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Portrait of Gus Van Sant

Gus Van Sant

(1952) Film Director United States

102 quotes in 600 categories

The unseen culture creates and controls student culture, shaping what kids see and do. Van Sant mentions feeling that everyone is conspiring against you when you first start making a film. He also admits a junkie lifestyle, saying drugs liked the lifestyle but it didn’t pay off.

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Gus Van Sant is a film director from the United States, best known for Pink.

Quick Facts About Gus Van Sant

Born: July 24, 1952
Nationality: United States
Profession: Film Director
Notable works: Pink

About Gus Van Sant

Gus Van Sant is an American filmmaker, photographer, painter, and musician known for independent movies that explore marginalized subcultures. He is considered one of the most prominent auteurs of the new queer cinema movement. His films often focus on gay culture and other marginalized subcultures.

Awards & Honors

Palme d'Or Cannes Best Director Award

Quotes by Gus Van Sant

Free time keeps me going.

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I mean, I think I'm pretty sentimental.

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I've always been attracted to temporary families.

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Usually people just hire me.

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Yeah, I try to be really calm.

Calm

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I had wanted to do a comedy.

Comedy

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I was once a shameless, full-time dope fiend.

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My department is to get actors to do stuff.

Actors

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My art teacher in junior high was a very out gay man and a mentor to me.

Art

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Even if you try to copy a film shot by shot, you still can't. It's still your own film.

Cinema

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You know, I don't think I had a concept of what I would be or do.

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Sometimes getting upset with yourself is necessary when you face the truth.

Faces

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I used to take photographs just to remember people.

Memory

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If it were up to the executives, they probably wouldn't have directors at all.

Cinema

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For all the boredom the straight life brings, it's not too bad.

Blessing

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I'm a junkie. I like drugs, I like the whole lifestyle, but it just didn't pay off.

Drug

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I did 'Mala Noche' as a way to do something that was outside of the system, because I was outside of the…

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Modern-day cinema takes the form of a sermon. You don't get to think, you only get to receive information.

Cinema

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I had never had a positive leading character - somebody that wasn't an antihero, or who wasn't more of a guy that…

Character

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I'm usually trying to react to what the actors are coming up with. And then the environment, and then the story.

Actors

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Because I didn't have brothers, I was always interested in the kids down the street that had four brothers in their family,…

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If you don't have the story and the unfolding of the trajectory of the saga, it's like getting in a car and…

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No construction stiff working overtime takes more stress and straining than we did just to stay high.

Addiction

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I was originally a painter, and I made films sort of as an extension of that, and then I started to try…

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I find it interesting, the different rules that apply to journalism and drama, even though journalism has become more and more about…

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Silent is about needing to make a scene shorter by having physical things to cut to. That way, you can manipulate a…

Action

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The rules of suspense are that you do know, and you just don't know when. In the Hitchcock rules of suspense, you…

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One of the things that is devastating is I realise I haven't been living a different life than when I was, like,…

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I think over the course of 14 films, I'm returning to a place that I know to tell a story... the same…

Fantasy

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You're following your track, the story, your only plan, your map for the audience, and all the other stuff is, like, the…

Actors

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Usually, when I read something, I'm looking for the story first. And then, when I re-read it, I check every part of…

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In rare cases, I've had music before I shot the movie. I think that for 'Good Will Hunting' I had an Elliot…

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I was petrified because all my friends would be going to Washington, DC, to protest. I was sixteen, and I was like,…

Authority

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It's easy to keep score at a football game because it's just how many times you get the ball over the goal.…

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A lot of times, I relied on connections through my agency, just for financing and things like that. Even when I'm looking…

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Well, I want to do everything in sort of a documentary style, ever since I started in the '80s.

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There's always a risk if you don't do things the way you've done things before.

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Everything's changing so fast that it's sometimes hard to keep up.

Change

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When you get to be 23, 24 or 25, you start to freeze up and become an adult.

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I'm normally drawn to something I haven't done and seen before.

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Gus Van Sant by topic

Film (24) Cinema (13) Thinking (11) People (10)