SQUIB SZN: E8: ELEPHANT (2003)
Manage episode 495129477 series 2854826
ELEPHANT (1st)
SPECIAL NOTE: SEASON 15 OF THE GOOD, THE POD AND THE UGLY CELEBRATES THE USE OF THE PRACTICAL AND DIGITAL EFFECT KNOWN AS THE SQUIB. IRL GUN VIOLENCE IS INTOLERABLE AND RENOUNCED BUT... CINEMATIC VIOLENCE WILL BE CELEBRATED IN A WAY WILL DISTURB SOME LISTENERS.
Episode 8 of TGTPTU’s Squib Games (Season 15) is a meditation on the film ELEPHANT (2003) written (in scare quotes) and directed by former Portland, OR native Gus Van Sant. Guest host Jack returns to discuss with Tom and Ken, each a generation on either side of the Columbine H.S. shootings, the 1999 impetus for this Van Sant slow cinema film.
Originally conceived as a HBO documentary and titled in misunderstanding as an homage to Alan Clarke’s film of the same name (to be covered later this season), Van Sant’s Elephant concerns a single day cut short by a school shooting as it follows different high school characters’ lives leading up to the active shooting event that will conclude the film.
The picture was shot at and edited in a studio built inside a Portland, OR public school, now demolished, along host Ken’s former running trail. Ken also brings to the ep extracurricular watches of the preceding JERRY (2002) and first quarter or so (more than most people can get through) of LAST DAYS (2005), the trio of which form Van Sant’s “Death Trilogy,” an improvised set of mumblecore-adjacent films based on real events and made outside of the Hollywood system, all lensed by Harris Savides whose scarf in his Wikipedia profile rivals any neck covering worn by legendary scarf enthusiast and Season 11’s subject Darren Aronofsky.
Follow us on the socials! Ken will follow you back, as we learn this episode that he likes to follow people. And not creepy at all! As promised in ep, Wikipedia strangely uses a photo of Ken in one of his gray suits as an image link for https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_LGBTQ_people_from_Portland,_Oregon.
Host Ryan is off this week playing piano and videogames but will return for 1993’s Hard Target.
THEME SONG BY: WEIRD A.I.
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Podcast: goodpodugly
Ken: Ken Koral
Ryan: Ryan Tobias
197 episodes