#so

I was originally a painter, and I made films sort of as an extension of that, and then I started to try to make dramatic films because the early films were experimental films. ↗

— Gus Van Sant

#dramatic #early #experimental #extension #films

I'm normally drawn to something I haven't done and seen before. ↗

— Gus Van Sant

#done #drawn #haven #i #normally

If it were up to the executives, they probably wouldn't have directors at all. ↗

— Gus Van Sant

#become #cancer #circle #connections #diagnosed

In rare cases, I've had music before I shot the movie. I think that for 'Good Will Hunting' I had an Elliot Smith record or a couple of them and I just somehow felt like the sound had something to it that reminded me of the story. So in that case there was music beforehand. ↗

— Gus Van Sant

#beforehand #case #cases #couple #felt

My art teacher in junior high was a very out gay man and a mentor to me. He would tell us about Greenwich Village and show us the 'Village Voice' and describe his life, but it was all sort of subversive and below the radar. ↗

— Gus Van Sant

#art #below #describe #gay #greenwich

There is a way that a younger person can accept the inevitable problem that they're going to die, whereas somebody a little bit older might be overcome. ↗

— Gus Van Sant

#bit #die #going #inevitable #little

There is a common theme, though, in the stories I have told, which are usually associations of characters or families that are formed outside of a family circle. ↗

— Gus Van Sant

#characters #circle #common #families #family

Usually when I read something, first of all I'm looking for the story and then when I reread it, I'm sort of checking every part of it to see if every scene is necessary. ↗

— Gus Van Sant

#every #first #first of all #i #looking

Usually, when I read something, I'm looking for the story first. And then, when I re-read it, I check every part of it to see whether every scene is necessary. You imagine yourself watching the movie, to see whether or not you're losing the through-line of the story. ↗

— Gus Van Sant

#every #first #i #imagine #looking

When I grew up in the '60s, we were actually dominated by this, you know, sort of conforming '50s culture, even though we were like trying to express our own culture, like, the dominant culture was the thing that was forming us. And I think that that's true today. ↗

— Gus Van Sant

#conforming #culture #dominant #dominated #even