Gus Van Sant to Receive Campari Passion for Film Award
Renowned filmmaker, Gus Van Sant, has been selected to receive the Campari Passion for Film Award at this year’s Venice Film Festival.
Gus Van Sant climbed up the ranks in Hollywood back in the late 1980’s/early 1990’s starting out with great independent films such as Drugstore Cowboy and My Own Private Idaho. All bets were off when he directed, arguably, the first great Nicole Kidman performance ever with the 1995 dark comedy film, To Die For, which co-starred Joaquin Phoenix. Now, after many great films, Van Sant has been selected to receive the Campari Passion for Film Award on September 2nd at this year’s Venice Film Festival.
Van Sant has an ambitious new movie screening at the Venice festival right after he receives this prestigious award. Dead Man’s Wire is Van Sant’s latest offering and is a volatile drama that stars Al Pacino, Colman Domingo, Cary Elwes and other great performers. This new picture is about a banker taken hostage by an armed real estate developer who demands millions of dollars for being cheated out of what he believes was justly his.
Another of Van Sant’s notable accomplishments was his direction of Sean Penn who took home his second Best Actor Oscar for his 2008 work as Harvey Milk in the aptly titled, Milk. Getting actors awards and accolades was something Van Sant could do pretty well. Robin Williams won the Best Supporting Actor Oscar for Van Sant’s biggest and best film – 1997’s Good Will Hunting.
Finding Forrester from the year 2000 found Van Sant directing the legendary Sean Connery in an enjoyable rendering of a young writer’s bond with an accomplished author (Connery, of course) who became a recluse living a sheltered life in the Bronx. That picture garnered even a stronger audience CinemaScore grade than Good Will Hunting did with its “A+” versus Good Will Hunting‘s “A.”
All eyes are on Van Sant for his latest project, Dead Man’s Wire, but truth be told, the director has been a filmmaker of the highest caliber ever since the beginning of his remarkable directorial career. Good Will Hunting solidified the director’s success with a Best Director Oscar nomination for Van Sant in one of the most competitive cinematic years of all-time. Remember that was the year Titanic came out.
To Die For ultimately proved to be a hard sell outside of the art houses, but the film featured one of Nicole Kidman’s most courageous roles to date. I somehow prefer it to her recent part in Babygirl. Van Sant’s ability to tell stories with style and substance made him a household name though his earlier works showed a raw and powerful side of his filmmaking that was evidence he could do thought-provoking pictures that weren’t afraid to take risks and were super intelligent as well as craft his excellent, more mainstream successes. Van Sant wholeheartedly deserves this honor.
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