''Elephant'' is a 2003 American psychological drama film written, directed, and edited by

Gus Van Sant Gus Green Van Sant Jr. (born July 24, 1952) is an American film director, producer, photographer, and musician. He has earned acclaim as both an independent and mainstream filmmaker. His films typically deal with themes of marginalized subcultu ...

. It takes place in the fictional Watt High School, in the suburbs of

Portland, Oregon Portland (, ) is a port city in the Pacific Northwest and the largest city in the U.S. state of Oregon. Situated at the confluence of the Willamette and Columbia rivers, Portland is the county seat of Multnomah County, the most populous ...

, and chronicles the events surrounding a school shooting, based in part on the 1999

Columbine High School massacre On April 20, 1999, a school shooting and attempted bombing occurred at Columbine High School in Columbine, Colorado, United States. The perpetrators, 12th grade students Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold, murdered 12 students and one teacher. ...

. The film begins a short time before the shooting occurs, following the lives of several characters both in and out of school, who are unaware of what is about to unfold. The film stars mostly new or non-professional actors, including

John Robinson John Robinson may refer to: Academics *John Thomas Romney Robinson (1792–1882), Irish astronomer and physicist * John J. Robinson (1918–1996), historian and author of ''Born in Blood'' * John Talbot Robinson (1923–2001), paleontologist *Joh ...

, Alex Frost, and Eric Deulen. ''Elephant'' is the second film in Van Sant's " Death Trilogy"—the first is ''

Gerry Gerry is both a surname and a masculine or feminine given name. As a given name, it is often a short form (hypocorism) of Gerard, Gerald or Geraldine. Notable people with the name include: Surname *Elbridge Gerry (1744–1814), fifth US vice pre ...

'' (2002) and the third '' Last Days'' (2005)—all three of which are based on actual events. Although ''Elephant'' was controversial for its subject matter and allegations of influence on the Red Lake shootings, it was generally praised by critics and received the Palme d'Or at the

2003 Cannes Film Festival The 56th Cannes Film Festival started on 14 May and ran until 25 May 2003. French opera and theatre director, filmmaker, actor and producer Patrice Chéreau was the President of the Jury. The Palme d'Or went to the American film ''Elephant'' by ...

, in which Patrice Chéreau was the head of the jury.

