Waiting for Gerry By Rick Curnutte Richard A. Curnutte, Jr. is the Editor of The Film Journal. He has studied English and Film at Ohio University and The Ohio State University. He is a founding member of the Central Ohio Film Critics Association

A new American masterpiece

Gus Van Sant's polarizing Gerry, at once a supreme formalist exercise and profound humanist drama, has placed its creator at the forefront of a potential New American Cinema, one in which contemporary filmmakers, both young and old, begin taking risks to realize that one true dream of any artist: to have one's singular voice heard amidst the cacophonous roar of the middle ground. The finest film by an American director in 20 years, Gerry is much more than a mere experiment of form and function. It is, and will be, a testament to the will of an artist.

Circular rhythms

Arvo Part's beautiful, lilting piano and violin piece, "Spiegel Im Spiegel", from the album Alina, has been used in numerous films of late (Tom Tykwer's Heaven, Mike Nichols' Wit), but never with the urgency and importance as in the opening frames of Gerry. The piece which, within the context of the album it resides on, is a self-reflexive rumination of the various intonations and cadences of form, is almost hypnotically seductive. It taunts and teases with its rises and falls, its repetitive notes. It dances circles around itself, only to find its way back to where it began. Shrill strums of the violin strings echo softly over the luminous, warm piano piece.

Although Gerry's opening is not literally circular, the piece's inclusion cannot be ignored. We begin trailing a tattered Mercedes from afar, perhaps the distance of a car slightly behind the one we're watching. The music drones on for several minutes before we meet the occupants of the car, the two Gerrys (Matt Damon and Casey Affleck). For another couple of minutes, we study their faces. Very little happens. That is to say, no action takes place, but we can gather bits of information from just this introduction.

Affleck's Gerry is the chauffeur, the one driving. Whether the car is his or not, we do not know, but Damon's Gerry is steadfast and confident as passenger, perhaps even as navigator. The impression is of Damon's Gerry leading Affleck's Gerry to wherever their eventual destination is (which, we find later, appears to be the case).

Finally, we are given the Gerrys' point of view, of a seemingly endless expanse of road ahead of us. The virtual 360 has taken us in a kind of figure 8 around the beginning of Gerry's journey, from distant voyeur to active participant. We're taken into the car one final time as the Gerrys arrive at their apparent stopping point, the beginning of a wilderness trail.

How Part's music fits in here is a bit tricky, perhaps. "Spiegel IM Spiegel" ("Mirror in Mirror") does not just mirror itself within the confines of the written and recorded notes. It also mirrored itself with multiple performances on the Alina album. So, we have a piece that is so self-reflexive, it can be difficult to determine when the trick begins and where it ends. The two Gerrys are reflexive of each other. That is, both are young, attractive, seemingly middle-class white males. Physiologically, they resemble one another. Now, when Part's compositions begin to deviate from one another (in tempo, in volume, etc.), the differences in character are also drawn. Damon's Gerry is seemingly the confidant one. Affleck's, the more demure and hesitant. He is quiet, but nervous-seeming in the opening minutes of Gerry.

Generally speaking, the minimalist style of Part's music is a no-brainer for Van Sant's spare, poetic tone, but the circular patterns of the film's opening resemble in great detail the circular, mirror-image intonations of the Part recordings. Even the rising major key and descending minor key scale melodies reflect the differing personalities/character traits of Van Sant's protagonists (can they be called anything else?)

Though nothing is said, and little action occurs, what we have is a case of the music and images directly effecting one another, to the point of being inseparable.

Man vs. Nature

The causality of the way the Gerrys behave in relation to their environment is crucial in the next few minutes of Gerry. They begin their trek on the wilderness trail with only one bottle of water each (and even these seem more an afterthought than anything). In addition to their meager ration of water, they have cigarettes and really nothing else. Though they are not planning to be lost, of course, they have nevertheless assumed a shaky control over their situation, i.e. there is nothing to worry about and, therefore, nothing for which they need to prepare themselves.

In search of "the thing" (more on this later), the Gerrys veer off course to avoid the tourists after the same "thing" as they are. "It's all going to go to the same place," says Damon (again, references to circular motion). They haphazardly sprint through the barren brush, wasting breath and energy, feeling they have nothing to lose when, in fact, the exact opposite is true.

I'm not sure that Van Sant meant to issue a grand indictment on man's assumed dominance over nature, but the theme is present nevertheless. Damon's Gerry urinates on brush and spits incessantly, both gestures with aggressive connotations. Additionally, he is constantly picking up sticks or picking branches from trees, snapping them over his knees or tossing them aside. What comes from all of this is a perceived arrogance about his vulnerability (or lack of) to the power of Nature. Affleck's Gerry is more withdrawn and less aggressive (though he, too, takes part in the wasteful play running), but he doesn't at first appear to be worried about getting lost.

Their veering off course only furthers this idea of dominance over Nature, the notion that they can go any way that they want to, and they'll still find their way to "the thing". However, after tiring themselves from running (their water is already gone by this point, by the way), they give up their quest and decide to go back.

It is at this point where they become lost. Van Sant, very subtley pulls everything out of focus, just at the moment where they begin to wonder about their surroundings. Then he pulls back into focus and they're lost. However, instead of concentrating on finding their way back to their car (which they probably could have done, even at this point), they prattle on about inane things like Wheel of Fortune contestants and, for the most part, pay little to no attention to where they're going. It is just after this that their trip has turned away from an excursion and into a search for survival.

It is also at this point that all of their perceptions of control vanish. From now on, they will be completely in the hands of Nature. Van Sant reminds us of this constantly, through achingly beautiful, while still threatening, shots of expansive desert, or slowly rolling clouds, with the immaculately conceived soundscape of wind and distant thunder. He consistently sets up situations in which they could save themselves, only to shoot them down (their mountain top "scoutabouts", following animal tracks, etc.).

