Last Days

[meatball]

Hahah. I don't think he looks anything like Leonardo DiCaprio. He looks too.. unhealthy.

[Ghostboy]

I think he's awesome. Actually, I'm the president of his fan club. Only ten bucks to join.

[Gold Trumpet]

I think he's awesome. Actually, I'm the president of his fan club. Only ten bucks to join.

Did the obcession start with his masterful work in Dawson's Creek? Did it? Ah I tease, I can't sound assholish.

[Ghostboy]

It did indeed. When his character attempted suicide at the school dance to win Michelle William's heart, I knew instantly: this is the future of acting. He's been on a roll ever since!

[MacGuffin]

Cobain inspiration for film not based on his life

Off the red carpets and beyond the yachts crowding the harbor next to the Cannes Film Festival, the following items were seen and heard on Friday:

'INSPIRED BY' NOT 'BASED ON'

American director Gus van Sant was at pains to stress that his competition film "Last Days" was not "based on" the life of grunge rocker Kurt Cobain, who killed himself in 1994, but rather was only "inspired by" it.

Van Sant, who won the Cannes Film Festival's top "Golden Palm" award in 2003 for "Elephant" that was "inspired by" the Columbine school shooting, was asked repeatedly why the film about a character named "Blake" avoids direct links to Cobain.

He said even though he once thought about making a biopic about Cobain, he long ago scrapped the idea and wanted instead to avoid getting bogged down in the details of the rock star's tragically short life. He said fiction was more appropriate.

Cobain's band "Nirvana" was at the core of the Seattle music scene in the early 1990s.

"There were a lot of things about Kurt that inspired us," he said. "We saw the original idea about a biopic was a wrong turn. There's too much information about his life to pare down ... But as for last days go, we didn't know what really happened."

When pressed by one reporter on whether the fear of a lawsuit by Cobain's wife Courtney Love also had a role, van Sant finally admitted: "Yes, we were afraid she was going to sue us."

CAMERA-SHY DIRECTOR

Van Sant, who directed Nicole Kidman in the black comedy "To Die For" (1995) as well as Matt Damon in "Good Will Hunting" (1997), said it is easier for him to be behind the camera rather than in front of it.

Van Sant told reporters that, even after two decades as a director and three appearances in front of the media frenzy at Cannes, he still feels out of place.

"I try to hide from the media," van Sant said. "I try not to think about it because it's enormous. Standing in front of all these photographers out there is enormous. There are thousands and thousands of pictures taken and you never see where they go."

FRENCH SUBTITLES AND ENGLISH MUMBLES

There's not a lot of dialogue in "Last Days" and some of the few lines delivered as intentional mumbles by actor Michael Pitt, who plays the character known as "Blake" that was inspired by Kurt Cobain, are simply unintelligible.

But French-speaking viewers were, ironically, afforded a deeper understanding of what the grunge rocker wired on drugs was actually saying during the 97-minute film -- thanks to the French subtitles.

[MacGuffin]

Dialogue: Gus Van Sant
With "Last Days," a meditation on the last days of a Kurt Cobain-like rock star, Van Sant continues to develop the rigorous aesthetic he first experimented with in the Palme d'Or-winning "Elephant."

With "Last Days," a meditation on the last days of a Kurt Cobain-like rock star, Gus Van Sant continues to develop the rigorous aesthetic he first experimented with in "Gerry" and the Palme d'Or-winning "Elephant." Working once again with HBO Films, he trains his camera on actor Michael Pitt, playing a musician named Blake who is seemingly cut off from his mates in a dilapidated old house, isolated in a woodland setting that crackles with the sounds of the forest and a nearby river. Van Sant's film is intent on raising questions without imposing its own answers to the mysteries of the young man's unraveling existence. The filmmaker spoke with The Hollywood Reporter about the rules (or lack thereof) that govern his creative process and why he was interested in telling the story of an ill-fated performer.

The Hollywood Reporter: In making the film, did you begin with a set of rules that you set for yourself or did you discover those rules in the making of the movie?

Gus Van Sant: It's pretty much all discovered in the making of the films. The original idea, when we made "Gerry," was we didn't know what we were making. We just went into the desert. We had the story, but we didn't have a script or scenes. The experiment was to make it on the spot. We gave ourselves a few weeks to work up to it -- we didn't just start shooting one day. During the filming of "Gerry," we could have changed the story as we went along if that's what we collectively wanted to do, but none of us wanted to. The same with "Elephant" -- there was an outline. We pretty much followed the outline, but because we were shooting in order, we could always have changed it.

THR: The movies do seem to be following some rules, though -- there's minimal cutting within a scene, soundtracks full of heightened, natural sound. But it seems as if, unlike some of the Dogme 95 filmmakers, you do not begin by subscribing to a specific set of rules.

