ELEPHANT (FILM)

'''Elephant''' is a 2003 American film written and directed by Gus Van Sant. It is set on the day of a massive school shooting. Most of the film takes place about five minutes before the shooting occurs, following several characters as they live out their school lives, unaware of what is about to unfold. The film stars mostly new or non-professional actors, including John Robinson, Alex Frost and Eric Deulen.
This is the second movie in Gus Van Sant's Death Trilogy - the first is ''Gerry'' and the third ''Last Days''; all three are based on actual events. ''Elephant'' takes place in the fictional Watt High School, in the suburbs of Portland, Oregon, and chronicles the events surrounding a fictional school shooting, based in part on the 1999 Columbine High School Massacre although the end of the film stresses the "similarities to actual events are purely coincidental" disclaimer.
The film was generally acclaimed by critics, and received the prestigious 2003 Palme d'Or at the Festival de Cannes. As the first high-profile movie to address high school shootings since Columbine, the film was controversial for its subject matter and possible influence on teenaged copy-cats. ''Elephant'' received an R rating from the MPAA.

Contents

Story

Synopsis

Production

Cast

Title

Motifs

North American premiere and release

Controversies

See also

External links

Story

Synopsis

The film opens with Mr. McFarland (Timothy Bottoms) driving erratically down a residential street with his son John (John Robinson) in the passenger seat. It becomes apparent that Mr. McFarland is intoxicated as John instructs him to pull over and let him drive. They arrive at John's high school, where he refuses to give his father the car keys and ends up leaving them in the school office for his brother to collect.
The camera follows other students as they walk down the hallways, talk to friends and go to class. Many characters are shown in long tracking shots that do not turn away. Alex (Alex Frost) and Eric (Eric Deulen) are shown being constantly picked on at school by the jocks, several of whom throw spitballs at Alex during science class. Later, Alex and Eric are shown at home ordering weapons from a website and receiving an assault rifle in the mail. The two are later shown formulating an attack plan. The next day, Alex and Eric kiss in the shower before making their way to the school in silence.
After arriving at school, Alex and Eric encounter John outside and warn him to run away. Realizing what is about to happen, John attempts to warn others not to enter the school, to little effect. The two boys then enter the school and after their plans to blow up parts of the school with propane bombs fail, begin shooting indiscriminately. Elias photographs them entering the library where they open fire, shooting several students, including Michelle and presumably Elias. Realizing that the gunfire is real, students now begin to panic, while teachers attempt to quickly evacuate everyone. The two boys separate, continuing their killing spree. Alex enters the bathroom where Brittany, Jordan, and Nicole are, presumably shooting all three. Benny approaches Eric but is shot with Eric's TEC-9. Mr. Luce pleads to Eric to spare his life, and Eric initially agrees to let him go, but guns him down seconds later.
Alex enters the cafeteria and sits down (where he has apparently already opened fire, as a body can be seen in the background). Eric meets up with him, and they have a brief conversation, after which Alex shoots Eric in mid-sentence. Alex then leaves the cafeteria, showing no emotion over shooting Eric. The film ends without resolution, with Alex discovering Carrie and Nathan in a freezer and taunting them as to whom he should kill first. The last shot of the film is a cloudy blue sky. The viewer never finds out which person Alex shot, or if he shot either of them at all, or possibly both.

Production

The film began as a television film that Van Sant had intended to make about the Columbine High School massacre; eventually, the idea of a factual account was dropped, but the film still shows its television roots by being shot in a 1.33 aspect ratio rather than the traditional widescreen cinematic ratio.
The script was "written" to its final form during shooting, with cast members improvising freely and collaborating in the direction of scenes. The result is described by reviewers as "poetic" and "dreamlike", and by Van Sant himself as a rejection of conventional narrative, building on what he learned from work on ''Gerry''. [In the scene in Alex's bedroom where Alex plays Beethoven on his piano while Eric is playing a first person shooter game on Alex's laptop computer, the characters that appear in the game has a very close similarity to the protagonists from ''Gerry''. Furthermore, there is also a scoring system in the corner of the computer screen that reads "GERRY-COUNT".
JT LeRoy is credited as an associate producer for the film, even though no such person exists. LeRoy was, ostensibly, an abused teenager who wrote several novels based on his life, but was in fact the fictional creation of a writer, Laura Albert. Albert did not publicly acknowledge that LeRoy wasn't a real person until ''The New York Times'' uncovered her hoax. Several roles are credited to "Mary Christmass", presumably another false name.

Cast

The teen actors were chosen for the parts based on interviews and their ability to improvise before the camera. Some of the characters were developed from details selected from the interviews. Many of the main characters' names are in fact the same as their performers. Some of the students' activities shown in the movie (aside from the shootings) are done by the real cast as well, with Elias being an actual photographer and Alex actually playing the piano during his scenes (as well as incidental music elsewhere). The actors were all real students who had to take time off of school to film; during breaks and retakes, they could be caught catching up on their homework.

