Gus Van Sant’s My Own Private Idaho is the film I recommend to all my Portland transplant friends. It provides a glimpse into the city almost two decades ago. The Pearl, for example, didn’t exist; Blitz-Weinhard’s malty steam suffused the area. The loading docks were loading docks by day, prostitute promenades by night. Powell’s was half its present size (but still huge) and the Stark Street American Apparel was the Great Northwest bookstore. Portland was rainy, gritty, and possessed a noirish beauty. I like to think it still does.
The Oregonian’s Shawn Levy has posted an elegiac tribute to my favorite Portland film, River Phoenix, and the City of Roses in his blog Mad About Movies.
It’s a gorgeous and daring and resonant film that still feels fresh and vivid . . . . And for someone like me, an unapologetic civic jingoist who didn’t know Portland well at all in 1991, it’s a revelation.
The film is filled with uniquely Portland signatures, from actual civic landmarks to beloved buildings to oddball local characters. Van Sant’s hustlers and junkies inhabit the north end of Portland’s downtown, lolling around a restaurant (then Chinese, now Thai) at the corner of Southwest Broadway and Ankeny, living in the then-under-renovation Governor Hotel, flopping in doorways near Jake’s Famous Crawfish, the venerable bar and restaurant in the downtown gay district (the dear departed Great Northwest bookstore makes a cameo appearance).
“the dear departed Great Northwest bookstore makes a cameo appearance”
We are, of course, not departed, dearly or otherwise. Simply no longer on Stark, but rather in an old church beneath the aerial tram line over in the Lair Hill et al neighborhood.
b!x –
Like Shawn, I didn’t know the Great Northwest bookstore was still around; thanks for the info!
Yo Dave! I recently tried to watch that movie but I thought Keanu’s acting was terrible and through waning interest, I fell asleep somewhere about 20 minutes in. Have you seen Gus’s first feature film? I forgot what it is called but it shows a very old school Portland too.
VF –
If you can get past Keanu’s odd acting style, the film is worth the effort; if only for the glimpses of Portland!
Mala Noche? Or Drugstore Cowboy? The former is an interesting but definitely a first film, and the latter is one of my favorite films; also one in which Portland looks great!
Mmmmmm….. Malty smell. That brings back memories.
Its funny to talk to folks who have moved here recently. I get the feeling they think Portland was born around 2002.
Like the Pearl. It used to be the place to get your car fixed not a place to park your SUV and head to your condo.
~n
Thanks for posting this…. I haven’t seen the film since it came out. I watched it overseas in a dingy arthouse cinema in Avingon and after months being abroad… it made me so homesick I almost bought a return ticket that very moment.
Overseas again for a lengthy period, it’s too soon to feel homesick yet. But damn if I don’t want to watch it now.
Thanks.
D