Gus Van Sant
Last Days (2005)
Past dates
8/24/22
10:00 PM
Inspired by the last days of Nirvana singer Kurt Cobain before committing suicide, LAST DAYS unveils Gus Van Sant’s full range of cinematic skills: As director, screenwriter and editor, he uses sound and image with such atmospheric intensity that he masterfully crafts an impressionistic character study of an elusive phenomenon fetishized excessively by the media. Told through a non-linear story with long camera shots, a music-oriented tempo and almost no dialogue, LAST DAYS is a cinematic meditation on youth culture, death, and the truth behind the clichés of sex, drugs, and rock'n'roll. In the process, Van Sant fragments time by jumping back and forth and lets it merge into a hallucinatory-atmospheric trip to follow a man who slips further and further away from his surrounding and himself.
Gus Green Van Sant Jr. (b. 1952) is an American filmmaker, painter, screenwriter, photographer and musician from Louisville, Kentucky. With films in both independent and mainstream cinema, Van Sant has become one of the most prominent film auteurs in the world over the past 35 years and is considered an outstanding representative of a New Queer Cinema movement. In addition to the Palme d'Or in Cannes and two Academy Awards, Van Sant has won numerous awards. His best-known films include »My Own Private Idaho«, »Good Will Hunting«, »Finding Forrester«, »Elephant«, »Last Days«, »Milk« and »The Sea of Trees«. Also running at the Summer Festival this year is TROUBLE, Van Sant’s first production for the theater and a Summer Festival co-production.
More films by Gus Van Sant at Alabama Kino as part of the Kampnagel Summer Festival:
MON 8/22: My Own Private Idaho (1991)
TUE 8/23: Milk (2008)
SAT 8/27: Gucci Presents: Ouverture Of Something That Never Ended (2020)
The Guardian: 20 Best Music Biopics»A brilliant, audacious leap into the tortured and unhappy mind.«
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