Cookie Consent by FreePrivacyPolicy.com
JAAAS logo

Articles

Vol. 2 No. 1 (2020): Early Career Americanists: An AYA Special Issue

Remaking Columbine

Submitted
April 24, 2019
Published
2020-12-29

Abstract

High school shootings in the United States generally receive enormous amounts of journalistic coverage and thus spark a lot of public interest. However, the topic appears to be taboo for mainstream cinema, and there are barely any films about real-life school shootings. This article seeks to show that Gus Van Sant's Elephant (2003) is both an enlightening exception to this seeming contradiction and an interesting response to the popular narratives surrounding the Columbine High School shooting of 1999. The film is not only unique in its portrayal of a real-life school shooting but also in the way that it approaches the topic. There are three important processes that make this depiction of the Columbine High School shooting so powerful: remaking, remediating, and reflecting. First, Van Sant's film is a remake of Alan Clarke's 1989 film of the same name. Clarke's film depicts several incidents of gun violence in Northern Ireland without any commentary, and Van Sant employs the same techniques in his film about gun violence at a school. Second, the film critiques the discourse around the shooting, as it remediates video games for its filmic rhetoric. Lastly, Gus Van Sant de-narrativizes the shooting and creates a reflective space for the audience. These three aspects all influence the film's storytelling and cinematography, which aim at promoting reflection rather than providing a straightforward narrative.

