Gus Van Sant’s Restless

Director Gus Van Sant collapses into a plush chair at the Four Seasons Hotel in Beverly Hills. It’s the end of a long day of press for his new feature, Restless, and he will be dashing straight from our interview to a sound mixing session for the Starz series, “Boss,” Van Sant’s first foray into television.

Quirky and heart wrenching, Restless tells the story of young love blossoming in the shadow of death. A modern day Love Story meets Harold and Maude, the film stars Mia Wasikowska (Alice in Wonderland) as Annabel, a whimsical, Darwin-loving terminal cancer patient and newcomer Henry Hopper (son of Dennis Hopper) as Enoch, a morbid funeral crasher who hangs out with the ghost of a World War II Japanese kamikaze pilot.

Originally a series of short plays written by Jason Lew while he was studying at New York University, Restless developed into a feature film with the encouragement of Lew’s former classmate, actress Bryce Dallas Howard, who also produced the movie.

Restless is Van Sant’s first movie since the Oscar-nominated biopic Milk. In the canon of Van Sant’s work, which has ranged from avant-garde indies to big-budget hits, his latest film falls on the offbeat side of main- stream. Van Sant earned critical acclaim early in his career for art house films such as Drug- store Cowboy (1989) and My Own Private Idaho (1991). But it was with Oscar-winner Good Will Hunting (1997) that he gained mainstream approval. He subsequently directed a remake of Hitchcock’s Psycho (1998) and Finding Forrester (2000) before returning to independent cinema with his “Death Trilogy” of Gerry (2002), Elephant (2003), and Last Days (2005). Van Sant says that he views his independent films as more expressive of his artistic vision than the mainstream pictures, which are intended to reach a general audience.

The twice Oscar-nominated director, casually dressed in a t-shirt tucked into belted jeans, drapes one leg over his chair’s arm as he muses about his films, “anonymous” versus “creator centric” art, and why some of us are doomed to become boring at the age of twenty-two.

Venice: What was the draw to Restless?

It was sort of a simple story about two characters. The characters meet in the very first scene, and they stay together until practically the very last scene. It was this very strong focus on two people, which I guess I’d never really seen very often. I liked it, and I’d never done that before.

There’s a tragic paradox in that Annabel teaches Enoch about life and love as she’s approaching her death. What do you hope that viewers take away from their story?

It’s a story about their love, so I guess the thing you would take away would be their love. A film like this is not reducible. All the things in the film take an hour and a half to say.

Aside from being about love, the film is also about death, which is a theme you’ve often returned to in your work.

I’m not sure that this is the same kind of thing. The other films were specifically about the characters dying. This is more: she has cancer, and she’s going to not have that long to live. It’s more about finding people that will actually relate to her without having that death overshadow their relationship with her. Like apparently her sister and her mom are too overcome with grief to even look at her or allow her to say something that might be whimsical because it’s too sad for them to sit through. So she’s finding somebody outside the family. She’s forcing somebody to be her friend because she needs someone to take her on her own terms and not have everything be about the sadness. Which is something that Jason [Lew] is writing about as his father was a pediatric oncologist.

Child cancer patients really do this?

Younger children will often make friends with somebody new that’s just their own friend who can ask her how things are and just by- the-by stuff. This guy who worked next to me in an office in Portland was an art therapist. He worked with kids with debilitating diseases. He often was the guy that they latched onto because he was an outsider; he was really friendly and talkative. He would watch the parents come in and be with the child for half an hour. Then they’d have to leave and be really sad. It’s hard for the child because they know the parent is sad. When the parent would leave, this one particular girl looked up at him and said, “Okay, next?” Like who is next to bum out. So it’s not really like they’re living. They’re forced to grieve, even when as children they’re not ready to grieve. Even if they’re going to die, even if they only have three months to live, they want to play, and they want to have fun.

So an outside person lets them have that escapism.

Or not escapism, just the life that they need, like real life. I don’t think that grieving is particularly real, or more real than playing. And I don’t think they think that either. They’re like, let’s have fun.

In Restless, as well as some of your other recent films, you seem to like exploring the lives of teenagers. What attracts you to that age group?

I think that’s sort of where a lot of people are at their peak. That’s where they discover new rules that they’re going to apply to the world. It’s where they decide to change this or that about the world. It’s where they’re sort of firing on all cylinders. Their brains are still growing. They’re super inspired. They have a lot of energy. And then after that they kind of freeze and become boring.

That’s so sad! At what age do we become boring?

Twenty-two. Maybe I’m not being fair. Some people can freeze at like 22. Some people never freeze up; some people just keep going. But it’s pretty common. Just becoming an adult means you become somewhat serious, and you face reality, you get a job. There’s a reason why if you ask somebody that’s like 49 what their favorite record is, what their favorite song is, it will probably be a song they heard when they were 18.

What’s your favorite record?

The Beatles White Album. Something I heard when I was 18.

Why do you think we freeze at 22?

It’s where you’re forced to grow up. I mean naturally if you’re working in society you probably would still grow up whether or not you finally finished college. In our society, you’re pushed into society at that age. Animals do the same thing. At a certain age, dogs grow to not like when little puppies are playing around them, bumping into them and so forth.