Actor	Role
Alex Frost	Alex
Eric Deulen	Eric
John Robinson	John McFarland
Elias McConnell	Elias
Jordan Taylor	Jordan
Carrie Finklea	Carrie
Nicole George	Nicole
Brittany Mountain	Brittany
Chantelle Chriestenson	Noelle
Alicia Miles	Acadia
Kristen Hicks	Michelle
Bennie Dixon	Benny
Nathan Tyson	Nathan

The extras were given little instruction and were often simply told to behave as they would if it were real. Many times, they were simply told to run, walk, talk, go to class, eat lunch, or watch. In the cafeteria scene, the food was prepared in advance and left at tables for an extended period of time. When cast members appeared, they were simply told to find a spot and pretend to eat the cold, smelly food. The part of the film that shows one of the attackers in the cafeteria, hearing screaming in his head, was not shot that way. During filming, the attacker rubbed his forehead, screamed for everyone to shut up, and then received jeers from the extras. Because the timing was not working correctly, the format was changed.

Title

The title is a tribute to the 1989 BBC film of the same name, directed by Alan Clarke, which reflects on sectarian violence in Northern Ireland. Like Clarke, Van Sant portrays violence as something unfathomable, not unlike many other disturbing things in the lives of teenagers, which invite convenient explanations but ultimately frustrate analysis.
Van Sant has also offered other reasons for the title. It is an allusion to the idiom "an elephant in the room", which refers to a large problem that no one talks about but everyone must find their way around as they go about their daily lives. A drawing of an elephant as well as an image of an elephant on a throw on the bed can be seen in Alex's room, while he plays the piano. It also evokes the Indian parable about the blind wise men who, unable to grasp the whole, interpret the elephant only in terms of the part they can comprehend: "An elephant is a tree," said the blind man who grasped the leg; "An elephant is a snake," said the one who touched the trunk; etc.

Motifs

; Nature : Nature is shown frequently in the hour leading up to the shooting. This begins with the opening scene of John's father driving, where the audience watched from a birds-eye point of view, between the trees on each side which are shedding their maple leaves. The film also includes many references to animals, e.g. the title and the bull on one character's shirt. Also, during the shooting, the sounds of birds chirping and singing can often be heard.
; Yellow : The colour yellow is shown in a subtle manner throughout the film. Examples include John's shirt and Benny's jersey.
; Depersonalisation : The film follows each character through their day, which is uneventful: A couple spend time together; a girl works at the library; a boy takes photographs for his work. This is later shattered as Alex and Eric open fire, and several of these characters are killed quickly and coldly, in a style different from that in the rest of the film.

North American premiere and release

''Elephant'' premiered in North America at a benefit for the Outside In youth shelter in Portland, at the Arlene Schnitzer Concert Hall, in Portland, Oregon, on Saturday, October 4, 2003, with several teenagers who appeared in the film in attendance.
The film was released for incremental distribution by HBO, in 100 theaters in the United States, beginning October 24, 2003. English language release on DVD and VHS began on May 4, 2004.

Controversies

★ Prior to its distribution, the film generated minor controversy and divided reviews following the Cannes debut, particularly in the gay community. In the movie the two male killers kiss one another in the shower before they dispassionately commence their Columbine-like frenzy. It should be noted that, during the shower scene, prior to the kiss, one of the boys laments "I've never even kissed anyone before."

★ Although it was made afterward, ''Elephant's'' release coincided with that of the lower budget ''Zero Day''. Coincidentally, the directors of both films received degrees in film from the Rhode Island School of Design.

★ The 2005 Red Lake High School Massacre was briefly blamed on the film Elephant as it was watched by Jeffrey Weise 17 days prior to the shooting.[1] A friend of Weise said that he brought the movie over to a friends house and skipped ahead to parts that showed two students planning and carrying out a school massacre, although they talked about the film afterwards Jeffrey Weise said and did nothing to make anyone suspect what he was planning.[2]

★ The AR-15 rifle used by Eric in the massacre is seen to be shipped directly to his door as one complete unit, however this is not legal in the United States. The lower receiver section of any rifle cannot be shipped to anyone other than a licensed Federal Firearms dealer. Only the upper receiver can be shipped without the FFL intermediary.

See also

★ Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold, the shooters on whom characters Alex and Eric are based

★ Red Lake High School Massacre, for which ''Elephant'' briefly received blame in 2005

★ ''Zero Day'', another 2003 film inspired by the 1999 Columbine High School Massacre

★ ''Heart of America'', a movie which uses both similar plot and similar filming techniques

★ '', a 2006 Australian film that uses a similar filming style (tracking shots, unknown cast, time shifts), but instead deals with a student's on-campus suicide

External links

★ Official site

★

★ Film criticism article on ''Elephant'''s politics Alternate Takes

★ A student reviews ''Elephant'' in Cambridge, Mass.