Playing "the gun card" - first it was Michael Moore, now it's Van Zant

[longeyes]

Anyone surprised that ELEPHANT won the biggie at Cannes? Maybe the French should worry more about why girls are being set on fire in Parisian slums?

Van Sant Wins Top Cannes Award for 'Elephant'
40 minutes ago

By Catherine Bremer

CANNES, France (Reuters) - Gus Van Sant (news) won the Cannes film
festival (news - web sites)'s coveted Palme d'Or award Sunday for
"Elephant," a film that enters the lives of actual U.S. students to see how
they cope with shootings and violence at school.

The prize was a long-awaited triumph for the U.S.
director who has won plaudits in Hollywood with
films like "Good Will Hunting" and "To Die For,"
but had yet to win over the arthouse-loving critics
of the French Riviera.

Van Sant was also awarded the prize for best
direction.

"I thought I was finished," an emotional Van Sant
told the star-studded awards ceremony audience,
as he was called back up to the stage for the top
prize.

"I've been trying to get my films to Cannes for
years, and this time, it's wonderful to receive
such a prize. To win is miraculous and fortunate
and lucky," he added.

"Elephant" uses non-actor children from Van
Sant's home town of Portland, Oregon to paint an
impressionistic picture of everyday high school life that turns suddenly to
tragedy.

It comes a year after Michael Moore (news) was lauded at Cannes for his
probing documentary "Bowling for Columbine," which also examined
America's gun culture and high-school shootings....

 

[Hkmp5sd]

"I've been trying to get my films to Cannes for years, and this time, it's wonderful to receive such a prize. To win is miraculous and fortunate and lucky," he added.

When you work sucks and you are a complete failure, simply latch onto something that the people with the money and the judges support and jump on the bandwagon. No skill. No subject. No facts. No fans. No life. No problem.

 

[Standing Wolf]

If not for fear, hatred, racism, envy, sloth, and plain old-fashioned anti-Second Amendment bigotry, leftists would have no guiding philosophical principles whatever.

 

[Bruce in West Oz]

The same report from a different viewpoint barely mentions guns -- though I find it interesting that Van Sant is already on the defensive.

School shooting film wins at Cannes

Gus Van Sant's film Elephant, based on the 1999 Columbine school shootings, has won the Palme d'Or prize and best director honour at Cannes film festival.

Van Sant, who also directed the Oscar-winning Good Will Hunting, used high school students rather than actors in his film.

"Thank you very much, from the bottom of my heart. Vive la France!" he said.

He was the first American to win the prestigious prize since Quentin Tarantino did for Pulp Fiction in 1994.

"I thought I was finished," he added. "I've been trying to get my films to Cannes for years, and this time, it's wonderful to receive such a prize. To win is miraculous and fortunate and lucky."

The Palme d'Or was awarded by the festival's jury, which was headed by French director Patrice Chereau and included Oscar-winning director Steven Soderbergh and actresses Meg Ryan and Aishwarya Rai.

The director beat other favourites for the prize including Dogville, starring Nicole Kidman, and Clint Eastwood's star-studded Mystic River, both of which left empty-handed.

British director Peter Greenaway's film, The Tulse Luper suitcases also missed out on a prize, having been up for the Palme d'Or.

Van Sant rejected any suggestion that his movie was anti-American.

"I live in America, it's made from the viewpoint of my own life in America," he said.

But he did admit the film criticised certain things, including "the urge to conform in a bland way, forgetting diversity, which is encouraged at Cannes".

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/entertainment/2937038.stm

 

[Solinvictus70]

Well, it really doesn't surprise me because by and large, Van Sant HAD been written off as finished by the film industry. All he has done is latch on to a pathetically overstated false notion and get himself back into the limelight. I guess the ultimate paradox to me is that Hollywood types promote assorted media that GLORIFIES anti-social behavior, rap music in particular, yet gets on these "save the kids" bandwagons when it comes to individual rights. Gerald Levin, former Time Warner CEO, defended and promoted every sort of music that advocated violence, yet his son was murdered by a crack addict. I hope the irony of that was not lost on him.