Articles by Peter Tonguette

For as long as he has been a director, Gus Van Sant has also been an editor. While most of his subsequent efforts have been cut by such distinguished editors as Curtiss Clayton, Pietro Scalia, ACE, and Elliot Graham, ACE, Van Sant continues to drift in and out of his cutting rooms.

Midway through George Cukor’s Rich and Famous (1981), there is a scene that, all by itself, encapsulates the witty banter that was the director’s signature. The heroine of the film, a celebrated writer played by Jacqueline Bisset, is in her room at the Algonquin Hotel, ostensibly to be interviewed by a young Rolling Stone journalist (Hart Bochner).