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May 29, 04
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Elephant
This movie is traumatic.I think it is good in a hard hitting way but at the same time I don't even think it should have been made. It's one thing have a documentary on something like columbine but the fact that there is a movie out there which acutally REINACTS the actual event is pretty scary. Also, the way some of the children are presented is horrible,like the part where the girls puke in the washrooms.Fair enough it tries to show you what "type" of girls they were but if I was the family of these children, I would be so angry to see my child was being represented like that!
Anyway, if you feel like being depressed after a movie, watch this. Also, the way it is filmed in such a weird back to front way is creepy in itself. 
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May 29, 04
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i thought this movie was really good. creative filming and didn't hold back on anything.
if you were a parent you'd be mad at how your child was portrayed in this film....um...they're ACTING. so why would the parents be angry? the only actual kids from from columbine that the movie was portraying were the two kids that did the shoooting, the rest are just characters that he made up himself. but yes, i agree that the film is disturbing. but then again, it should be disturbing, that's what it is supposed to do.
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May 29, 04
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Something interesting about the directors choice : he went to local highschools aroud the country and found kids that fit his roles, rather then casting actors. So in a sense they're all playing themselves ( to a degree , the killers aren't killers in real life :P ) which is why I think the acting in the film is so superb.
But it's a bit over the top, the non stop 2 minute long shots become tedious and repetitive.
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May 29, 04
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^they are playing themselves to an extent. i'm sure the girls that threw up in the bathroom, don't really do that in real life. but yeah, i remember when they came to vancouver and had a casting call for this some years ago.
and i can see where you are coming with the filming. however, long shots in a film do create more tension than quick cuts back and forth (hitchcock did this a lot). i liked the fact that his shots were longer, i'm sick of watching movies where my head is spinning from all the cuts.
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May 29, 04
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^ I'll have to disagree ( and I'm happy to do so with someone who knows cinema like you :) ) . Long shots do have their place in films, P.T. Anderson demonstrates that all the time in his pictures, where entire scenes are performed with a single shot. However in "Elephant" it was not neccesary, because the initial few uses did establish the lifestyle, the characters, and the setting. But near the end it just got menotinous.
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May 29, 04
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okay, now that i'm done my shower:
reason why i believe that Gus Van Sant uses the long shots throughout his whole film: i think what he was going for in this movie was realism, he didn't want the viewers to stop in the middle of the movie and breath and think to themselves "it's okay, it's only a movie". i think that faster cuts and editing make a movie feel more 'movie-like' because it's not like watching something in real life. i think the long shots make it harder for the audience to remember that they're watching a movie. it almost seems like he was trying to mimic the security footage of the columbine shooting. i think that these longer shots make the movie more gritty and realistic whereas if he had chosen to edit it in the normal style of movies today it might have turned out campy and cheesy. or at the very least wouldn't have had the same emotional and realistic effect as this one did.
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May 29, 04
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I'll agree with realism, I think he was defenetely trying to give it a realistic perspective. When you climb stairs, you have to walk up the whole thing, it doesn't cut away to the top of the stairs ( terrible example ).
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May 29, 04
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^hahaha not such a terrible example. i get what you mean, and yeah that's what i meant too.
i also like how you see the kids days weaving into eachothers. one thing i would have liked to have seen more of, was actual in class footage...they never really showed anybody in a class with a teacher teaching (did they? i saw this movie a long time ago when it first came out in theatres)
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May 29, 04
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^ watch it and you'll know why
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May 29, 04
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maybe eBay?
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May 29, 04
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Quote:
good call, but i don't like buying stuff off the net. i dunno, something about going into a store and picking it up and holding it in my own hands before i buy it is nice....plus that and i want it NOW! :P
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May 29, 04
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Quote:
if we just ignored things like this and never made movies or wrote about them or talked about them, how would anything ever get solved?
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May 29, 04
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^well i do agree with you to an extent. I think it was an amazing film but I would never want to see it again ever. The fact that they would play a movie like this in the theatre shocks me!!!!!!! (did they over here?? i saw it in the uk on the big screen)I just think this film would offend the parents of people who died...perhaps I could be wrong though?
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May 30, 04
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^^yeah they did play it in the theatres over here.
just because a film might be a little provocative or offend (although i don't know why this would offend) some people does not mean it shouldn't be shown. that's called censorship. i don't think that it would offend the parents of kids who died or were at columbine. it doesn't make a mockery of the tragedy at all, it's reminding the world that things like this do go on...and that we shouldn't forget it.
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