Elephant (short film)
| Movie | |
|---|---|
| German title | Elephant |
| Original title | Elephant |
| Country of production | UK |
| original language | English |
| Publishing year | 1989 |
| length | 39 minutes |
| Age rating | FSK 18 |
| Rod | |
| Director | Alan Clarke |
| script | Bernard MacLaverty |
| production | Danny Boyle |
| camera |
Philip Dawson John Ward |
| cut | Don O'Donovan |
| occupation | |
Elephant is a British, experimental short film directed by Alan Clarke from 1989. The film drama was his last directorial work before his death in 1990. The film inspired the thematically similar film of the same name (2003) by Gus Van Sant .
action
The camera tracks a line of riflemen who appear to be shooting at civilians at random. After the shooting you can see the perpetrator fleeing, then a longer shot of the corpse follows. Both perpetrators and victims are male. The perpetrators use revolvers, pistols or shotguns. Now and then the introduction is filmed from the perspective of the victims. The shots are usually executed in the style of executions, in almost all cases the corpse is shot several times. The murders happen in different places and at different times of the day, these are chronological:
- a swimming pool
- a gas station
- a back yard
- the toilet of a warehouse
- a park
- a snack
- an empty house
- a residential building
- a soccer field
- a gas station
- an apartment (two people are shot here)
- a spacious house
- a warehouse
- a parking lot
- an industrial site (two perpetrators)
- a house (two people are shot)
- on the street (two perpetrators)
- a factory site (two perpetrators)
The perpetrators flee by car and on foot after the shooting. Dialogues are only present in the film during a soccer game, here the perpetrator plays soccer with three boys and then draws his gun and shoots one while the others run away. Otherwise only cars, footsteps and the gunshots can be heard.
background
Alan Clarke's latest directorial work is a statement on the Northern Ireland conflict , in which a number of civilians were victims of violence in the 1980s and 1990s. The film was shot in Belfast with a steadicam . The later director Danny Boyle , who was working for the Northern Irish television broadcaster BBC Northern Ireland at the time and thus found his way into the film business, was involved as a producer . He was very impressed by director Alan Clarke, whom he later visited in the hospital before his death.
The title is based on the English expression "elephant in the room", which the Irish writer and screenwriter Bernard MacLaverty applied to the Northern Ireland conflict, and originally describes a repressed, unmistakable problem. This elephant is always in the way, but over time you learn to live with it.
Gus Van Sant took the title for his feature film Elephant , a cinematic reworking of the rampage at Columbine High School , but did not refer to the phrase but to the Buddhist parable of the five blind people examining an elephant .
In 2011 Vanessa Nica Mueller visited the original locations of the film and processed them in Traces of an Elephant .
criticism
Elephant is often described as Alan Clarke's best and darkest film and influenced a number of other filmmakers in addition to Danny Boyle and Gus Van Sant.
Web links
- Elephant in the Internet Movie Database (English)
Individual evidence
- ↑ Commentary by Danny Boyle, DVD The Firm / Elephant , DVD, Blue Underground 2006
- ↑ "Phrases - the elephant in the room - a major problem or controversial issue which is obviously present but is avoided as a subject for discussion." Entry in the online edition of the Oxford English Dictionary , accessed on November 2, 2012.
- ^ A b Justin Hobday: Review. Screen Online, accessed February 3, 2011 .
- ↑ Interview with Gus Van Sant on the official website for his film Elephant , accessed on November 1, 2012.
- ↑ Slarek: The way of the gun. DVD Outsider, accessed February 3, 2011 .
- ^ Comment by Gary Oldman in the documentary "Director: Alan Clarke", excerpt from the DVD The Firm / Elephant , DVD, Blue Underground 2006
- ↑ Dennis Lim: Film. The Village Voice , August 31, 2008, accessed February 3, 2011 .