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Gus Van Sant

Gus Van Sant Books

Film director

Gus Van Sant is an influential American film director known for his unique artistic style and profound exploration of social issues. His works span a variety of genres, from independent films to commercial blockbusters, showcasing his distinctive insights into the art of cinema.

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“I try to get to know the actors as much as I can. I feel like I'm friends with them for starters and for a week or two, we rehearse when they're getting the costumes together.”

Knows Feels Trying I Can Two Together Actors Week Costumes Starters

Author:Gus Van Sant

“I try to shoot the first rehearsal because people are more spontaneous. People in real life don't really know where they are going to be either positioning themselves or how they will be saying their words. When people goof during the first take, it usually looks realistic.”

People Knows Trying Firsts Looks Real Real Life Realistic Spontaneous Rehearsal Goofs

Author:Gus Van Sant

“Casting the locals is my primary concern because all the other things you assume will be manageable.”

Concern Assuming Locals Primaries Casting Manageable

Author:Gus Van Sant

“Upon entering my vein, the drug would start a warm edge that would surge along until the brain consumed it in a gentle explosion.It began in the back of the neck and rose rapidly until I felt such pleasure that the world sympathizing took on a soft, lofty appeal.”

World Felt Pleasure Brain Drug Rose Edges Warm Appeals Gentle Necks Entering Veins Consumed Explosions Lofty Heroin

Author:Gus Van Sant

“No construction stiff working overtime takes more stress and straining than we did just to stay high.”

Stress Addiction Construction Heroin

Author:Gus Van Sant

“Narcotics have been systematically scapegoated and demonized. The idea that anyone can use drugs and escape a horrible fate is ananathema to these idiots. I predict that in the near future, right wingers will use drug hysteria as a pretext to set up an international police apparatus.”

Has Beens Ideas Use Fate Drug Police International Horrible Idiot Right Wing Hysteria Pretext Narcotics

Author:Gus Van Sant

“You never look at the backside of a mirror because when you do, it'll affect your future because you're looking at yourself backwards. No, you're looking at your inner self and you don't recognize it because you've never seen it before.”

Looks Self Mirrors Our Future Backwards Your Future Inner Self Backsides

Author:Gus Van Sant

“A person's sexuality is so much more than one word "gay." No one refers to anyone as just "hetero" because that doesn't say anything. Sexual identity is broader than a label.”

Persons Identity Gay Sexuality Labels Homosexuality Say Anything One Word

Author:Gus Van Sant

“It's hard to speculate as a human about the afterlife because you're not in it. And it's probably as wild and wacky as you could imagine. The idea that people have figured it out, I'm not sure if I can fathom that.”

People Ifs Humans I Can Ideas Hard Imagine Not Sure Afterlife Fathom Wacky

Author:Gus Van Sant

“It's easy to keep score at a football game because it's just how many times you get the ball over the goal. But, when you ask an audience to tell us how many times the invisible ball got over the invisible goal, and they go, "Well, it was 46," they're just making it up. So, if you're listening to that, as though you're actually listening to the score of a football game, you're misleading yourself.”

Ifs Wells Asks Games Easy Goal Audience Football Listening Balls Invisible Score Mislead Football Game

Author:Gus Van Sant

“Digital information, for every type of storage, is unfounded. If everything is on a hard drive and the hard drive freezes up, your whole photography collection could just go away. We can still look at printed photographs of our grandparents. We can physically hold them in our hands and look at it.”

Ifs Looks Stills Hard Whole Hands Information Type Photography Photograph Collections Digital Going Away Grandparent Printed Freeze Storage

Author:Gus Van Sant

“A lot of times, you're not necessarily off the page because you haven't been able to take the time to prepare a character. It's very easy to find even great actors reading it more like a reading. Things aren't really coming alive yet, even though you know they will.”