Do you think that you’ve frozen?

There are sides of me that have done both, frozen and, hopefully, not frozen.

When did you start making films?

I was 16. Maybe even 14. My English teacher showed us films and some of the people in the class would make films with their parents’ 8mm film cameras. I made a film when I was 14, and then I bought a camera when I was 16. But I wasn’t really a film- maker. I was a painter, and I occasionally made films. Then I went to art school when I was 19. I chose a school where you could major in both, so I could still decide. I eventually as a junior chose filmmaking.

How do you feel your style has evolved over the years?

I don’t know if it has. I think it’s all kind of related to itself. There’s stuff that I did when I started that I still do. There’s new things that I learned how to do because I was working in a medium that was mass story- telling. The films are being shown a lot of places, so you kind of learn things, like dramatic structure and storytelling, that weren’t necessarily what I was after when I started.

You’ve referred to some of your main- stream films as “anonymous art.” What do you mean by that?

I am intrigued by the idea of more anonymous art and less creator centric art. I think of general public films, like Good Will Hunting, as for the people and not really by the artist, not for the artist to demonstrate his talent, but to tell a story that everyone can relate to

I don’t think I’ve ever heard the evolution of art expressed like that before.

Yeah, and I’m sure I’m leaving some things out. It’s really an art history observation.

Do you view Restless as anonymous or creator centric art?

I would say it’s a little more anonymous. In general, if you’re making like traditional dramatic art, you’re working in the more anonymous category, just because it’s for a general audience.

Which of your films is most creator centric for you?

Elephant.

Why that film in particular?

some  captioning  to  understand  certain moments.

Do you feel like there’s a common theme or story that you return to in your work?

A lot of times I’m making films about families that are ad hoc families put together for survival.

Where does that come from?

I don’t know. But I noticed that it’s in a lot of the films. I’ve moved around a lot, so maybe I’m always having to create a new structure.

Where did you grow up?

My family was from Kentucky, and they brought me to Colorado, Illinois, California, New York and Oregon.

I told an artist this theory, and they weren’t sure that they agreed with the hypothesis. I read an article; I think it was written by Jamake Highwater. He thought of ancient Greece as not having authors of the art. When artists drew on a vase or they had public art, it was understandable by all the people. It was not in need of interpretation ... Time went by, and in the Renaissance, there was a taboo of painting something outside biblical scripture. The painting was of a biblical scene generally, so everyone would understand because everyone was a Christian apparently. When Da Vinci painted for the Medici family, he would often put their faces on characters as a way to show they were patrons of the painting. Other painters would put little figures of the patrons in the corners of the painting.

As time passed, the little figures in the corners of paintings started to get bigger. By the 1700s, there were figures of patrons that were the main subject of the painting, and the biblical paintings were in the background as part of the scene. Until in the 1800s, there were just full-on portraits of the patrons. The patrons were paying you money to paint them, and the artist would sign his name in the corner. Then the patrons were overshadowed by the subjects that the painters were painting, which were non-patrons; they were just free expressions of art. So the painter became the actual value of the painting, not the patron. Until finally the paintings became indecipherable because they were patterns. They were modern art, and they needed to be interpreted. The full value of the painting became the artist, to the point where you had to decipher which artist had done which piece to know its value.

I don’t know if it’s trying to be an artist centric film, but it’s trying to look into a different way to actually communicate some- thing on film. In doing it, because it’s hard for people to necessarily lock into, it might be more artist centric. I mean the artists who became artist centric weren’t doing it to be artist centric, they were doing it to push the medium into some new territory.

A number of your films have featured unknown actors. Was that a factor in casting Henry Hopper?

I like it when people haven’t seen the actors before. That’s good. Then they’re seeing something that could be real, or it could be fictional.

You did silent takes of every shot in Restless. What was the motivation behind that?

They were originally for helping you edit. If everything is linked to the dialogue because characters are talking through the whole scene, whatever the people do will probably be accompanied by that dialogue. If they open a can of soda, they’ll be saying a particular line. So you won’t be able to have them open a can of soda independent of that line; it will always have to be in that specific part of the scene, which will connected to other parts of the scene. Some- times you just need stuff to happen without people talking. That was really the purpose of doing it.

But is it true that you created a silent version of Restless?

The editor edited together a silent version. It’s pretty much the whole movie with

What did your parents do that you moved so often?

My dad was in clothing sales, so he was changing regions.

You recently did an art show with James Franco. Are you returning to painting now?

I painted when I was younger, so I’m trying to continue.

How would you describe the paintings that you’re working on?

They’re portraits of people that I’ve found on the Internet. Photos that I’ve made watercolors from.

You’re  also  working  on  a  new  TV series, “Boss.” Can you talk about that?

I directed the pilot, and I’ve been mixing the sound. Actually, that’s where I’m going right now. 

What is “Boss” about?

A Chicago mayor played by Kelsey Grammer. It’s about the mayor’s office and city hall in Chicago.

This is your first time working in television. What made you decide to do the series?

I’ve been seeing other directors do it, but I’d never tried it myself. This one came to me as a submission, so I decided I’d give it a whirl.  ▼

Restless opens in theaters nationwide on September 16th. “Boss” premieres Friday, October 21st on STARZ.