Van Sant: Some of the rules I think do come from Dogme 95, but they're not really rules, they are just adopted aesthetics. In Dogme, they have rules, but we're not as dogmatic. We have aesthetics that we like, but if we need a light, we'll just pull in a light -- we don't have a rule to break. But we're not using lights, which is one of the Dogme rules. One of the things Dogme does allow, which we're avoiding, is cutting. We're tying not to cut in a traditional manner. We're trying not to go over people's shoulders or show a point of view. We're trying to do tableaus, I guess you'd call them, which is our own kind of aesthetic. Where in Dogme, you use scripts, we're not using scripts. We're also trying -- but sometimes failing -- to not use well-known actors. We're trying to get away from the traditional grind, where you have the three recognizable stars and everyone is cast around that. We do have music we put in, which is against one of Dogme's rules, but when we put music in, if we start a song, we have to play a whole song. Sometimes we don't do that religiously, but we don't just use a small little music song cue that just picks up. If we play a song, we try to be committed to that song. The same with what we're looking at and whatever we're hearing. If we're looking at something, we really want to look at it. We just don't want to cut away to it for a second.

THR: The movie's sound design is very striking. How much of the sound is meant to represent Blake's point of view and how much just comes from the natural setting?

Van Sant: I don't know. It's like music. A lot of things can be from the character's point of view or it can be just the score of the film. But a lot of the time, I don't think that sound is happening unless Blake is present, so it is coming from him.

THR: You've had the idea for this film for a long time. What initially interested you in the subject of Kurt Cobain's death?

Van Sant: I had a big old house in Portland. It was the same era as Kurt and Courtney (Love)'s house. At one time, it was a party house, with different generations living there. The house had a kind of interesting vibe to it. I thought I could use my house as a location, and I could take a 16mm camera and with an actor, make a film really cheap. It was almost exactly what this film came out to be, except the character actually was 14 years old and not 23 years old. There weren't going to be any other characters, either. He was just going to be at home, doing things at home, which were sort of the things I would do at home. They were based on ideas of what somebody like Kurt really did do at home -- from stories I had heard, details, like what cereal he ate, things like that.

THR: But you yourself had only met Cobain briefly?

Van Sant: I only met him face to face once.

THR: It would seem to me an audience could watch this film without having any knowledge of the Kurt Cobain story -- though they then would have a different experience of the film. In your mind, what is the ideal audience for the film in terms of what information they bring with them?

Van Sant: I don't think you do need to have a knowledge (of Cobain's life). I've shown it to lots of different people, some who have no knowledge at all, and they respond maybe even in a better way. People who have knowledge of Kurt as a rock star, it could be an impediment to what you're watching or it could be a good thing. It sort of depends. A lot of people bring assumptions with them, but you can look at it simultaneously as just a character who is apparently returning home and sort of winding down.

THR: Bringing the film to Cannes, you inevitably will be asked to explain the character's -- and, by extension, Cobain's -- suicide. Are you likely to resist explaining the film?

Van Sant: I could explain it easily. It's not that hard to explain it, but it sort of wrecks it if I explain it. What I would explain is stuff that's happening on the screen. His death is a result of the things that are happening before it. He's sort of crawling away, trying to get in a space outside of his own life. The final deal is, he's found dead. It's sort of like the end note of his trying to escape, but that's pretty obvious. You see that in the film.

THR: "Last Days" like "Elephant" is so rigorous. How do you feel about premiering it amid the sometimes carnival atmosphere of Cannes?

Van Sant: I think that the Festival de Cannes is known for rigorous films. It's got this Riviera-like, tuxedo casino thing. But I think that's what makes Cannes kind of fantastic. You have this elegant, red-carpet, dinner party-like situation, and you have the films themselves. I think the films can be any type of film, which is great. I don't think Cannes is known for one type of film.

[MacGuffin]

New Van Sant Movie Reflects on Kurt Cobain

*READ AT OWN RISK*

Gus Van Sant's new movie is a fictional reflection on how Nirvana rocker Kurt Cobain might have spent the days before his 1994 suicide: Watching television, wandering through his mansion, hiding from everyone who tries to help.

The impressionistic "Last Days" is competing for the top prize at the Cannes Film Festival two years after Van Sant won the honor with "Elephant," loosely based on the 1999 massacre at Columbine High School.

In blending fact and fiction again, Van Sant offers up a character in "Last Days" who's a famous but lonely musician named Blake, played by Michael Pitt ("The Dreamers"). Pitt has Cobain's shaggy blond hair, stubble and slouch.

Like Cobain, Blake is fond of macaroni and cheese, scribbles his thoughts in a notebook and sings in a desperate wail. And like Cobain, he escapes from a detox center before his final spiral into despair.

Beyond that, most events of the movie come from Van Sant's imagination. Nobody knows how Cobain spent the days before he wrote a suicide note, injected himself with heroin and fired a 20-gauge shotgun into his mouth.

"Those particular days are kind of lost days," Van Sant said. So the movie "was all a poetic exercise."