References

  1. Agnich, Laura E. "A Comparative Analysis of Attempted and Completed School-Based Mass Murder Attacks." American Journal of Criminal Justice 40, no. 1 (2015): 1-22. https://doi.org/10.1007/s12103-014-9239-5.
  2. Augé, Marc. Non-Places: Introduction to an Anthropology of Supermodernity. Translated by John Howe. London: Verso Books, 1995.
  3. Barone, Matt. "Gus Van Sant's Elephant Is Still Cinema's Best Answer for the 'Why?' of Mass Shootings." Tribeca. 2015. https://tribecafilm.com/news/elephant-gus-van-sant-gun-violence-mass-shootings-analysis-michael-moore-nra.
  4. Bjelopera, Jerome P., Erin Bagalman, Sarah W. Caldwell, Kristin M. Finklea and Gail McCallion. "Public Mass Shootings in the United States: Selected Implications for Federal Public Health and Safety Policy." Congressional Research Service. March 18, 2013.
  5. Braselmann, Silke. The Fictional Dimension of the School Shooting Discourse. Berlin: De Gruyter, 2019.
  6. Brooker, Will. "Camera-Eye, CG-Eye: Videogames and the 'Cinematic.'" Cinema Journal 48, no. 3 (2009): 122-28. https://doi.org/10.1353/cj.0.0126.
  7. Bushman, Brad J. Patrick E. Jamieson, Ilana Weitz, and Daniel Romer. "Gun Violence Trends in Movies." Pediatrics 132, no. 6 (2013): 1014-18. https://doi.org/10.1542/peds.2013-1600.
  8. Bradshaw, Peter. "This Week's Reviews: Elephant." Review of Elephant. Directed by Gus Van Sant. The Guardian: This Week’s Reviews. January 30, 2004. https://www.theguardian.com/film/News_Story/Critic_Review/Guardian_review/0,,1134158,00.html.
  9. Caruth, Cathy. Unclaimed Experience: Trauma, Narrative, and History. Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1996.
  10. Chyi, Hsiang Iris, and Maxwell McCombs. "Media Salience and the Process of Framing: Coverage of the Columbine School Shootings." Journalism & Mass Communication Quarterly 81, no. 1 (2004): 22–35. https://doi.org/10.1177/107769900408100103.
  11. "Columbine Shooting Biggest News Draw of 1999." Pew Research Center for the People and the Press. December 28, 1999. http://www.people-press.org/1999/12/28/columbine-shooting-biggest-news-draw-of-1999/.
  12. coralchris. "Gus Van Sant interview about Elephant Part 1/2." Interview with M2K Productions in 2003. YouTube. March 18, 2010. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nyyCOR3kL_g.
  13. coralchris. "Gus Van Sant interview about Elephant Part 2/2." Interview with M2K Productions in 2003. YouTube. March 18, 2010. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hgmh6Ge0tTE.
  14. Cutting, James E., Jordan E. DeLong, and Christine E. Nothelfer. "Attention and the Evolution of Hollywood Film." Psychological Science 21, no. 3 (2010): 432-39. https://doi.org/10.1177/0956797610361679.
  15. Ebert, Roger. "Elephant Movie Review & Film Summary." Review of Elephant. Directed by Gus Van Sant. November 7, 2003. https://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/elephant-2003.
  16. Elephant. Directed by Gus Van Sant. New York: HBO Films, 2003.
  17. "Elephant." Interview with Gus Van Sant and Diane Keaton. 2003. Charlie Rose. https://charlierose.com/videos/14983. "Elephant." Festival de Cannes. http://www.festival-cannes.com/en/festival/films/elephant. Accessed October 11, 2018.
  18. "Elephant (2003): Trivia." Internet Movie Database. http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0363589/trivia. Accessed January 10, 2019.
  19. Fear, David. "Close to the Bone: Alan Clarke." Film Comment. 2016. https://www.filmcomment.com/article/alan-clarke-tv-dramas/.
  20. Foucault, Michel. "Of Other Spaces: Utopias and Heterotopias." In Rethinking Architecture: A Reader in Cultural Theory, edited by Neil Leach, 329-35. New York: Routledge, 2005.
  21. French, Philip. "Film of the Week: The Day of Reckoning." Review of Elephant. Directed by Gus Van Sant. The Observer. February 1, 2004. https://www.theguardian.com/theobserver/2004/feb/01/features.review27.
  22. Hattenstone, Simon. "All the World's an Art School." The Guardian. January 24, 2004. https://www.theguardian.com/film/2004/jan/24/features.weekend1.
  23. Jameson, Fredric. "Postmodernism and Consumer Society." In The Anti-Aesthetic: Essays on Postmodern Culture, edited by Hal Foster, 111-25. Seattle: Bay Press, 2002.
  24. Jenkins, Henry. "Games, the New Lively Art." In Handbook of Computer Game Studies, edited by Joost Raessens and Jeffrey Goldstein, 175-92. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2005.
  25. Jeffco Police. "The Basement Tapes." The Columbine Guide. April 28, 1999. https://www.columbine-guide.com/columbine-the-basement-tapes.
  26. King, Geoff. "Following in the Footsteps: Gus Van Sant's Gerry and Elephant in the American Independent Field of Cultural Production." New Review of Film and Television Studies 4, no. 2 (2006): 75-92. https://doi.org/10.1080/17400300600768406.
  27. Larkin, Ralph W. "The Columbine Legacy: Rampage Shootings as Political Acts." American Behavioral Scientist 52, no. 9 (2009): 1309-26. https://doi.org/10.1177/0002764209332548.
  28. Lawrence, Regina G. "Defining Events: Problem Definition in the Media Arena." In Politics, Discourse, and American Society: New Agendas, edited by Roderick P. Hart and Bartholomew H. Sparrow, 91-110. New York: Rowman & Littlefield, 2001.
  29. Lawrence, Regina G., and Thomas A. Birkland. "Guns, Hollywood, and School Safety: Defining the School-Shooting Problem Across Public Arenas." Social Science Quarterly 85, no. 5 (2004): 1193–1207. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.0038-4941.2004.00271.x.
  30. Little, William. "Plotting Dead Time in Gus Van Sant's Elephant." Film-Philosophy 17, no. 1 (2013): 115-33. https://doi.org/10.3366/film.2013.0007.
  31. Lipset, Seymour Martin. American Exceptionalism: A Double-Edged Sword. New York: Norton, 1996.
  32. Macaulay, Scott. "'Agitating the Information': Director Gus Van Sant on His Long-Take Columbine Drama, Elephant." Filmmaker Magazine. 2003. https://filmmakermagazine.com/105593-agitating-the-information-director-gus-van-sant-on-his-long-take-columbine-drama-elephant/.
  33. Maron, Marc. "Episode 933: Gus Van Sant." WTF with Marc Maron. July 16, 2018. http://www.wtfpod.com/podcast/episode-933-gus-van-sant?rq=933.
  34. Mäyrä, Frans. An Introduction to Game Studies: Games in Culture. London: SAGE Publications, 2008.
  35. Mitchell, Elvis. "Film Festival Review: 'Normal' High School on the Verge." Review of Elephant. Directed by Gus Van Sant. The New York Times. October 10, 2003. https://www.nytimes.com/2003/10/10/movies/film-festival-review-normal-high-school-on-the-verge.html.
  36. Muschert, Glenn W. "Media and Massacre: The Social Construction of the Columbine Story." PhD Thesis. University of Colorado Boulder, 2002.
  37. Muschert, Glenn W. "Frame-Changing in the Media Coverage of a School Shooting: The Rise of Columbine as a National Concern." The Social Science Journal 46, no. 1 (2009): 164-70. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.soscij.2008.12.014.
  38. "New American Independents & The Digital Revolution." Directed by Mark Cousins. The Story of Film: An Odyssey. Episode 14. Originally Broacast on December 3, 2011. London: Channel 4.
  39. Poole, Steven. Trigger Happy: Videogames and the Entertainment Revolution. New York: Arcade Publishing, 2000.
  40. Rich, Jennifer A. "Shock Corridors: The New Rhetoric of Horror in Gus van Sant's Elephant." The Journal of Popular Culture 45, no. 6 (2012): 1310-29. https://doi.org/10.1111/jpcu.12009.
  41. Schlosser, Eric. "Interview with Béla Tarr: About Werckmeister Harmonies (Cannes 2000, Director's Fortnight)." Bright Lights Film Journal. October 1, 2000. https://brightlightsfilm.com/interview-bela-tarr-werckmeister-harmonies-cannes-2000-directors-fortnight/.
  42. Sobchack, Vivian. "Inscribing Ethical Space: Ten Propositions on Death, Representation, and Documentary." Quarterly Review of Film & Video 9, no. 4 (1984): 283-300. https://doi.org/10.1080/10509208409361220.
  43. Sofair, Michael. "Elephant: The Physics of Violence." CineAction, no. 68 (2006): 11-17.
  44. Springhall, John. "Violent Media, Guns and Moral Panics: The Columbine High School Massacre, 20 April 1999." Paedagogica Historica 35, no. 3 (1999): 621–41. https://doi.org/10.1080/0030923990350304.
  45. Suskind, Alex. "Real-Life Mass Shootings: The Subject Hollywood Dare Not Touch." The Guardian. October 5, 2015. http://www.theguardian.com/film/2015/oct/05/mass-shootings-hollywood-violence-movies.
  46. Taylor, Rumsey. "The In-Your-Face Films of Alan Clarke." The New York Times. December 22, 2017. https://www.nytimes.com/2017/08/10/movies/the-in-your-face-films-of-alan-clarke.html.
  47. Van Sant, Gus. "The Camera Is a Machine." MoMA Bela Tarr Retrospective Catalogue. 2001. https://walkerart.org/magazine/gus-van-sant-light-bela-tarr.

Similar Articles

71-80 of 82

You may also start an advanced similarity search for this article.