Knows Character Able Reading Actors Easy Alive Havens Pages Great Actors

Author:Gus Van Sant

“Silent is about needing to make a scene shorter by having physical things to cut to. That way, you can manipulate a character to the other side of the room. But, if they say the wrong thing, it might locate that action in a particular part of the scene. It's a mechanical need.”

Ifs Way Needs Character Might Action Sides Rooms Cutting Particular Scene Silent Manipulate Wrong Things Physical Things

Author:Gus Van Sant

“Yeah, I try to be really calm.”

Trying Yeah Calm

Author:Gus Van Sant

“I'm going in a really weird I-don't-know-where direction, but I prefer anything [different] from how standardized filmmaking has become.”

Knows Different Filmmaking Really Weird

Author:Gus Van Sant

“When you're on a film and you're doubting something, it's usually because you don't think the audience is going to like it.”

Thinking Film Audience Doubt

Author:Gus Van Sant

“I was petrified because all my friends would be going to Washington, DC, to protest. I was sixteen, and I was like, "I don't think I'll be going with you guys," just because I was scared. Then you saw the news, and cops - not students in schools with guns - cops are killing sixteen year old protesters on the news. To me that was more horrifying, to have the authority figures actually killing people on the evening news, than to have another student firing a gun.”

“I knew about Heatmiser, and I saw them one time at Pine Street [later changed to La Luna], which was the center of a lot of alternative bands during the 80s. But I didn't really know too much about their music.”

Knows Saws Too Much Streets Changed Band Alternatives One Time 80s

Author:Gus Van Sant

“As I do with most films, I try and find some music that you could use throughout, not just a sampling of lots of different artists.”

Trying Different Use Film Artist Sampling

Author:Gus Van Sant

“A lot of times, I relied on connections through my agency, just for financing and things like that. Even when I'm looking for a million and a half dollars to do a small film, there can always be hold-ups, because it's a large amount of money for some people, and it's a small amount of money for other people. In any case, it's significant enough to where you have to jump through a lot of hoops to get it to happen. Sometimes, the people who are helping you can drop the ball. And, of course, the reason agents want you to do bigger projects is that they make a bigger cut.”

People Sometimes Reason Enough Helping Film Cutting Significant Financing

Author:Gus Van Sant

“Because I didn't have brothers, I was always interested in the kids down the street that had four brothers in their family, so I became one of them - but it was not my family. I've always been attracted to temporary families. They tend to be lost characters.”

Character Kids Lost Four Streets Brother My Family Temporary Four Brothers

Author:Gus Van Sant

“Even if you try to copy a film shot by shot, you still can't. It's still your own film.”

Ifs Trying Stills Film Shots Copies

Author:Gus Van Sant

“When you get to be 23, 24 or 25, you start to freeze up and become an adult.”

Author:Gus Van Sant

“I find it interesting, the different rules that apply to journalism and drama, even though journalism has become more and more about entertainment, and entertainment has become more and more about journalism.”

Different Interesting Drama Entertainment Journalism

Author:Gus Van Sant

“The area of teenage life is not necessarily rarefied; we've all gone through that period. It's not as rarefied as a western or a space adventure or a gangster film, but it has its own dynamic.”

Film Life Is Space Gone Adventure Periods Areas Western Teenage Gangsters Teenage Life

Author:Gus Van Sant

“Even when you're making a movie about life, death is a presence, and I guess it's part of my dramatic viewpoint. I'm not sure why exactly.”

Actors Dramatic Not Sure Movie Viewpoints Life Death

Author:Gus Van Sant

“Everything's changing so fast that it's sometimes hard to keep up.”

Author:Gus Van Sant

“For all the boredom the straight life brings, it's not too bad.”

Blessing Boredom

Author:Gus Van Sant

“Free time keeps me going.”

Author:Gus Van Sant

“I had wanted to do a comedy.”

Author:Gus Van Sant

“I have my ideas of what a good documentary is, but drama is a different animal because you're arranging everything.”