The film has an understated feel. There are no scenes of Blake taking drugs, and the death scene is off-camera. The focus is on small moments: Blake watches a Boyz II Men video, makes pasta, has a surreal dialogue with a door-to-door salesman.

Blake spends much of the movie muttering to himself and has little interaction with others. When hangers-on party at Blake's run-down mansion, dancing to the Velvet Underground's "Venus in Furs," they all but ignore him. The only times they approach him are to ask for money or favors.

Sonic Youth singer-bassist Kim Gordon plays a record company representative who tries to persuade Blake to check into rehab. She has a car waiting, but he ignores her.

"You really can only do so much to help someone," Gordon said. Winning success and fame, "Kurt was kind of removed or alienated by what he thought he wanted, and was kind of entrapped by it."

Van Sant said he has been thinking about the project for nearly a decade. At one stage, he wanted to do a Cobain biopic.

"I sort of entertained that for just a brief moment before I thought it would just turn into a kind of regular biopic that wasn't anything special," he said. "It would have been too much information."

Van Sant isn't sure how Cobain's fans and family will react to the film. He has talked to Courtney Love, Cobain's widow, several times over the years about his project, but he did not share details on their conversations.

The volatile Love wasn't with Cobain during his final days, and Van Sant did not cast an equivalent of her.

"There is a voice on the phone that you can think of as Blake's wife if you pushed it in that direction," he said. "But yeah, we were afraid that she was going to sue us."

[lamas]

trailer

http://www.allocine.fr/webtv/acvision.asp?nopub=1&cvid=18385337&emission=&player=ASF&debit=T

[MacGuffin]

Trailer
 
Release Date: July 22nd, 2005 (limited)

Cast: Michael Pitt (Blake), Asia Argento (Asia), Lukas Haas, Scott Green, Nicole Vicius, Ricky Jay, Ryan Orion, Harmony Korine, Kim Gordon, Adam Friberg, Andy Friberg, and Thadeus A. Thomas

Director: Gus Van Sant (Gerry, Good Will Hunting, Drugstore Cowboy)

Screenwriter: Gus Van Sant

Premise: "Last Days" follows Blake, an introspective artist who is buckling under the weight of fame, through a handful of hours he spends in and near his wooded home, a fugitive from his own life. It is a period of random moments and fractured consciousness, fused by spontaneous bursts of rock & roll.

Based Upon: The film is inspired by the last hours of Kurt Cobain's life, but is entirely fictionalized.

[Ghostboy]

This movie is beautiful.

It does fall short of the perfection of 'Gerry,' but that doesn't mean there's anything wrong with it. Definitely the best film of the year thus far, as far as my opinion goes.

[lamas]

when and how did you see it?

[Ghostboy]

when and how did you see it?

a.) 10am this morning
b.) because I'm good enough, I'm smart enough, and doggone it, people care about my opinion.

[cowboykurtis]

That's kind of like saying he couldn't get the rights to do an ACTUAL Columbine movie, but that's simply not the case.

i think elephant was different - it was dealing with a widespread "epidemic" of school shootings - columbine was not the only one( it may have been the most publicized however)

this is about ONE person's life and advertised as a film about " a musician whose life and career is reminiscent of Kurt Cobain's."

elephant wasn't advertised as "a film about  a school shooting reminiscent of Columbine"

boogie night wasn't advertised as " a film about a porn actor reminiscent of  john holmes"

Having just viewed that trailer only further soldifies my opinion - labeling this "a film of musician whose life and career is reminiscent of Cobain"...is just bullshit -- it's not as if Gus took the "narrative arc" of cobain life to develop a story - he cast someone that looks exactly like Cobain/dresseed him exactly like Cobain/has him sing exactly like Cobain - this film is about Cobain - he just couldnt get the rights.

[Ghostboy]

I halfway rescind my original statement that Van Sant didn't want to make a biopic of Cobain - because in interviews at Cannes, he revealed that there was a time when he did, and indeed, he couldn't get the rights. However, he also said that by the time he got around to making this film, he wasn't interested in the biopic idea at all anymore and wanted to explore the possibilities of a looser adaptation.

Pitt looks sorta like Cobain in the film, does dress exactly like him and plays similar-sounding music (it actually sounds more like Bright Eyes, when you hear the whole song). There are a few other allusions, as well, but they are exactly that: allusions. Without them, no one would have a clue who this character is - the story allows for no exposition, and the allusions provide a valuable context.

There is a title card at the end saying that it's inspired by Cobain, and the film is dedicated to him as well - but it's very clearly fictional.

[lamas]

i don't give a rat's ass about Kurt Cobain yet i'm very interested in seeing this film.  i have no interest in watching a step-by-step factual retelling of Kurt Cobain's life, but what's intriguing to me is the level of artistic licensing Van Sant can take because this film isn't specifically about Cobain.