Paranoid Park (film)

Although the film is told in non-chronological order, the following synopsis tells the plot of the film in order.

Alex, a 16-year-old skateboarder, rides a freight train clandestinely with a man named Scratch whom he has just met at the Eastside Skatepark, known as "Paranoid Park". While the train is moving a security guard notices the pair, chases after them, and tries to get them off by hitting Scratch with his flashlight. During the melee, Alex hits him with his skateboard and the guard, losing balance, falls onto another track into the path of an oncoming freight train which cuts him in half. Alex tries to destroy some of the evidence. For example, he throws his skateboard into the Willamette River from the Steel Bridge, and when he arrives at his friend Jared's house, he showers and disposes of the clothes he had been wearing.

Alex is later questioned at school by Detective Richard Lu, as are several other students who had been skateboarding on the night in question. It is revealed that the police have recovered Alex's skateboard, though they have not traced it back to him, and have identified DNA evidence which places the skateboard at the scene of the security guard's death.

Throughout the film Alex keeps the incident to himself, and does not confide in anyone else. After having impassive sex with his girlfriend, Jennifer, he breaks up with her. Another of his friends, Macy, notices that he is worried about something. She advises him to write down whatever is bothering him as a cathartic release if nothing else. He initially rejects the idea, but eventually writes an account, which becomes the basis for the story. After completing the written account, Alex burns it.

• Gabe Nevins as Alex
• Daniel Liu as Detective Richard Lu
• Jake Miller as Jared
• Taylor Momsen as Jennifer
• Lauren McKinney as Macy
• Scott Patrick Green as Scratch
• John Burrowes as Security Guard

Gus Van Sant chose to adapt American author Blake Nelson's novel Paranoid Park into a film of the same name because it was set in his hometown of Portland, Oregon, because he was an amateur skateboarder himself and because he found the story particularly interesting.[6] At the time that he first read the novel, he was accumulating the finances for another film, but abandoned the project and decided instead to write a screenplay based on Nelson's story.[7] His first draft of the script was written in two days,[7] and the final draft was just 33 pages long.[8]

Similar to his 2003 film Elephant, Van Sant sought non-professional young actors to play the main roles, and so created a page for the film on social networking site MySpace. On the page, he posted an open casting call for males and females aged 14–18 who were "skaters, honor roll [students], cheerleaders, punks, drama kids, musicians, artists, student council [members], athletes, award winners, class skippers, photographers, band members, leaders, followers, shy kids, class clowns".[9][10] Two audition sessions were held on August 3 and August 5, 2006, as well as an additional casting call for experienced skateboarders to act as extras in the film;[10] a total of 2,971 people auditioned.[9] Gabe Nevins, having never acted before, heard about the casting call from a skateboard store and originally auditioned as an extra.[11] Nevins was cast in the lead role, which he says was based on his innocence that Van Sant believed trained actors to be lacking.[12] Jake Miller, originally from Boise, Idaho, was on a road trip in Portland when he heard about the casting call and decided to audition with his friends.[13] Taylor Momsen was a professional actor beforehand and received the Paranoid Park script through her agent. She won the role after sending her taped audition to Van Sant.[8] The film features two cameo appearances: Alex's father is played by professional skateboarder Jay "Smay" Williamson, and his uncle is played by the film's cinematographer Christopher Doyle.[14] Most of the actors wore their own clothes and wrote some of their characters' dialogue to maintain a sense of authenticity.[15]

Portland's Burnside Skatepark, a filming location, was built clandestinely by skateboarders like the fictional Paranoid Park.

Principal photography began in Oregon in October 2006.[10] Filming locations included Portland State University, the Steel Bridge, St. Johns Bridge, Lloyd Center,[16] Madison High School[17] and Van Sant's own beach house.[11] Scenes at the fictional Eastside Skatepark were filmed at Portland's Burnside Skatepark, which was, like Eastside, built illegally by skateboarders and subsequently approved by the city as a public skatepark.[18] Van Sant said that his request to film at Burnside was treated with some suspicion by the park's users, as "What none of them wanted was for us to portray a corny image of the park."[4] Cinematographer Christopher Doyle shot parts of the film with a wide-angle lens that is used to shoot skate videos.[19] The film's skateboarding sequences were shot on Super 8 mm film, a medium commonly used in skate videos, and the remainder of the film was shot on 35mm film, Van Sant's medium of choice.[6]

Most of the music choices came about during the editing process; Van Sant and the editors listened to each other's iTunes collections while working, and would use the songs they heard which they thought worked well.[19] The film's soundscapes—described by Sam Adams of the Los Angeles Times as "a wash of foreign noise"—were mostly made by musician Ethan Rose and described by Van Sant as "very complicated".[6][56] LA Weekly's Randall Roberts praised the soundtrack highly, writing, "It doesn't happen too often that a film's music will tweak my visual and sonic filter to such an extent that I actually perceive a whole class of people [skateboarders] in a new light, with more depth or empathy or whatever."[57] The soundtrack was first released in France in October 2007, and in the United States in March 2008 to coincide with the film's release.[58]

Sorrento, Matthew. "Teen Crime and Redemption: Gus Van Sant's Elephant and Paranoid Park."The New American Crime Film. Jefferson, NC: McFarland, 2012.[59]

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Paranoid Park (film).

• Paranoid Park at IMDb
• Paranoid Park at AllMovie
• Paranoid Park at Box Office Mojo
• Paranoid Park at Rotten Tomatoes
• Paranoid Park at Metacritic