Plot

At the start of the film, John McFarland is being driven to school by his father, who is driving erratically down the road. Noticing the damage done to the car, John realizes that his father is drunk and makes him move to the passenger seat so he can drive. When John arrives at school late, he is reprimanded by the principal, Mr. Luce. The majority of the film is spent following several high school students going about their daily lives just before a school shooting. In addition to John, who struggles with controlling his alcoholic father, photography student Elias builds a portfolio of other students. Outcast Michelle struggles with her body issues and assists in the library. Bulimics Nicole, Brittany, and Jordan gripe about their parents and squabble while popular athlete and lifeguard Nathan meets with his girlfriend, Carrie. Acadia, a close friend of John's, attends a Gay-Straight Alliance meeting. Unknown to anyone, two other students, Alex and Eric, are preparing to carry out a bomb/shooting attack on their school. Flashbacks throughout the film show them preparing for the massacre by ordering weapons online and formulating an attack plan. The two have a brief sexual encounter in the shower after they both admit that they've never kissed anyone before. Their motives for the shooting appear vague; the film provides evidence suggesting bullying, neglect, violent video games, and Nazism. On the day of the shooting, the pair make their way to school in Alex's car. Alex is armed with a Carbon-15 and a shotgun while Eric has a TEC-9. As they enter the school, they encounter John, and Alex tells him to leave. Realizing what is about to happen, John tries to warn students and teachers outside not to go into the school, but few people listen. He then notices his dad is missing after they arrived earlier and goes looking for him. Alex and Eric plant propane bombs in the cafeteria, hoping to blow it up and shoot people as they try to escape the fire. When the bombs fail, they decide to start shooting indiscriminately. The pair head into the library, where Elias photographs them right before they open fire on students. Michelle is killed, while Elias' fate is left unclear. Other students quickly realize that the gunfire is real and begin to panic, and teachers begin evacuating students. Alex and Eric split up to opposing ends of the school to continue their shooting. Alex enters the girls' bathroom where he surprises Jordan, Nicole, and Brittany, presumably shooting all three. A student attending the Gay-Straight Alliance meeting enters the hallway investigating the gunfire and is shot dead. The alliance members evacuate through a window save for Acadia, who freezes at the sight of her dead classmate. Benny, an African-American student athlete, finds her and helps her out the window before deciding to find and confront the shooters. Outside the school, John finds his now sobered-up father, who tries to comfort his son as the shooting continues. While helping students escape, Mr. Luce is cornered and threatened by Eric, prompting Mr. Luce to try and reason with him. Benny walks up behind Eric, but Eric abruptly turns around and shoots Benny dead. Eric tells Mr. Luce not to treat kids like him and Alex poorly. He then lets Mr. Luce go, only to gun him down seconds later. Alex enters the cafeteria, which is strewn with overturned chairs, backpacks, several dead bodies, and numerous abandoned half-eaten lunches, and sits down. Alex picks up a cup from an abandoned lunch and casually drinks from it. Eric meets up with him, and they have a brief conversation about who they've shot, which ends when Alex shoots Eric mid-sentence. Alex leaves the cafeteria, showing no emotion over killing Eric, and discovers Carrie and Nathan hiding in a freezer. He tauntingly recites " Eeny, meeny, miny, moe" to them to decide whom he should kill first. The film then cuts to credits leaving the ending ambiguous.

Cast

* Alex Frost as Alex, the more intelligent of the two killers, implied to be the one in charge. He is an accomplished but frustrated

pianist A pianist ( , ) is an individual musician who plays the piano. Since most forms of Western music can make use of the piano, pianists have a wide repertoire and a wide variety of styles to choose from, among them traditional classical music, ja ...

and sketch artist. He and Eric kiss before the massacre, both citing the fact that they had never been kissed. * Eric Deulen as Eric, a slacker, Alex's friend, and the other killer. He is less intelligent than Alex, and Alex is obviously aware of this. He is shot in the chest by Alex near the end of the film, while talking about whom he had killed earlier. *

as John McFarland, Alex's friend who has trouble at school while managing his alcoholic father. Alex warns him to stay away from the massacre. * Timothy Bottoms as Mr. McFarland, John's alcoholic father. * Matt Malloy as Mr. Luce, the principal of the school. Cornered by Eric, who briefly spares him, he is presumed dead after being shot several times. * Elias McConnell as Elias, a

photography Photography is the art, application, and practice of creating durable images by recording light, either electronically by means of an image sensor, or chemically by means of a light-sensitive material such as photographic film. It is emplo ...

student building his portfolio with portraits of other students. * Nathan Tyson and Carrie Finklea as Nathan and Carrie, a popular

lifeguard A lifeguard is a rescuer who supervises the safety and rescue of swimmers, surfers, and other water sports participants such as in a swimming pool, water park A water park (or waterpark, water world) is an amusement park that features ...

football player A football player or footballer is a sportsperson who plays one of the different types of football. The main types of football are association football, American football, Canadian football, Australian rules football, Gaelic football, rugby ...

and his girlfriend. Alex taunts them with Eeny, meeny, miny, moe. * Kristen Hicks as Michelle, a

nerdy A nerd is a person seen as overly intellectual, obsessive, introverted The traits of extraversion (also spelled extroversion Retrieved 2018-02-21.) and introversion are a central dimension in some human personality theories. The terms ''i ...

girl ashamed of her body. The film follows her through the locker room and into the

library A library is a collection of materials, books or media that are accessible for use and not just for display purposes. A library provides physical (hard copies) or digital access (soft copies) materials, and may be a physical location or a vi ...

