Lyrics by Michael Pitt
Last Days (2005)
directed by Gus Van Sant
rating: 1 out of 5 cravats
on DVD from Netflix
on the road to Big Pink
I'm amazed to discover a critical consensus in praise of Last Days, ranging from the ridiculous (comparing Michael Pitt's Blake to Elliott Gould's Phil Marlowe) to the embarrassing (the movie acknowledges "everything that remains unknowable in other people's souls"). What, exactly, does a wordless screenplay say about addiction? What does a guest appearance by Harmony Korine say about Van Sant's sincerity?
Cameras are capable of incredible images, and Last Days is full of them - a walk at twilight in blacks and blues, for example. Van Sant relies on images and time to make his points: long takes and beautifully saturated forest climes. But this is the film laureate of the Pacific Northwest, right? Why did he shoot Last Days in upstate New York? Shouldn't that matter in the way people talk about it? Isn't it sort of like CGI for the teenage girls in love with River Phoenix?
And why is the title Gus Van Sant's Last Days (and where's John Carpenter when you need him)? So many questions! It isn't much of a point, maybe, but great art should clarify, not obscure. It should recast the world around you, not reduce it to the relief you find in a swim in the woods. Last Days is as sentimental as Forrest Gump, and I'd have preferred seeing Blake blow his brains against the greenhouse wall to his spirit's ascension from the window frames. A moment like that renders any critic's claim to the film's small graces moot. I just don't know why so few critics saw it.
directed by Gus Van Sant
rating: 1 out of 5 cravats
on DVD from Netflix
on the road to Big Pink
I'm amazed to discover a critical consensus in praise of Last Days, ranging from the ridiculous (comparing Michael Pitt's Blake to Elliott Gould's Phil Marlowe) to the embarrassing (the movie acknowledges "everything that remains unknowable in other people's souls"). What, exactly, does a wordless screenplay say about addiction? What does a guest appearance by Harmony Korine say about Van Sant's sincerity?
Cameras are capable of incredible images, and Last Days is full of them - a walk at twilight in blacks and blues, for example. Van Sant relies on images and time to make his points: long takes and beautifully saturated forest climes. But this is the film laureate of the Pacific Northwest, right? Why did he shoot Last Days in upstate New York? Shouldn't that matter in the way people talk about it? Isn't it sort of like CGI for the teenage girls in love with River Phoenix?
And why is the title Gus Van Sant's Last Days (and where's John Carpenter when you need him)? So many questions! It isn't much of a point, maybe, but great art should clarify, not obscure. It should recast the world around you, not reduce it to the relief you find in a swim in the woods. Last Days is as sentimental as Forrest Gump, and I'd have preferred seeing Blake blow his brains against the greenhouse wall to his spirit's ascension from the window frames. A moment like that renders any critic's claim to the film's small graces moot. I just don't know why so few critics saw it.
posted by NPK at 8:11 AM
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