Chaos, Compassion, and Finding Humanity in the Absurd: A Conversation with ‘Dead Man’s Wire’ Director Gus Van Sant

There are filmmakers whose work you admire, and then there are filmmakers whose work quietly shapes how you understand cinema itself. Gus Van Sant belongs firmly in the latter category for me. Long before I knew the mechanics of screenwriting or the language of filmmaking, his films taught me something far more essential. They taught me how empathy could exist without sentimentality. How beauty could live inside discomfort. How contradiction was not something to be resolved, but something to be observed with patience and care.

Across decades, Van Sant has carved out a singular space in American cinema. His filmography is not just diverse. It is restless, curious, and stubbornly uninterested in neat categorization. From the raw immediacy of Drugstore Cowboy to the cultural permanence of Good Will Hunting, from the quiet grace of Finding Forrester to the haunting stillness of Elephant, from the political urgency of Milk to the corporate unease of Promised Land, his work consistently returns to people living at emotional edges. Addicts, geniuses, wanderers, activists, and men unraveling under pressure. Characters caught between survival and self-destruction, tenderness and violence, hope and resignation.

What unites these films is not genre or style, but a point of view. Van Sant’s cinema observes rather than judges. It lingers where other films cut away. It trusts silence as much as dialogue. It allows people to remain unknowable. His films do not chase trends. More often, they quietly shape them. They trust the audience to lean in, to sit with discomfort, to do the emotional work alongside the characters rather than having meaning spelled out for them.

For generations of cinephiles, Van Sant’s work offered proof that American cinema could be poetic without being precious, political without being didactic, and emotional without being manipulative. Even when his films court danger or controversy, they remain deeply human at their core. They are interested in systems, but even more interested in how individuals fracture under their weight.

For me personally, his films were formative. Growing up, Good Will Hunting was not just a movie. It was a moment of awakening. It was one of the first films that made intelligence feel cinematic and vulnerability feel brave. It suggested that masculinity could be tender, that emotional honesty was not a weakness but a form of courage, and that class and anger could coexist with deep longing. That film did not just entertain me. It opened a door. It made cinema feel intimate and urgent, like a conversation you carried with you long after the screen went dark. In many ways, it was my gateway into loving films not just as entertainment, but as craft, confession, and cultural reflection.

That throughline of empathy and curiosity runs through Van Sant’s entire body of work. Whether he is observing addicts drifting through Portland streets, students navigating unspoken violence, or public figures negotiating private cost, his camera remains patient. It allows contradiction. It allows discomfort. It allows audiences to sit with people who are messy, frustrating, and deeply human.

With Dead Man’s Wire, Van Sant returns to terrain that feels both familiar and newly charged. Based on the astonishing true story of Tony Kiritsis, who wired a shotgun to himself and his mortgage broker during a 1977 hostage standoff, the film transforms real-life desperation into a darkly comic pressure cooker, guided by Austin Kolodney’s writing and Gus Van Sant’s impeccable direction. It is a story soaked in absurdity, anger, and media spectacle, yet guided by the same fascination with human fracture that has animated Van Sant’s work for decades.

Dead Man’s Wire feels less like a comeback than a continuation. A filmmaker returning to old questions through a volatile new lens. What happens when a system fails someone so completely that spectacle becomes their only language? How does media turn suffering into entertainment? Where does empathy end and complicity begin?

The film hums with manic energy, but it never loses sight of the human cost beneath the chaos. Comedy emerges not from punchlines, but from the sheer absurdity of behavior under pressure. Tension builds not through artificial escalation, but through the simple fact that everything feels one twitch away from catastrophe. The 70s setting is not nostalgia. It is immersion. Tactile, sweaty, and alive. A world where analog textures, cramped spaces, and intrusive cameras conspire to trap both the characters and the audience inside the spectacle.

Watching Dead Man’s Wire, it is impossible not to feel echoes of Van Sant’s earlier work. There is the institutional critique of Elephant, the media awareness of To Die For, the compassion for societal outsiders found in Drugstore Cowboy, and the quiet understanding of male vulnerability that runs through Good Will Hunting and Finding Forrester. Yet the film also feels energized and mischievous. Loose on its feet. A director clearly enjoying himself, playing with rhythm and tone while trusting the audience to keep up.

In our conversation, Van Sant speaks with the same calm curiosity that defines his films. He deflects ego, embraces collaboration, and consistently returns to instinct over theory. What follows is a conversation about chaos, craft, performance, and the strange comfort of returning to independent filmmaking after decades of navigating American cinema. It is also a reminder of why Gus Van Sant’s voice continues to matter, and why his cinema of human fracture still feels essential.

Rahul Menon: Dead Man’s Wire walks a tightrope between absurdity and real tension. When you first approached this story, how did you decide where to lean into chaos and where to stay grounded and human?

Gus Van Sant: There wasn’t a single decision that defined that balance. A lot of the energy you are describing came together in the editing. Saar Klein was assembling the material while we were still shooting, and the first cut already had that feeling. The script by Austin Kolodney itself was pretty straightforward, but once we started shaping the footage, the rhythm and tone began to reveal themselves. It became about trusting what the material wanted to be rather than forcing it into a preconceived idea of chaos or restraint.

Rahul: Tony Kiritsis is volatile, almost cartoonish at times, yet Bill Skarsgård plays him with real vulnerability. How did the two of you work toward that balance?

