MY OWN PRIVATE IDAHO (1991)

Heartfelt & proudly eccentric*, Gus Van Sant’s stare-down at the ins & outs of NorthWest city-boy street hustlers is fabulist & intimate at the same time.  Centered on tousled blond beauty River Phoenix, apt any moment to fall off some trick’s cock in narcoleptic swoon; and Keanu Reeves’ raven-haired slacker, a rebellious Prince, scion to the mayor, reveling on the down-low edge.  (The way Sant paints these sainted sinners, so appealingly grunge-glam, we’d all be standing in line.)  Drifting around Portland, Seattle, Idaho, even Rome, hunting up customers as they search for Phoenix’s long-missing mom, the boys’ tender bromance leans toward love from Phoenix, wary acceptance from Reeves.  Withal, Sant gives half the film over to a replay of Shakespeare’s Falstaff & Prince Hal.  And not a travesty, but the real thing; robbing a certain Bard of dialogue credit.  (That’s cult director William Richert as the Falstaffian  ‘Fat Bob’, Reeves a Prince Hal who’ll eventually grow out of his sporting ways, and Phoenix as . . . never been sure who he’s supposed to be.  (Is James Dean in HENRY IV?)  Plus, a motley crew of hangers-on to laugh heartily at Elizabethan jokes they don’t quite understand.*  Shot in over-saturated hues to match the purple prose; it’s almost enough to hide the usual Gus Van Sant fault of announcing artistic intent & import rather than demonstrating it.*

SCREWY THOUGHT OF THE DAY:  *Almost wrote ‘profoundly’ eccentric.  If only it were!

DB/LINK:  *The only Sant (seen here) to avoid the fault is his debut feature, MALA NOCHE/’86.  At least I think it does.  Seen by happenstance decades ago on low-fi tv, and having missed the opening five minutes, the zero-budget film seemed something of an astonishment.  Now, I’d be afraid of a second look spoiling the memory.  (To see the difference, compare Sant with almost any film from fellow 'New Queer Cinema' auteur Todd Haynes.)  OR:  *Catch Shakespeare's original via Orson Welles in CHIMES AT MIDNIGHT/’65.  https://maksquibs.blogspot.com/2017/05/chimes-at-midnight-aka-falstaff-1965.html