Even lost, the Gerrys continue to scoff at their predicament for a while. During their first night, they talk about, of all things, role-playing games (Affleck's Gerry has lost his medieval kingdom do to shoddy planning and arrogance...very effective, not-so-subtle symbolism). They've somehow bested early man's quest for fire, but they will succeed at little else.

Waiting for "the thing"

Beckett's Waiting for Godot begins with two friends, Vladimir and Estragon, meeting and discussing a stranger that they are supposed to be waiting for, a man name Godot (resemblance to "God" is not exactly subtle). Chattering idly, discussing life matters, a certain dynamic is set up between the two. Weaker, Estragon seems in constant need of Vladimir's dominating personality (Estragon even asks for help taking off his shoes). Vladimir is impatient with Estragon's naivete, constantly haranguing him about this or that. The two come across others during their wait, essentially rebuffed at every turn. In the end, having contemplated suicide (albeit in a comical way), their quest for Godot (God) ends with naught, though they've come into something Other, something much more akin to their quest than they realize.

So, too, do the two Gerrys search for the mystical Other. Their journey begins with a simple trek down a wilderness trail to see "the thing", a landmark, a destination which is never revealed to us. They quickly give up on "the thing", having exhausted themselves and having convinced themselves that "the thing" will be a letdown, an illusory holy grail which will be sure to disappoint. Having given up on "the thing", they are immediately lost in the desert. Van Sant sets up the Gerrys to embark on an epic quest for God, or faith, or, at the very least, humanity. The Gerrys are everyday Joes, two mostly nondescript men who are forced to weather a situation no man or woman would want to encounter.

Essentially non-plussed at first, the two treat their predicament as part of a game, something to be conquered and defeated. Indeed, Affleck's Gerry regales an epic tale of a role-playing game, one in which he begins a conqueror and ends up as the conquered. Foreshadowing aside, this is tremendously effective posturing on the creators' part, an effort by the weaker Gerry (Estrogon) to prove himself to his friend, the more dominant of the two (Vladimir).

Van Sant wraps his characters up in a panoramic hell, a vast wasteland of sand and rock, nearly every glance overpowering and dismal. They climb to the top of a mountain, only to see, for miles on end, more of the same. On occasion, Van Sant will show his Gerrys walking confidantly, only to pan back and around, showing just how lost and abandoned they really are. Halfway through the film, the Gerrys are so disoriented by their surroundings, they have no substantial hope of finding their way back to civilization, much less finding their car or, at the very least, water to regain stamina.

So they are left to hope for salvation. The road is their Godot, a place Van Sant has returned to often (My Own Private Idaho, Even Cowgirls Get the Blues, even Good Will Hunting to an extent). They talk, they jeer and, eventually, begin to give up hope of ever being saved. Finally, they must return to their quest for God, for "the thing", for a way to escape this peril with their humanity intact. It's tragic that it must come in the form of a death.

In the company of men

The final ten minutes of Gerry are among the most harrowing, and honest, in portraying the extreme devotion and complex platonic love that can exist between two male friends, something beyond the frat-boy hijinks that usually passes for male bonding in American movies. Directly in opposition to the angry male repression cinema of filmmakers like Paul Schrader and Neil LaBute, Gus Van Sant paints an astonishing portrait of dedication and, eventually, mercy of one friend for the other.

As stated, Affleck's Gerry has long since been set up as the more extreme victim, the weaker of a, by this time, fragile bond. In a mezmerizing 9-minute sequence, in a continuous shot, we follow the Gerrys across the fierce, frozen desert landscape, Affleck's Gerry trailing far behind his friend. The rigorous formalism here, Van Sant's refusal to intercut or use close-ups of anguished faces, allows us to really take in what is, ultimately, the final death march of one of the Gerrys. After, we find them both collapsed, passed out from exhaustion. Slowly gaining consciousness, in one of the most bittersweet jokes in recent memory, Affleck's Gerry asks, "How do you think the hike's going so far?" Daringly hilarious, it's a final attempt to make light of their perilous situation. Of course, it cannot last. You can imagine Affleck's Gerry thinking of the concentration of will that standing will require; then the pain of walking, the scorching thirst, the gut-wrenching hunger.

Van Sant's film hangs precariously here, striving for immediacy and perfection, possibly careening towards disaster. He seals it with two simple, final words from the weaker Gerry: "I'm leaving." He reaches for his friend, craving something, an embrace, a respite. He gets both. A hug of trepidation turns in the last breath of a young life, as Damon's Gerry chokes his friend in an exhausting mercy killing.

Many have equated this primal, painful scene with an undercurrent of homoeroticism. To be sure, Van Sant has tread that path before, to greatest success in My Own Private Idaho. But here, that notion seems reductive, selling short the drama of a wonderful friendship stretched to the brink. The strength required to kill in this manner, precious energy spent. The certain slow death that the killer will suffer with no one to offer him the same quick escape. It's a tough, wrenching pill, but it rings true.

Damon's Gerry finally awakens, after having passed out again, to find that the two of them are lying only a few hundred yards or so from the highway they've been searching for the last three days. He wanders, zombie-like, toward the shimmering horizon, his salvation at last. He's been rewarded for his self-sacrifice, but at what price? The answer to that, if there indeed is one, isn't needed. Van Sant has said his piece. It's up to us to take away from it what we can decipher from our own experience with the picture. One Gerry has found his Godot, his "thing", his God. The perilous journey has been his purgatory. The car ride back to civilization is his rapture.

                                                                 © FILM JOURNAL 2002