"Last days" and Van Sant's event structure

Alvina 2022-01-14 08:01:34

In this film, Gus Van Sant tries to show Kurt's mental state in the last few days before committing suicide. It seems that he likes to pose a problem for himself, analyze it calmly while biting the tip of the pen, and then tell the result calmly. That's how he successfully directed "Elephant". The calm and long-shot follow-up and the tension contained in the seemingly quiet image made a simple story extremely difficult.
Blake ran out of the drug rehabilitation center, muttering to himself "I can't do anything", and returned to this world that he couldn't adapt to. He could no longer communicate with them. Even though he was talented, he tried to escape. Can vent with music.
Michael Pitt’s music is great, and the soundtrack of "The Dreamer" also has his "hey, joe", and his singing is indeed very similar to Kobain.
Van Sant’s narrative structure is very special, that is, he will use several different viewpoints to express the same event, but this is not a repetition of events in time and space, but a deconstruction, a fission, It uses the point of view (pov) of multiple characters (cameras) to express the event itself as complete, comprehensively and three-dimensionally as possible. On this basis, on this seemingly repetitive event, we will get a new understanding , Which makes us calm down, just like looking around the artwork in the museum. At this time, the time of the movie is no longer a straight line, but a complete cube. And the contrast between the front and back of the new spatial relationship formed on this basis gave me a new and wonderful experience and discovery.
Cubist painting rationally denies the traditional method of observing and expressing things from one point of view. It advocates not to see things from one point of view, but to display what is observed and understood from different points of view in the picture, thus showing the continuity of time. . I don’t know if Van Sant’s approach can be described as temporal cubism or image structuralism, but the two do have similarities.

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Extended Reading

Last Days quotes

  • Blake: You know, it's kinda like... Success is subjective, you know. It could be an opinion.

  • Record Executive: Have you uh, talked to your daughter? Hmm.

    Blake: Hmm. Yeah I've been talking to her on the phone.

    Record Executive: What do you say to her?

    Blake: Hmm-mm. I do the voices she likes. I don't know. I tell her I miss her.