where she assists, it is there that she is the first to die in the massacre. * Brittany Mountain, Jordan Taylor, and Nicole George as Brittany, Jordan, and Nicole, three bulimic girls who talk incessantly, gripe about parents, and squabble with one another. * Bennie Dixon as Benny, an athletic student who helps Acadia escape out of a window before approaching Eric. He is shot and presumed dead. * Alicia Miles as Acadia, a close friend of John and a member of the Gay-Straight Alliance. She is assumed to have a panic disorder which causes her to freeze and break down in times of fear or stress. During the shooting, Benny discovers her standing still in a classroom and helps her escape from the school and the shooters.

Production

The film began as a documentary that Van Sant had intended to make about the

; eventually, the idea of a factual account was dropped. ''Elephant'' was filmed in Van Sant's hometown,

, in late 2002, on the former campus of Whitaker Middle School (previously Adams High School). Whitaker was closed by the Portland Public Schools in 2001 due to structural problems and safety concerns with the school building. The Whitaker/Adams building, completed in 1969, was torn down in 2007. There was no initial script before the filming started. The script was "written" to its final form during shooting, with cast members

improvising Improvisation is the activity of making or doing something not planned beforehand, using whatever can be found. Improvisation in the performing arts is a very spontaneous performance without specific or scripted preparation. The skills of impr ...

freely and collaborating in the direction of scenes. It was shot over 20 days.

JT LeRoy Jeremiah Terminator LeRoy, or simply JT LeRoy is a literary persona created in the 1990s by American writer Laura Albert. LeRoy was presented as the author of three books of fiction, which were purportedly semi-autobiographical accounts by a te ...

(a pen name for author

Laura Albert Laura Victoria Albert (born November 2, 1965) is an American author who invented the literary persona JT LeRoy, whom Albert described as an "avatar." She published various works of purportedly autobiographical fiction under the LeRoy name befo ...

) is credited as an associate producer for the film.

Title

The title ''Elephant'' is a tribute to the 1989 BBC

short film A short film is any motion picture that is short enough in running time not to be considered a feature film. The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences defines a short film as "an original motion picture that has a running time of 40 minutes ...

of the same name, directed by

Alan Clarke Alan John Clarke (28 October 1935 – 24 July 1990) was an English television and film director, producer and writer. Life and career Clarke was born in Wallasey, Wirral, England. Most of Clarke's output was for television rather than cinema, ...

. Van Sant originally believed Clarke's title referred to the parable of the

blind men and an elephant The parable of the blind men and an elephant is a story of a group of blind men who have never come across an elephant before and who learn and imagine what the elephant is like by touching it. Each blind man feels a different part of the elepha ...

, in which several blind men try to describe an elephant, and each draws different conclusions based on which body part he touched, and Van Sant's film uses that interpretation, as the same general timeline is shown multiple times from multiple viewpoints. Later, Van Sant discovered Clarke's film referred to the phrase "

elephant in the room The expression “the elephant in the room” (or "the elephant in the living room") is a metaphorical idiom in English for an important or enormous topic, question, or controversial issue that is obvious or that everyone knows about but no one ...

" (the collective denial of some obvious problem). Also,

named

Chantal Akerman Chantal Anne Akerman (; 6 June 19505 October 2015) was a Belgian film director, screenwriter, artist, and film professor at the City College of New York. She is best known for films such as ''Jeanne Dielman, 23 quai du Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles' ...

's film ''

Jeanne Dielman, 23 quai du Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles ''Jeanne Dielman, 23, quai du Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles'' (, "Jeanne Dielman, 23 Commerce Quay, 1080 Brussels") is a 1975 drama film written and directed by Belgian filmmaker Chantal Akerman. It was filmed over five weeks on location in Brussels, ...

