Elephant (1989)

Top comments

1. 

   corchap

   I think most people are missing the point. its a very cold and brutal short about violence and indifference. it has 18 murders and we learn nothing about the killer or the victims 4 years 10 months ago
2. 

   piet

   @jarmel The explanation can be found on the film's Wikipedia page
   
   

   quote:

   The title is a tribute to the 1989 BBC short film of the same name, directed by Alan Clarke. Van Sant originally believed Clarke's title referred to the story of several blind men trying to describe an elephant and each one drawing different conclusions based on which body part they were touching. Later, he found out that it was referring to the phrase "elephant in the room," a reference to the collective denial of some very obvious problem. Van Sant's film uses the earlier interpretation, as the same general timeline is shown multiple times from multiple viewpoints.

   14 years 11 months ago
3. 

   jarmel

   I don't know the exact relationship between this and Gus Van Sant's Elephant but for me the latter borrows heavily from the Alan Clarke version. 15 years ago

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