ing at the same time.” Film critic Kristi Turnquist writes, “The blend is evident in the first three chapters of his autobiographical film, a life-long work in progress that he compares with a diary. My Friend, a three-minute short in which he discusses a sexual attraction to his best friend, is deadpan funny, but it has its scary side as well. “I’m falling in love with a guy,” as Van Sant puts it. “So that’s frightening, isn't it? It’s frightening to me.” The newest film, Whered She Go? , was inspired by the death of Van Sant’s grandmother, who on her deathbed gave him marketing advice. “Buy IBM." Casual observers tend to interpret Van Sant’s disarming humility as self-doubt. Further probing suggests that it is standard issue equipment for his brand of perfectionist. While others may consider Van Sant’s writing gifts considerable, he has never felt comfortable about his skills. “Using someone else’s story frees me to concentrate on film. I can rely on the plot development being there,” I had worked as sound man for Penny Allen’s film Property. My friend Eric Edwards shot that film, and we both knew Walt Curtis from his acting in Property. Eric sent me a copy of Mala Noche. I read it and started writing to Walt.” Van Sant finished work on the script while still in New York. Then, quitting his job, he moved to Portland in December of 1983. “The problem was casting," frowns Van Sant. “I was ready to start shooting the minute my plane came down if only I could get the cast. Casting is a terribly underrated and critical part of filmmaking. I had to have the two Mexican boys and they had to be right. I couldn't settle for almost.” Van Sant’s search lasted from January through the beginning of September. He put out general calls, went through talent agency listings, attended endless auditions, advertised in Variety, and flew to Los Angeles to repeat the pattern. He went on "painting, his humorous, faintly- ominous oils selling to the Heathman Hotel and to many well-placed collectors. He continued to play his guitar, composing, singing and recording his wry, low- key songs with their bite of Randy Newman influence. He began studying piano. But his main purpose was perpetual scouting for the right faces and identities for Mala Noche. Van Sant met Channel 12 news cameraman John Campbell at Teknifilm one day and the two collaborated on a series of public service announcements. With Walt Curtis joining in the search, Van Sant visited the migrant labor camps of Cornelius, Woodburn and Oregon City. In mid-summer, at the offhand suggestion of a sports reporter, the two strolled into the boxing gym at Matt Dishman Community Center and discovered Ray Monge. He is the 21-year-old amateur boxer who coaches part-time for the park bureau’s boxing program. Monge, a 1984 Oregon State Golden Gloves Champion, is a disciplined athlete with a reserved self-confidence beyond his years. Though Ray speaks little Spanish, he had the right look and presence for the role of Pepper. Van Sant explained the story and the role carefully, having run into hostility to the homosexual angles elsewhere. Ray’s only hesitation came out immediately. "Would I have to kiss him? I won’t kiss a guy." “No, of course not’” said Van Sant, rewriting in his head. Monge, with no acting experience at all, agreed to take on the job. In the book Mala Noche, the clerk, Walt, spends many hours ceaselessly cruising the streets in hopes of catching sight of the boy, Johnny. Heartened by the discovery of Pepper, Van Sant continued his own version of the search for Johnny. Early in September, Van Sant’s advertisement in Willamette Week set an open audition at the Civic Theatre. “There were six people there when I walked in,” remembers Van Sant, “and none of them was right but I went ahead with it. Then Doug walked in, late and shy. I knew the minute I saw him.” Doug Cooeyate, a 17-year-old Beaverton High School junior and guitarist for heavy metal band Raging Darkness, is a feisty, natural performer whose mother had seen the ad and advised him to try out. “I just walked in,” says Doug, “and suddenly there’s this skinny guy waving a Polaroid at me. It was Gus.” With Johnny and Pepper lined up, and treated consistently like miraculous gifts from heaven, another casting problem still puzzled Van Sant. Whether or not to have Walt Curtis play himself in the film. Curtis, always a showman, was ambivalent about the prospect. “In a way I really would have liked to play myself,” says Walt. “But at the same time it would have been a terrible burden.” Van Sant had similar feelings. “A lot of the script is actually Walt’s poetry. It would have given the film a certain character.... But Walt doesn’t have a phone and it’s always hard to get in touch with him, which was one bad thing about using him as the lead...of course, there was also his self-consciousness, his inability to act, his inability to take direction, and his inability, ever, to do it twice the id- moinia. J I MU- could MOU mux. them, wp? I t d. LikeDoug Cooeyate, Gus Van Sant and cinematographer John Campbell on location near Roy, Oregon (Photo, Janice Pierce); Below, Ray Monge as Pepper talks to extra Ann Buffen (Photo, Eric Edwards) same way. The issue was settled when Van Sant found Portland actor Tim Streeter playing in the Actors Repertory Theater production of Plenty. “Tim was right for the part and he was a way out of the Walt rut. I felt a lot of enthusiasm again with these new characters and faces to work with.” Streeter immediately began letting his beard grow for the part which made one of his several roles in Plenty impossible for him. The clean-shaven Van Sant stepped into the bit part with no notice and did it discreetly until the end of the play’s run. Having worked successfully with cameraman John Campbell, Van Sant asked him if he would like to shoot the picture. Campbell says, “I had read the book when it came out and was stunned, by its honesty and its power. I was tre-' mendously excited when Gus told me he was making the film but I was worried that the portrayal of an unfair sexual power battle could be used to harass