'' (1975) an inspiration. Clarke's film ''Elephant'' reflects on sectarian violence in

Northern Ireland Northern Ireland ( ga, Tuaisceart Éireann ; sco, label=Ulster Scots dialect, Ulster-Scots, Norlin Airlann) is a part of the United Kingdom, situated in the north-east of the island of Ireland, that is #Descriptions, variously described as ...

. Van Sant's minimalist style and use of tracking shots mirrors Clarke's film. A drawing of an elephant as well as an image of an elephant on a bed throw can be seen in Alex's room while he plays the piano.

Release

The film competed at the

Cannes Film Festival The Cannes Festival (; french: link=no, Festival de Cannes), until 2003 called the International Film Festival (') and known in English as the Cannes Film Festival, is an annual film festival held in Cannes, France, which previews new films ...

in May 2003. Van Sant claimed audiences in attendance at Cannes argued over its quality, leading to altercations.

Reception

Critical response

''Elephant'' received mainly positive reviews from critics and has a score of 73% on

Rotten Tomatoes Rotten Tomatoes is an American review-aggregation website for film and television. The company was launched in August 1998 by three undergraduate students at the University of California, Berkeley: Senh Duong, Patrick Y. Lee, and Stephen Wan ...

based on 160 reviews with an average rating of 7.10/10. The critical consensus states "The movie's spare and unconventional style will divide viewers." The film also has a score of 70 out of 100 on

Metacritic Metacritic is a website that aggregates reviews of films, TV shows, music albums, video games and formerly, books. For each product, the scores from each review are averaged (a weighted average). Metacritic was created by Jason Dietz, Marc ...

based on 37 critics indicating "generally favourable reviews".

Roger Ebert Roger Joseph Ebert (; June 18, 1942 – April 4, 2013) was an American film critic, film historian, journalist, screenwriter, and author. He was a film critic for the ''Chicago Sun-Times'' from 1967 until his death in 2013. In 1975, Ebert beca ...

praised the film and gave it 4 out of 4 stars writing "Gus Van Sant's ''Elephant'' is a violent movie in the sense that many innocent people are shot dead. But it isn't violent in the way it presents those deaths. There is no pumped-up style, no lingering, no release, no climax. Just implacable, poker-faced, flat, uninflected death. Truffaut said it was hard to make an anti-war film because war was exciting even if you were against it. Van Sant has made an anti-violence film by draining violence of energy, purpose, glamor, reward and social context. It just happens. I doubt that ''Elephant'' will ever inspire anyone to copy what they see on the screen. Much more than the insipid message movies shown in social studies classes, it might inspire useful discussion and soul-searching among high school students."

Accolades

Red Lake shootings controversy

The Red Lake shootings that occurred in 2005 were briefly blamed on the film, as it was viewed by gunman Jeff Weise 17 days prior to the event. A friend of Weise said that he brought the film over to a friend's house and skipped ahead to parts that showed two students planning and carrying out a school massacre. Although they talked about the film afterwards, Weise said and did nothing to make anyone suspect what he was planning.. ''

KTVO-TV KTVO (channel 3) is a television station licensed to Kirksville, Missouri, United States, serving the Ottumwa, Iowa–Kirksville, Missouri market as an affiliate of ABC and CBS. Owned by Sinclair Broadcast Group, the station maintains studios o ...

''.

References

External links

* * * * {{DEFAULTSORT:Elephant (Film) 2003 films 2003 crime drama films 2003 independent films 2003 LGBT-related films 2000s American films 2000s English-language films 2000s high school films 2000s psychological drama films 2000s teen drama films American crime drama films American high school films American nonlinear narrative films American psychological drama films American teen drama films American teen LGBT-related films Features based on short films Films about mass murder Films about murderers Films about school bullying Films about school violence Films about virginity Films directed by Gus Van Sant Films set in Oregon Films shot in Portland, Oregon Films with screenplays by Gus Van Sant HBO Films films Hyperlink films LGBT-related drama films Palme d'Or winners Works about the Columbine High School massacre