Film Director Gus Van Sant Loves Oregon
When you think of Oregon, what comes to mind most often are evergreen forests, “green” Portland, and breathtaking, sweeping landscapes. If you’re thinking about cinema, though, American director Gus Van Sant’s name should be the first name out of your mouth.
Gus Van Sant, one of the most influential contemporary American indie directors whose acclaimed films have garnered Oscars aplenty, was actually born in Kentucky, though you would never know it from his many movies set in Oregon. Van Sant was raised in the Beaver State and made it the setting for four of his feature films.Check out this link here. Just as the forests of Oregon can be dark, Van Sant’s films are often about grim, bleak happenings in and around Portland. In Elephant (2003) we find a high school dealing with a school shooting, and in Paranoid Park (2007) a teen accidentally kills a security guard when he hits him with a skateboard. Is Van Sant giving Oregon a bad rap? Not really. Even if the state seems to be the muse responsible for his most desolate work, we can still hope for him to churn out another uplifting Good Will Hunting (2007) or Milk (2008), only this time it’ll be Oregon-style.