Gus: Most of our early work was done remotely. Bill was in Sweden, and we connected over Zoom. He worked with a voice coach in the U.S. that he had collaborated with before, and I would check in from time to time. He made recordings that I listened to, and we adjusted things step by step. By the time he arrived on set, the character was already very formed. From there, it was about letting him live inside Tony rather than polishing anything away.

Rahul: The chemistry between Bill Skarsgård and Dacre Montgomery feels unpredictable and tense, but also strangely funny. How did you approach shaping that dynamic?

Gus: They were both very committed and very present. A lot of it happened naturally. They trusted each other, and they became friends during the shoot, which helped. There was a sense of play between them, even within the tension, and that allowed the awkwardness and humor to surface organically.

What struck me while watching Dead Man’s Wire was how little the film pushes for comedy and how often it simply allows absurdity to exist. Van Sant does not underline jokes. He observes behavior. That instinct has always been central to his work, whether it is the wandering addicts of Drugstore Cowboy or the emotionally stranded geniuses of Good Will Hunting.

Rahul: The comedy in the film never feels like punchlines. It comes from genuine chaos. Was finding that laugh while you flinch tone the biggest challenge?

Gus: Those moments were already built into Austin’s script. The situations and actions were there on the page. Our job was to play with them when we reached the parts that were funny. We did not try to heighten the comedy artificially. We trusted that if we played things straight, the humor would emerge on its own.

Rahul: The 1970s feel lived in rather than nostalgic. How did you approach building the era without tipping into parody?

Gus: Louisville, Kentucky was a good starting point. The town already carried the feeling of the period. From there, it was about adding set dressing, costumes, and photography in a measured way. We were always asking whether we were going too far or not far enough. It was a gradual process of adjustment.

Rahul: Visually, the film feels choreographed yet spontaneous. What guided your visual approach to Tony’s spiraling plan?

Gus: I wanted to let the visuals find themselves. Working with Arnaud Potier, the cinematographer, I encouraged him to shoot things the way he felt was right. He is very good at discovering moments through blocking and movement. The guiding principle was not to overthink it. We had monitors, so there was some control, but overall we tried to stay open to what was happening in front of us.

This openness to discovery feels like a throughline in Van Sant’s career. Elephant, Last Days, and even Milk share a trust in atmosphere and observation. Dead Man’s Wire may be more overtly stylized, but it still breathes in that same cinematic space where meaning is allowed to emerge rather than declared.

Rahul: You have often been drawn to characters in desperate situations. What keeps pulling you toward stories about people unraveling under pressure?

Gus: I have had a number of characters who find themselves in desperate situations, surrounded by other desperate people. That seems to be their lot in life. I think it is a personal fascination. Those situations create conflict and become the basis for stories. Often it is about finding love or connection in all the wrong places. I do not know why these stories keep taking that shape, except that life often feels like that.

Rahul: The supporting cast lands with incredible precision. How did you think about casting actors like Al Pacino, Colman Domingo, and Cary Elwes in smaller but impactful roles?

Gus: Casting moved very quickly and sometimes changed based on availability. That is often how it goes. With Colman and Al, they had limited time that lined up with our schedule, and they felt like the right fit. It came together organically.

Van Sant has always had an instinct for casting that enriches rather than distracts. Even brief appearances in his films feel intentional, as if every face belongs to the same emotional ecosystem. Dead Man’s Wire continues that tradition, grounding its chaos in recognizable human texture.

Rahul: Danny Elfman’s score oscillates between menace and mischief. How did music become such a defining element of the film?

Gus: We started with the idea of something in the vein of a Jerry Goldsmith score. Danny told me Goldsmith was a major influence on his decision to compose for film. That became our foundation. We exchanged ideas back and forth, used some temporary pieces, and Danny kept refining the music. It came together very well.

Rahul: What was it about Tony Kiritsis that made this story feel worth returning to now?

Gus: I was not thinking about timing in that sense. His situation could exist in almost any era. Being unable to keep up with payments and feeling frustrated by the system is very widespread. Tony was just a very vocal person in that situation, which made him stand out.

Rahul: Dead Man’s Wire is your first theatrical feature in several years. How does this moment feel within your career?

Gus: I was working on projects during that time, just not theatrical ones. I did work for Gucci and on a television show with Ryan Murphy. But returning to an independent theatrical film does have a cozy feeling. It was something I had not done in a while, and it felt good to be back in that space.

Listening to Gus Van Sant talk about Dead Man’s Wire, what becomes clear is how little his curiosity has dulled over time. He is still fascinated by people on the margins, by systems that fail quietly until someone explodes, and by the strange humanity that emerges in moments of crisis. Dead Man’s Wire fits comfortably alongside Drugstore Cowboy, Elephant, and even Good Will Hunting not because it resembles them formally, but because it shares their moral curiosity and emotional restraint.

The film does not ask us to absolve Tony Kiritsis, nor does it ask us to condemn him outright. Instead, it asks us to look. To notice. To sit with the discomfort of recognizing how easily desperation becomes entertainment. That tension between empathy and unease has always been Van Sant’s sweet spot, and Dead Man’s Wire reaffirms why his voice remains essential.

For those of us who grew up watching his films and learning, sometimes unconsciously, how cinema could feel this alive and this honest, Dead Man’s Wire is not just a return. It is a reminder of why Gus Van Sant’s work continues to matter.