Gus Van Sant

Mala Noche

Mala Noche

With its low budget and lush black-and-white imagery, Gus Van Sant's debut feature Mala Noche heralded an idiosyncratic, provocative new voice in American independent film. Set in Van Sant's hometown of Portland, Oregon, the film evokes a world of transient workers, dead-end day-shifters, and bars and seedy apartments bathed in a profound nighttime, as it follows a romantic deadbeat with a wayward crush on a handsome Mexican immigrant. Mala Noche was an important prelude to the New Queer Cinema of the nineties and is a fascinating capsule from a time and place that continues to haunt its director's work.

Film Info

  • United States
  • 1985
  • 78 minutes
  • Black & White
  • 1.33:1
  • English
  • Spine #407

Director-Approved Special Edition Features

  • New, restored high-definition digital transfer, supervised and approved by director Gus Van Sant
  • New interview with Van Sant
  • Walt Curtis, the Peckerneck Poet: a documentary about the author of the book Mala Noche, directed by animator and friend Bill Plympton
  • Storyboard gallery
  • Original trailer edited by Van Sant
  • English subtitles for the deaf and hard of hearing
  • PLUS: A new essay by film critic Dennis Lim

    New cover by Steve Chow

Purchase Options

Director-Approved Special Edition Features

  • New, restored high-definition digital transfer, supervised and approved by director Gus Van Sant
  • New interview with Van Sant
  • Walt Curtis, the Peckerneck Poet: a documentary about the author of the book Mala Noche, directed by animator and friend Bill Plympton
  • Storyboard gallery
  • Original trailer edited by Van Sant
  • English subtitles for the deaf and hard of hearing
  • PLUS: A new essay by film critic Dennis Lim

    New cover by Steve Chow
Mala Noche
Cast
Tim Streeter
Walt
Doug Cooeyate
Johnny
Ray Monge
Roberto "Pepper"
Nyla McCarthy
Betty, Walt's girl
Sam Downey
Hotel clerk
Bob Pitchlynn
Drunk man
Eric Pedersen
Policeman
Marty Christiansen
Bar friend
Bad George Connor
Featured wino
Don Chambers
Himself
Walt Curtis
George
Credits
Director
Gus Van Sant
Producer
Gus Van Sant
Screenplay
Gus Van Sant
Cinematography
John Campbell
Sound
Pat Baum
Music
Creighton Lindsay
Additional photography
Eric Alan Edwards
From the book by
Walt Curtis

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