucker's films ever again.

franco wrote:This is absolutely one of the worst films I have ever seen in my life ...

I detest this film to the extent that I will never ever see that motherfucker's films ever again.

Now I feel like I hate the film too, despite not having seen it lol.

Sounds scrumptious. Can't wait to see it. Thanks grim!

Well David, Grimfarrow likes it, but why haven't you seen it yet? I'd love to hear your comments, and gain some perspectives of where the admiration comes from. Mark Peranson supposedly wrote a lengthy article on the film, which I'd love to read.

Here you go, franco.

Thanks John... but I was referring to the one he wrote afterwards for another, uh, publisher? I will ask him when he comes back from his trip.

There was some minor discussion of this film in the Cannes thread. It was probably my favorite of the Cannes films - though, for me, it was no Elephant - and it won some prize there, fwiw. Whatever. I thought it was engaging on a tonal level. van Sant seems to have found an interesting 1.33:1-non-professional-actor-variation-in-film-speed-I-love-skater-boys voice. I don't know exactly what franco means by "a complete lack of interest in understanding human beings, their interactions, their emotions, and their motivations" since that seems to be, in fact, van Sant's primary content-oriented interest, and, obviously, many viewers have indeed found the film interesting re humans, their interactions, emotions, etc. More likely, the film implicitly questions some viewers' deeply held but probably incorrect beliefs about the nature of some humans.

PS. It's been five months since I saw PP and my "very early onset Alzheimer's" (just kidding, I hope) may be fooling me ... again. But I was particularly taken with the main character's wannabe girlfriend. Her very arhythmic performance and the way it was edited were particularly creepy. And, normally, I can't bear skateboarding footage, but this film's skateboarding, for me, was actually quite evocative.

Franco - is that you, FP? It's me.

I also hated the film, in any event - also saw it on the 12th. I don't know what Mr. Peranson has to say about it but I know another local critic of repute liked it a lot. The film is such an offense that I'm going to grant him some wiggle room by not naming him, but his praising it confuses and distresses me far more than his insisting that BORAT has merit.

Hell, compared to PARANOID PARK, BORAT does have merit.

Have written my thoughts on PP in some detail here.

I had been considering interviewing van Sant in advance of the screening, since there will soon also be a MALA NOCHE screening in Vancouver. I'd chased him via a couple of angles and was conclusively told that he wasn't doing interviews until the release date of the film approached. I imagine if my blogpiece gets around (and since I've shared it with Blake Nelson, the author of the book, there is some possibility it will), there's not much chance I'll be speaking to him. I certainly do have questions for him.

P.

The clips on YouTube certainly look strange and interesting. One question I have - do the kids skateboard to Nino Rota?

Allan MacInnis wrote:Paranoid Park (the film) nearly drools over Nevins at times, foregrounding what at most should be a hinted subtext and confusing and misdirecting the audience: is Alex - the Nevins character - gay? Is Jared gay? Is Scratch gay? No: the DIRECTOR is gay, and he can't let the film stand without making sure we know.

What does that mean? I doubt you'd be making such remarks if the film's star were female and the director heterosexual.

I do hope Gus talks to you, however. He's a very nice guy, though he's been through a lot lately what with the DUI and all.

I don't think he's ever gotten over River's death.

Actually, while I appreciate your making that inevitable objection public, I do believe I would make EXACTLY those remarks in a heterosexual context: if the movie were about a young woman who had been deeply traumatized by a horrible experience, and the director took time to contemplate what a shapely bum she had, f'rinstance, I would find it irrelevant, a distraction, exploitative, offensive etc.: and what's bad for the goose is bad for the gander.

Have you seen the film, by the way, or was that just a reflex response?

P.

pemmican wrote:Have you seen the film, by the way, or was that just a reflex response?

You'll find that anyone who consider's themself a minority will have that same type of reverse racism, homophobia, feminism, depending on the context of the given subject and whatever group the person in question identifies themselves with.

if the movie were about a young woman who had been deeply traumatized by a horrible experience, and the director took time to contemplate what a shapely bum she had, f'rinstance, I would find it irrelevant, a distraction, exploitative, offensive etc.: and what's bad for the goose is bad for the gander.

In other words you didn't care for Bresson's Au Hasard Batlhazar.

Macintosh wrote:You'll find that anyone who consider's themself a minority will have that same type of reverse racism, homophobia, feminism, depending on the context of the given subject and whatever group the person in question identifies themselves with.

Wow. Humanity just became *that* much easier for us all to understand.

I haven't seen Paranoid Park as yet, but I know what Gus likes.

