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Elephant: A Film By Gus Van Sant | 
 enlarge | Director: Gus Van Sant
Actors: Alex Frost, Eric Deulen, John Robinson (ix), Elias Mcconnell, Jordan Taylor (ii)
Studio: Hbo Home Video
Category: DVD
List Price: $14.98
Buy New: $2.69
You Save: $12.29 (82%)
New (71) Used (44) from $2.57
Rating:  323 reviews
Sales Rank: 11094
Format: Anamorphic, Color, Dolby, Dts Surround Sound, Dubbed, Dvd-video, Full Screen, Subtitled, Widescreen, Ntsc
Languages: English (Original Language), French (Original Language), English (Subtitled), Spanish (Subtitled), French (Subtitled), Spanish (Dubbed)
Rating: R (Restricted)
Region: 1
Aspect Ratio: 1.37:1
Number Of Discs: 1
Running Time: 80 Minutes
Shipping Weight (lbs): 1
Dimensions (in): 7.1 x 5.4 x 0.6
MPN: HBOD92229D
ISBN: 078312791X
UPC: 026359222924
EAN: 9780783127910
ASIN: B0001EFUFK
Theatrical Release Date: 2003
Release Date: May 4, 2004
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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Product Description
The movie takes us inside an american high school on one single ordinary day that very rapidly turns tragic. Elephant shows that high school life is a complex landscape where the beauty of young lives can shift from light to darkness with surreal speed. Its an ordinary day in high school. Except its not. Studio: Hbo Home Video Release Date: 01/16/2007 Run time: 80 minutes Rating: R
Amazon.com
Elephant, the elegant and unsettling movie from Gus Van Sant (My Own Private Idaho, Good Will Hunting), depicts students at a high school before and during a harrowing, Columbine-style shooting. The movie follows one young boy who takes over the wheel from his drunken dad while returning from lunch, then loops back in time and follows another student who crosses paths with the first, then loops back and follows another--all captured in long, unedited tracking shots that are serene and unhurried, even when two boys in camouflage gear, carrying heavy bags, arrive at the school and begin shooting. Elephant doesn't attempt to explain their behavior; it simply places the audience back in the brief yet interminable window of adolescence, when life is trivial and painfully important at the same time. Your reaction to Elephant will depend as much on your life experiences as anything in the movie itself. --Bret Fetzer
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| Customer Reviews: Read 318 more reviews...
 GVS's "Elephant," all the stonger for it's understatement & restraint. November 1, 2008
W.Kim (Los Angeles, California United States)
Utterly uncompromising, I gave "Elephant" five stars for Gus Van Gus Van Sant's simple, straightforward & realistic approach to a Columbine-like shooting (so be forewarned) and his refusal to comfort the viewer with easy moralizing, in an effort (I think) to let viewers react, think and come to their own conclusions. Sant also earns extra points for setting the stage with restraint and for steadfastly refusing to sensationalize his material, even after the violence has started. The result is one of the most effective of the generally provocative, often exploitive depictions of 'self-destructive youth' I've seen as of late (a virtual genre today, recent examples including Argento's "The Heart is Deceitful Above All Things," Greg Araki's "Mysterious Skin," and Larry Clark's "Bully,") - all the more so for his understatement.
 A most thought-provoking film, even if it meanders at times October 24, 2008
Craig MACKINNON (Thunder Bay, Ontario Canada)
It's no surprise that the reviews on Amazon.com are bimodal - many reviewers think this is a great film, others hate it. The professionals summarised on Rotten Tomatoes are similarly divided. You'll notice that I said "think it's a great film", not "loved the film". There is a difference. It's hard to "love" a film that moves this slowly and has such a grim subject matter. For about an hour, Gus van Sant simply follows students through empty hallways and filled cafeterias. The chronology is somewhat confusing, as he give no clues when switching between people about the progression of the day - is the football practice in the morning? Lunch? What about the photographer - when is he developing the film? To say that the film is maddening at the beginning is an understatement. The viewer will have to be patient and watch, just as van Sant's camera watches, to see what the filmaker had in mind.
