I was once a shameless, full-time dope fiend.
GUS VAN SANTI’ve always been interested in how to present something that relates to our reality – which is not really… I don’t even know if documentary itself does as good a job. It has its own problems in trying to get at the reality of the situation.
More Gus Van Sant Quotes
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Sometimes getting upset with yourself is necessary when you face the truth.
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I think over the course of 14 films, I’m returning to a place that I know to tell a story… the same way Spielberg returned to fantasy, Lucas returned to the ‘Star Wars’ saga, or John Ford returned to the western.
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Now the music industry is sort of like a Craigslist venture, right? Where you’re making your own records and selling them online.
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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.
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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.
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Modern-day cinema takes the form of a sermon. You don’t get to think, you only get to receive information.
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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.
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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.
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Apparently there’s this kind of songbird that thinks it dies every time the sun goes down. In the morning, when it wakes up, it’s totally shocked to still be alive—so it sings this really beautiful song.
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You’re following your track, the story, your only plan, your map for the audience, and all the other stuff is, like, the fun stuff: the costumes, the locations, the set-dressing and the actors. They can all be variable as you like if you stick – however roughly – to the path.
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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.
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Free time keeps me going. It’s just something that’s always been a part of my life. I was originally a painter, and I made films sort of as an extension of that, and then I started to try to make dramatic films because the early films were experimental films.
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One of the things that is devastating is I realise I haven’t been living a different life than when I was, like, 12. I’m shocked at how reclusive I’ve been since then. I was unaware of it until recently.
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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.
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I have this new theory about films. It’s almost like astrology, where if we started on a Tuesday the film will be different than if we started on a Wednesday. Not because of the planets. It’s that sometimes you start with the wrong balance and the whole thing gets messed up.
GUS VAN SANT