A Career in Review: Gus Van Sant

"I have this new theory about films. It's almost like astrology, where if we started on a Tuesday the film will be different than if we started on a Wednesday. Not because of the planets. It's that sometimes you start with the wrong balance and the whole thing gets messed up." - Gus Van Sant

Although he is infamous for directing the ill-fated experimental Psycho remake (1998), director Gus Van Sant is most remembered for the ground breaking Drugstore Cowboy (1989), My Own Private Idaho (1991), and the ever popular Good Will Hunting (1997). Van Sant is a maverick filmmaker who bucks the Hollywood system by writing and directing films that engage the viewer by presenting characters that are more realistic and down to earth such as those presented in Gerry (2002) or Even Cowgirls Get the Blues (1993).

Van Sant was born in 1952 in Louisville, Kentucky. Although he graduated from the Rhode Island school of design, like many of his contemporaries he would work for Roger Corman as an assistant before delving off into his first film The Discipline D.E. (1982). It wasn't until Drugstore Cowboy that audiences took notice of him and began to recognize his proclivities in telling stories about eccentric yet likeably flawed characters.

Notable to Van Sant's career is that he has worked with three of the Phoenix siblings, River Phoenix in My Own Private Idaho, Rain Phoenix in Even Cowgirls Get the Blues (which was dedicated to River), and Joaquin Phoenix in To Die For (1995). Like many directors he has worked with several actors on many occasions including Matt Dillon, Keanu Reeves, James Remar, and Grace Zabriskie.