Tuesday 12 August 2014

Good Will Hunting (1997 Gus Van Sant)

In memory of Robin Williams, who committed suicide at the weekend, and who we will now always see had sad eyes behind the humour.

"It's not your fault."
"For 10 seconds I have the best part of the day."
Minnie Driver's Irish joke.
"I live with my three brothers."
"The bad stuff reminds you of the good things you were too busy to notice."

Van Sant directs much of the time in close-up, thereby robbing himself of the effect that shot size can bring, but it seems to work to me, and provides intense scenes. Editor Pietro Scalia knows when not to cut great moments of acting, thereby contributing to Williams' Oscar. Considering Matt Damon and Ben Affleck apparently wrote the screenplay in order to get some acting work, they must have been rather pleased that it won. Other nominations were for Driver (a very natural performance, as always, her giggles always sound so real but then she'll make you cry), the always watchable Van Sant, film, Damon, Scalia, song (Miss Misery) and music (Danny Elfman). Titles by the legendary Pablo Ferro and shot by Jean-Yves Escoffier.

There's a fight scene edited at varying speeds - I'm sure there's a 'slow mo' shot in there that is just people pretending to move slowly. That might appear to be a stupid thing to say, until you remember those 'freeze frames' in My Own Private Idaho which are the actors standing still. Scalia, a Sicilian, won Oscars for JFK (with Joe Hutshing) and Black Hawk Down, also nominated for Gladiator.

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