Allan MacInnis wrote:Paranoid Park (the film) nearly drools over Nevins at times, foregrounding what at most should be a hinted subtext and confusing and misdirecting the audience: is Alex - the Nevins character - gay? Is Jared gay? Is Scratch gay? No: the DIRECTOR is gay, and he can't let the film stand without making sure we know.

Why should that be confusing? Or even a suprise? Gus' guys - straight, gay, whatever - are lensed through a pair of very sensitive, poetic gay eyes. Whether his characters are gay or not is not the real issue here.. some of the characters may not even know themselves.

pemmican wrote:Actually, while I appreciate your making that inevitable objection public, I do believe I would make EXACTLY those remarks in a heterosexual context:

Yes, but would Allan MacInnis, or the majority of other people who would make this critque.

With all due respect Dave, I don't see your flipping the guys' argument on its' head as any kind of zinger, truly.

Don't all of us here-- or "serious cineastes" in general (for wont of a less irritating phrase)-- constantly groan over the absurd state of mainstream filmmaking these days.. primarily that it is out there to relentlessly tease titillate and tantalize horny teenage hetero kids at the expense of thoughtful melodrama yadda yadda? You state your reversal like it's some unmade charge in hetero cinema whereas it's the oldest lament in the mainstream critics stock. Isn't the stereotype complaint that Hollywood filmmaking is a vapid, overlubricated, jiggly pit of romantic hetero lite comedy that shakes its tits & ass in every thinking adults face?

No "serious" filmmaker should get a pass for sexual vapidity in a critics eyes, gay or straight. That said, I haven't seen the film, and reserve judgment viz pemmican's review.

Really? Well then just call me a cheap date.

After at least 50 of my 60 years having heterosexual imagery shoved down my throat (a favorite heterosexual meme) I'm absolutely delighted by mindless gay eye candy served by a Master Chef.

I haven't seen Paranoid Park as yet, but I know what Gus likes.

Well you're right on that account.. gay cinema has a long way to go before it catches up with the sheer statiscal density of Vapid Hetero Cinema.

But of course we're digressing..

David Ehrenstein wrote:In other words you didn't care for Bresson's Au Hasard Batlhazar.

I don't remember Wiazemsky's ass in that film.

Florence Delay, on the other hand, got a good Bressonian camera fucking.

UN FEMME DOUCE... ah Dominique. But now we're way OT.

(Bishop - Um, actually, I AM Allan MacInnis, so, uhm, yes, I think I would!)

There's actually an interesting thread about all this on IMDB, wrought with the usual level of inarticulate buffoonery one finds there. The title is "Gus van Sant's Gay Agenda"

What we see there is actually straight-out homophobia. There are scenes of men kissing in ELEPHANT and LAST DAYS. The writer doesn't want to see such things, finds it distasteful, wonders why Gus has them in there. In neither case does his objection amount to anything: in the first case, it's clearly thematically relevant; in the second - a film I haven't actually viewed in completion - it's likely either an incidental detail, or a provocation. What comes clear reading the thread is that the original poster is just disturbed by seeing men kiss, and assumes that any director who would insert such stuff has an "agenda" that needs to be justified.

These are deeply problematic assumptions, and offensive and marginalizing to gays. I don't THINK I'm guilty of the same thing. As Franco says elsewhere, I found the film objectified its male lead in an at-times jarring and irrelevant way, given my presumptions about what the film is/was/should be about.

Maybe these presumptions are the problem. MAYBE there is some thematic relevance to the homoerotic elements van Sant introduces into the text that I didn't take in on first viewing. I was under the influence of the novel when I saw the film, and was likely expecting some degree of faithfulness to the source material. In the novel, there is NO overt suggestion of attraction between the characters of Scratch and Alex, who ride off on a train together to get beer, prefacing the horrible railway death that takes place that Alex can't talk about for the rest of the film. Van Sant inserts a slow-motion charged glance into the conversation between Scratch and Alex in the film - and while at the time my mind was reeling into "What the fuck is he doing here" territory, I gotta admit that (on reflection) MAYBE he's meaning to figure the trauma that Alex can't talk about as being in some way a metaphor for being gay in a straight society. That would, obviously be interesting and relevant, and might force me to completely re-evaluate the film; it would mean that I've done van Sant an injustice.

I think I would still find the misty-eyed lust shots of Nevins problematic, though. I mean, he's pretty enough, but this really doesn't seem to have much to do with anything.

David: eroticism in Bresson is complex, and I can't do justice to it. I will say this: PICKPOCKET is probably the sexiest movie I've seen - all those hands slipping secretly into pockets, the bond between transgressing men, covert meetings, glances... It makes me horny as a dog.

P.