91. Gus Van Sant
GUS VAN SANT
MILK, MY OWN PRIVATE IDAHO, GERRY, GOOD WILL HUNTING
One of the more vocal proponents of the “one for them, several for me” model of a sustainable directing career, he’s one of the very few as capable of disappearing into his commercial works as he is pouring everything into his independents. Good Will Hunting is a film without much in the way of a directorial stamp, but he gives it the small grace it needs. Milk is a totally standard biopic, but he and cinematographer Harris Savides found a new way to see it, stripping it of its sheen and giving it a look inherent to the period it represented, and directing naturalistic performances to suit that aesthetic. It was the perfect lesson taken from the ultra-naturalistic, long-take heaven that resides in Gerry, Elephant, and Last Days, films that reveal how much is kept inward, how little we truly express, and how uncaring the world is about any of it.
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