A Gus Van Sant Sampler
Gus Van Sant has just returned to the States from Madrid, where La Casa Encendida is currently presenting an exhibition of his photographs and drawings accompanied by a complete retrospective that includes his early experimental shorts. It’s the first complete overview of the American director’s work in Spain, and it includes creative collaborations with the likes of William Burroughs, William Eggleston, Bruce Weber, and David Bowie.
Tonight, Van Sant will be at the Metrograph in New York to take part in a Q&A with Kim Gordon following a sneak preview of his latest film, Don’t Worry, He Won’t Get Far on Foot. The screening kicks off a series of nine of Van Sant’s seventeen features, and previewing the mini-retro for the Village Voice, Fanta Sylla writes: “Short and sweet, the program is an efficient entry into a delightfully hybrid and generous thirty-plus-year career.”
Don’t Worry, set to open theatrically next month, stars Joaquin Phoenix as John Callahan, a hard-drinking artist and musician who turned to cartooning when a car crash left him bound to a wheelchair. The extraordinary cast also features Jonah Hill, Rooney Mara, Jack Black, Carrie Brownstein, Udo Kier, and Gordon, probably best known as a co-founding member of the iconic band Sonic Youth. When Don’t Worry premiered at Sundance in January, Steve Macfarlane, writing for Slant, found it “disarming for its sincerity, unalloyed in its positive thinking but unafraid of showing the gruesome details of alcoholism and denial to back up its bromides.”
In addition to screening the new film, Metrograph is also presenting a retrospective of the director’s work, ranging from his box office hit Good Will Hunting to his Béla Tarr–inspired Gerry.