Then comes the shootings. They are brutal and pathetic. Again, it must be a deliberate choice by van Sant that the first victim is an even bigger "loser" (on the high school social scale) than the shooters. This is what makes the shooters pathetic - they are not out for revenge, they have no statement to make, i.e. they are so pathetic they can't even formulate a reason why they are killing people. Are real high school shooters like this? Is there any way to rationalise such actions (for us or for the shooters themselves)? Van Sant seems to suggest that there is not.
The film is skillfully made - the takes are long (several minutes without cuts). The actors are believeable (even if the school is not - where are all the students of this school? It looks like it's only 1/4 filled to capacity). The method of presentation is thought-provoking. The film will not sit well with people that are looking for answers (or even questions). Sometimes there simply are no answers, and van Sant does not cheapen his film by trying to provide them. It's a brave presentation, but I think the right one for this subject matter.
Haunting, strange, not perfect, but still very good.... October 2, 2008
Grigory's Girl (NYC)
In 2003 (or a few years before perhaps), Gus Van Sant got drunk on Bela Tarr films, which is a great intoxicant. Tarr is a giant in cinema today, and his films are masterpieces of light, shadow, photography, acting, and some of the most extraordinary camerawork ever in cinema. Gus made two films with an obvious debt to Tarr, Gerry and this film, Elephant. Elephant is the better of the two films.
Elephant has an eerie, haunting, etheral quality to it as Gus's camera glides through the high school. He shows high school life to be tedious, silly, heartless, sad, occasionally funny, and eventually violent, as Gus emulates the Columbine massacre at the end of the film (even though very little violence is actually shown). While the film isn't perfect, it's light years better than Gerry, which is a very misguided attempt to emulate Bela Tarr's style and substance (Van Sant got the style, but missed the substance). Both Gerry and Elephant have improvised dialogue, and it's a major drawback to both films, but more so with Gerry. Elephant's dialogue is forgettable, but luckily there's not much of it. Much of the film isn't told with dialogue but with glances and wide shots, and Van Sant uses these tools quite effectively. He also makes haunting use of Beethoven's Fur Elise, one of Beethoven's most famous works. The film has a slow pace, but it's good for the material.
Elephant is a good chapter in the Van Sant catalog, which has masterpieces (My Own Private Idaho), misguided films (Gerry), and absolute garbage (his remake of Pyscho).
 Elephant September 23, 2008
J. Lindner (Gem Lake, MN United States)
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
This film is as disturbing a film about high school shootings as can be made. Director Gus van Sant tracks two boys who ultimately decide the only way they can cope with life is to shoot up their school. As if this isn't bad enough, the final scenes more or less glorify the act by not showing how the surviving boy (after he shoots his co-consprator) ends up. Presumably he shoots two more students in a kitchen freezer but we don't know.
This film is very disturbing and most movie-goers will not appreciate any part of it. How can a movie have entertainment value when it raises the question of will this happen at the schools our children go to? The film doesn't really show anything that might prevent a school shooting, and at no time in the film are any police arriving or distraught parents gathering in the parking lot. What I found most distasteful was when the one boy told the other to most of all "have fun" while systematically slaughtering innocent classmates and school staff.
If film makers have a license, van Sant's should be revoked.
Better Than Gerry September 22, 2008
Marty Kingsley (West Virginia)
2 out of 2 found this review helpful
How my ratings work:
5 - I really liked/loved it
4 - I liked it
3 - Could've been better/worth a look
2 - Just didn't live up to the potential
1 - Simply aweful
I just finished watching this movie, I'd been interested in seeing it for some time now. While it could've been a little more interesting, overall it's not a totally bad movie. The direction is good in the long takes and the acting well done even by the smaller parts in the movie. I will say that I liked this movie a whole lot better than Gus Van Sant's other film in his "Death Trilogy" Gerry and have yet to see his third film Last Days. Some may think this glorifies violence, but that's really not the case with this movie. If anything, it shows how wrong violence is, that there's never a good reason to kill another human being. It also shows that teachers and parents need to be more involved with the children in their lives; that could prevent things like this from happening. This may not be a movie I'd own personally, but I do think it's worth watching at least once.
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