George Washington

Released 2000
Stars Candace Evanofski, Donald Holden, Curtis Cotton III, Eddie Rouse, Paul Schneider
Directed by David Gordon Green

George Washington is surely one of the most visually arresting debuts in recent American cinema. Loitering among the dilapidated machinery and detritus littering a small town in North Carolina, 24-year-old director David Gordon Green and cinematographer Tim Orr transform the listless confines of growing up poor into breathtaking beauty. Green has referenced Terence Malick's Days of Heaven (1978) as an overriding influence, and the languorous grace of his portrait of childhood lives up to the comparison.

Tracing the interwoven stories of a group of kids, black and white, over a few pivotal days and one accidental death, Green elicits nuanced performances from a mostly nonprofessional cast and captures an understated poetry through clearly improvised dialogue. Where Harmony Korine's depiction of childhood outcasts in Gummo goes astray in its insistence upon depravity and shrill eccentricity, George Washington maintains a perfect balance between oddity, loosely configured realism, and the sublime.

Summary by Fionn Meade

Director David Gordon Green compared his debut movie, "George Washington," to Terence Malick's "Days of Heaven," but I think it actually evokes Malick's "The Thin Red Line". Both are poetic reveries with no concern about plot. "The Thin Red Line" is a deeper film with more to say, but "George Washington" is quite interesting. It alternately feels like an art film and a documentary, and it's one of the most original movies from 2000. I think it strives a little too hard to be quirky with the white twenty-somethings' dialogue, but this film is remarkable in its dialogue. It's about poor, mostly black people, and there isn't one swear word in the entire movie. They're polite, civilized people, who care about their neighbors. You know, we could use a lot more people like this. --Bill Alward, October 30, 2002