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Just Outtalks to Gus Van Sant and friends
about fact, fiction and film
by Oriana Green
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Gus Van Sant once told Salon, “There’s not
any reason for a filmmaker to be promoting
what he does, because the film is there.” And
yet he agrees to talk with us in connection
with his new movie Finding Forrester —perhaps
because of his strong ties to Portland, a city he
called home for the past 17 years.
Earlier this year Van Sant finally sold his
notorious grand old home on Council Crest
and moved to a Manhattan apartment (cozily,
in the same building as Joaquin Phoenix and
Casey Affleck, both actors he has directed). Yet
close friends in Portland report he’s already
house hunting again in the
Rose City, presumably for
something less rambling.
“It was a beautiful
house, but Gus was out
of town so much
that it was falling
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into disrepair,” notes long
Van Sant in a pensive mood inside his landmark Portland home
time friend and associate
Scott Green, who spent time
with Van Sant on his recent trip back to the
Which also explains his fascination with a
land’s Hollywood district during his lean years
city. “I could tell that he misses Portland
side of life he didn’t know from experience and
in the ’80s and finds the world of the down and
already. I hope he gets another house here.
some of his reactionary attitudes that still color
out fascinating: “Oregon was settled by drifters,
He loves Portland and misses his friends.”
his life. Pal Green is quick to depict him as some people who lived off the river, like the people
one who prefers to be seen as an ordinary guy,
on Burnside.... This alternate world that’s co
f course it’s no accident that road images,
someone who’d just as soon tool around town in
existing has its own rules and is adventurous in
travel and a search for home are recur
his plain-as-dirt truck as in some flashy Benz.
a way that the world of well-moneyed people
ring themes in Van Sant movies. His corpo
Not pretentious, he loves to eat breakfast at
isn’t, much in the same way that outer space is
rate climber dad crisscrossed the country with
the Original Pancake House on Barbur Boule
a fascinating frontier.”
his family, finally landing in Portland in time
vard, and thanks to his fairly low profile, he’s
When asked if that means he won’t be
for his namesake to finish high school at the
able to live his life without much interference
making any costume dramas, Van Sant points
elite Catlin Gabel School. With his father
from the public. “He’s not a snob, not into
out that Merchant and Ivory also conjure an
earning the family brioche as president of
classism,” assures another friend, Portlander
alien world. “The general audience wants to
White Stag, Van Sant the younger certainly
Heidi Snellman.
make connection to a different world that’s
knew affluence firsthand.
He also answers his own phone, which cer
metaphorical to their own."
tainly dispels any notion of an indie director
gone Hollywood. In fact, almost all of his films
s a gay man, Van Sant has to endure end
concern people who are marginalized economi
less questions about his directorial point of
cally, as if where others might see poverty he
view. He spoke to Entertainment Weekly recently
sees poetry. So what’s the source of that?
about the potential gay angle in his new film:
“Well, I wasn’t a hustler or a street person,”
‘I’m sure that my sexuality plays into that kind
he affirms during our recent
of friendship between two [male] characters. It’s
phone interview from New
sort of like a mentor-student relationship. That
York, where he’s preparing
always has a kind of subliminal overtone for
for the Dec. 25 release of
me.” In the same story, Finding Forrester star and
Finding Forrester. Although
co-pnxlucer Sean Connery added, “On the
he does say he was influ
issue of the gayness and whether that’s in the
enced by living in Port
movie, that’s Gus’ cross to bear.”
PHOTO BY SCOTT GREEN
e s as cryptic as fleeting clouds
streaming across an expanse of sky,
as elusive as film images projected
on a screen. Shy and aloof, he isn't too keen
on discussing himself. Humble, almost.
A
We all lived up there in Gus' house
during Idaho," Scott Green
recalls fondly of the time spent
with cast members River Phoenix I
and Keanu Reeves