Ideas Different Animal Drama Documentaries Arranging Different Animals

Author:Gus Van Sant

“I mean, I think I'm pretty sentimental.”

Thinking Mean Sentimental

Author:Gus Van Sant

“I think that in some cases, I've made films that have a sentimental quality, at least as part of the film.”

Thinking Made Film Quality Cases Sentimental

Author:Gus Van Sant

“I was once a shameless, full-time dope fiend.”

Author:Gus Van Sant

“I'd come into filmmaking as a painter so, for me, making 'Good Will Hunting' was experimental because I didn't know how to do it.”

Knows Actors Know How Painter Movie Hunting Filmmaking Good Will Will Hunting

Author:Gus Van Sant

“I'm normally drawn to something I haven't done and seen before.”

Author:Gus Van Sant

“I'm usually trying to react to what the actors are coming up with. And then the environment, and then the story.”

Trying Stories Actors Environment

Author:Gus Van Sant

“I've always been attracted to temporary families.”

Author:Gus Van Sant

“If a movie isn't released, it's one thing, but if you know it will be, it's nice to have closure and see it come out.”

Ifs Knows Actors Nice One Thing Movie Closure

Author:Gus Van Sant

“If it were up to the executives, they probably wouldn't have directors at all.”

Ifs Directors Executives

Author:Gus Van Sant

“If you don't have the story and the unfolding of the trajectory of the saga, it's like getting in a car and not having any gas.”

Ifs Stories Car Gas Unfolding Trajectory Saga

Author:Gus Van Sant

“Modern-day cinema takes the form of a sermon. You don't get to think, you only get to receive information.”

Thinking Form Modern Information Cinema Sermons Modern Day

Author:Gus Van Sant

“My art teacher in junior high was a very out gay man and a mentor to me.”

Men Art Teacher Gay Mentor Juniors Gay Men Junior High Art Teacher Greenwich Greenwich Village

Author:Gus Van Sant

“My department is to get actors to do stuff.”

Actors Stuff Department

Author:Gus Van Sant

“Well, I want to do everything in sort of a documentary style, ever since I started in the '80s.”

Want Wells Style Documentaries 80s

Author:Gus Van Sant

“Wong Kar-Wai is a really great inspiration. He's always referred to as the Jimi Hendrix of filmmaking.”

Inspiration Filmmaking Really Great Hendrix

Author:Gus Van Sant

“Gay marriage is the last bastion of, to me... as a legal, ceremonial, sentimental and religious side, it's one of the last steps. Retaining your job being one of the earlier steps, like, not getting kicked out of your job because you're gay.”

Jobs Lasts Sides Religious Steps Gay Sentimental Gay Marriage Retaining

Author:Gus Van Sant

“The rules of suspense are that you do know, and you just don't know when. In the Hitchcock rules of suspense, you are supposed to know that there is a bomb on the bus that might blow up, and then it becomes very tense - but if you don't know that there's a bomb and it just blows up, then it's just a surprise.”

Ifs Knows Might Surprise Blow Suspense Bombs Bus Tense Hitchcock

Author:Gus Van Sant

“The things that inform student culture are created and controlled by the unseen culture, the sociological aspects of our climbing culture, our 'me' generation, our yuppie culture, our SUVs, or, you know, shopping culture, our war culture.”

Knows War Culture Generations Students Aspect Controlled Climbing Shopping Unseen Sociological Suvs Yuppies

Author:Gus Van Sant

“With 'Good Will Hunting,' Miramax made certain the recruited audience wasn't expecting to laugh at Robin Williams like they normally do. From my limited experience, you can really blow test screenings by conducting them in the wrong way.”

Way Made Certain Audience Laughing Tests Blow Hunting Expecting Good Will Wrong Way Robins Conducting Screening Will Hunting

Author:Gus Van Sant

About the Author

Born: July 24, 1952
Known for: Film director
Quotes: 87

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Ifs Knows Film Thinking Trying Actors People Stories Way Character

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