a whole minority. In talking with Gus, though, I didn’t detect any sickness. His attitude was—It's a great story and I want to make a film out of it.” Campbell agreed to be paid in percentage points of the hypothetical future profits, "though Gus and I decided in the beginning not to worry about trying to make a commercial film.” Taking an unpaid leave of absence from his Channel 12 job, Campbell threw himself and his personal film equipment into the project. With the rock-show experience of audio technician Pat Baum on tap to handle the sound taping, and David Thorstein, a friend of Walt’s, as grip and general assistant, the crew was complete. The tavern is not open for business. It is only open for shooting Mala Noche. A dozen of Walt’s friends, poets most of them, are signing release forms to act as extras, occupying the tables and booths. Tim Streeter leans against the bar as a spotlight is angled and measurements are taken. Streeter is unshaven and bleary. His baggy jeans are torn, his flannel shirt rumpled as though it has been slept in and on for days. His ensemble is completed by a ratty, grey, flasher’s topcoat. Watching from a booth is actress Nyla Hawkins, who went from the lead in Plenty to a small but sympathetic role in Mala Noche. Hawkins narrows her eyes briefly at Streeter and comments thoughtfully, “A few days ago the Tim you see now didn’t exist. It's been interesting watching his persona gradually change.” The real Walt Curtis, his silver fuzz of hair haloed by the spotlight, tips a beer bottle to the ceiling and swings over to talk with Tim. Not only is Curtis acting as consultant to the film, he is making himself available for research in character for Tim, and playing a tiny cameo role as an unidentified street poet. John Campbell, hunched over the viewer of the camera, gestures toward Pat Bahm to hoist the boom mike higher so it won’t appear in the shot. Van Sant steps in and bends to peer through the camera. He looks absorbed and tense but he is moving carefully, thinking before he speaks. His voice is calm and soft. “Time for the fog machine.” Van Sant has changed too, since the shooting began, though not as dramatically as Streeter. His thin frame seems even slighter in worn blue jeans and a shapeless sweater. His usually crisp short hair is longer and uncombed. Maybe the ’ pressure of work has made him relax his habits. Or maybe the lure of the Skid Road fate is tempting him. Is he flirting with the Fall? Or absorbing it so he can pump its mysteries into the film? The real Walt Curtis is protesting volubly about a line in the script. “He just wouldn’t say that! He wouldn’t say anything at that point!” Van Sant listens, respectfully, nodding, then continues to set up for a shot. “You must understand,” says an admiring John Campbell, “how incredibly well organized Gus is. Part of being able to make this film sd cheaply is the amount of work Gus put into it before we ever started shooting. This film was completely designed by Gus, almost frame by frame. He did a complete storyboard for every shot, every angle, a huge 500- page storyboard with every shot detailed and planned as though he were Hitchcock.” Also like Hitchcock, Van Sant is suspected by some of a kind of artistic voyeurism. What impresses a visitor to a Van Sant shooting session is a cool but relentless compulsion to execute a very specific effect. The seemingly frail director is moving constantly, involved in every detail, never appearing to rush but working constantly. “I come to filmmaking from painting," says Van Sant. “I’m used to being able to decide and control what happens. I have trouble delegating anything. I feel uncomfortable telling somebody else to do anything, even change a light bulb. It’s easier to do it myself.” This tendency carries over to his study methods as well. Taking Tim Streeter’s bit part yi a play is characteristic of Van Sant’s explorative style, giving him access to Tim’s life and character as well as to theater life. Gus watched Walt Curtis perform his stage poetry readings at the open-mike nights at the Satyricon Tavern for months. Finally Van Sant himself took the stage briefly, reading one of his song lyrics to the boisterous, highly- critical crowd. Van Sant finished and stepped down with an odd satisfied look as though he finally understood what that scene was about. “I think my news work instincts have helped in getting tight and pick-up shots so there will be enough for variety to work with in editing. But Gus has been very active in lighting and designing the whole look of the film. Sometimes I get these anxiety attacks before the rushes are shown. I mean your soul is up there. But I feel great about the quality we’re getting. There are times when I feel like a carpenter as much as a cameraman because we have to measure nearly every shot. We're using very low light levels. That makes focusing extremely delicate. We’re working a lot with pools of light rather than overall lighting, literally with spotlights. This was a deliberate decision to achieve a certain look, very contrasty, a lot of shadows, a lot of back lighting.” “To demonstrate how well organized Gus is, let me just say that in the five weeks of shooting so far, we are not off schedule by an hour. That’s almost unheard of. Everybody gets behind schedule. “Gus really has a lot of quiet strength and wisdom...I was worried when we shot the love scenes all in the first week. I thought, Oh God, we get this smut right off the bat with everybody brand new!’ Ray kept saying, If my dad knew I was doing this he’d kick my ass!’ But the way it was shot is suggestive rather than explicit. Ray and Tim are both straight and neither of them had to do anything they’ll ever regret. As it was, the process of filmmaking is so gritty and unromantic that it was no problem at all. Gus was right to get i.t over with early. It might have worried everybody all along otherwise.” The unedited rushes of the love scenes, filmed in Walt Curtis' apartment, seem startlingly innovative to viewers in8 Clinton St. Quarterly
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