Media and Politics | First Impressions

The first of two podcasts on Gus Van Sant’s TO DIE FOR (1995), this one with Matt Hays, journalist, co-editor with Tom Waugh of McGill-Queen’s Press’ QUEER FILM CLASSICS series, and a professor of film at Concordia University and Marianopolis College. Matt’s reviewed Criterion’s recent edition of the film for the current CINEASTE and I wanted to pick up on some of the excellent points he raises there: how is the film a turning point in Van Sant’s career? What is this shifting of gears between Van Sant’s more commercial and more esoteric works? Was the film prescient? What does it tell us about celebrity culture, the media and politics? What is the film’s view of heterosexual relations? Is there a ‘gay gaze’ on the male bodies? What does it tell us about race in America? What are the formal tensions running through the film? It’s structure has been compared to that of CITIZEN KANE and RASHOMON. How so? We agree that Kidman gives one of her greatest performances but have Matt Dillon and Joaquim Phoenix been overlooked? All this and much more can be heard here: