Gerry (film)

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Gerry

Directed by	Gus Van Sant
Produced by	Dany Wolf
Written by	Casey Affleck Matt Damon Gus Van Sant
Starring	Matt Damon Casey Affleck
Music by	Arvo Pärt
Distributed by	Independent Films ThinkFilm Inc.
Release date(s)	14 February 2003
Running time	103 min.
Language	English
Budget	$3,500,000 (estimated)
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Gerry is a 2002 film directed by Gus Van Sant, written by and starring Matt Damon and Casey Affleck.

The film received widely diverse reactions, from contempt to lavish praise, as it made its way through the film festival circuit and the few theaters to which it was released. Reviewers agree that it marks a returning point in Van Sant's film-making, away from commercially oriented film, and back to his earlier experimentalism. Van Sant dispenses with narrative and conventional dialogue, and instead attempts to tell the tale by establishing the mood and tempo of the characters, using lengthy real-time single-camera scenes, threaded together by aimless speeches, the sound closely focused on the rhythm of their breathing and their thumping steps, the camera following their bobbing heads or panning back to reveal a backdrop of surrealistically austere landscapes, to craft a feeling which is offered for the audience to react to. The film was greatly influenced by the Hungarian filmmaker Bela Tarr (who receives special thanks in the credits), whose later works Satantango and Werckmeister Harmonies use the same kind of long tracking shots and long takes that are used in this film. Whether this method of scene-making succeeds in creating an experience of frustration and aimlessness, or is simply frustrating and aimless, is the point of departure for many reviewers. Many found this an interesting experiment; others said that Van Sant copied Bela Tarr's style, but failed to capture his substance. The way that the film is made stands in the foreground of reviews, becoming the subject, rather than the parable-like fragment of a story the film tells.

Gerry is the first of Van Sant's Death Trilogy, a series of movies all involving a scene in which at least one person dies at the hands of a friend, classmate, or even themself. Gerry is first, Elephant is second, and Last Days is third. They are referred to as the Death Trilogy because the death scene is always both the focus and climax of each film.

[edit] Plot

Spoiler warning: Plot and/or ending details follow.

Insofar as it is a story, Gerry is about two driving companions, both called Gerry. ("Gerry", a slang term used by Matt Damon and Ben and Casey Affleck meaning "screw up," [1] is used several times in the film as a verb or adjective and not a proper noun. Van Sant revealed in interviews that Damon and Affleck used the term before the movie had even been named.) The characters are apparently on a hike to view a "thing" at the end of a wilderness trail, but after some walking, talking, and a short foot race they agree on their mutual disinterest in the site and decide to turn around. They soon realize that they are lost in the desert. The camera and the sound walk with them, from one absurd scene to another, as the two men stagger toward despair.

After several days of wandering around mostly in silence, both protagonists collapse due to fatigue and dehydration. The weaker of the two (Affleck) proclaims that he is "leaving." Whereupon, Damon struggles on top of Affleck, dispassionately strangling him. After some time, he's awakened by the sound of an engine and rises to his feet. Walking only a few hundred yards or so, he discovers a busy highway on the horizon. Gerry catches a ride with a family, whom he watches in awkward silence.

The film is dedicated to the memory of Ken Kesey.

Like the others in the "Death Trilogy", this film is based on a true story. In 1999, two friends on a cross country trip became lost during a day hike in Carlsbad Caverns National Park. After days without water and food, one killed the other. The killer claimed it was a mercy killing, but this defense was not recognized in New Mexico, and he eventually pleaded to manslaughter. The book "Journal of the Dead" describes the events surrounding the tragedy.

[edit] Further reading

Narrativity - in contrast to the approach adopted for this film.

Movies of Gus Van Sant

Mala Noche • Five Ways to Kill Yourself • My New Friend • Ken Death Gets Out of Jail • Drugstore Cowboy • Fame '90 • Thanksgiving Prayer • My Own Private Idaho • Under The Bridge • Even Cowgirls Get the Blues • To Die For • Four Boys in a Volvo • Good Will Hunting • Ballad of the Skeletons • Psycho • Finding Forrester • Gerry • Elephant • Last Days • Paranoid Park