#Elliott smith either or vinyl movie#
Stellan Skarsgard, who plays the MIT professor who takes Matt Damon’s Will under his wing, still marvels at the impact the movie has had. I loved Good Will Hunting, just like everyone else in 1997-and beyond.
On the cover, he looks like every late ’90s punk-rock dude, with his shrunken T-shirt, tattoos, and thrift-store trucker hat that Von Dutch would later make their own and charge a fortune for. Three of the songs used, including “Angeles,” are from Smith’s 1997 album Either/Or, regarded as Smith’s last album before he got his “big break” and was signed to a major label (DreamWorks). The ones that we were using had already been released.” And then he did the last song ‘Miss Misery’ at the end. We wanted an original song. “And so he watched the movie in my house and said yes. “We contacted him and sort of gingerly explained to him that we put his music all the way through our movie, and would he consider letting us it,” Van Sant said. Van Sant decided to use it first, ask permission later. “I think even before we started shooting I was thinking in terms of Elliott’s music,” Van Sant told Boston Magazine. “But I didn’t know until finally we were able to put it in whether it was going to work.” Director Gus Van Sant had somehow stumbled across Smith’s music and knew immediately that it could fit with the film’s mood. We were both into our local punk-rock scenes to one degree or another-me in PA, she in Virginia, but Kara was also a cinephile, and so it’s more likely she would have come across his music in the 1997 blockbuster Good Will Hunting. I’m not sure how Kara came across Elliott Smith. But the punk edge to the lyrics, and a willful nonchalance to Smith’s voice, made it not your mother’s folk. Its sound reminded me of my mom’s ’60s folk records, which I’d sit and listen to for hours on Saturdays growing up, my mother’s maiden name written in loopy teenage scrawl on each record jacket, giving me a glimpse into the girl she once was.
I liked how the song was about a city, but, through Smith’s direct address, could also be construed as being about a love interest, with “Angeles” sounding almost like “Angela” if you weren’t listening with perked ears. The English major in me appreciated the poetic shock of that first line, how it evoked sheer, vicious survival in contrast with Smith’s quiet, understated vocals and intricate fingerpicking. There were no doubt many good songs on that compilation, but the song that really stuck out was Elliott Smith’s “Angeles” from his album Either/Or. The tape, too, was handwritten-the pre-printed grid, delineating sides A and B, crammed with Kara’s messy handwriting. It was the mid-to-late ‘90s, I was in college in Pennsylvania, and the tape came in the mail with a handwritten letter from my friend Kara. I first became aware of Elliott Smith from a mixed tape, which is-or was-probably one of the more intimate ways you can learn of a song, or an artist. Happy 25th Anniversary to Elliott Smith’s third studio album Either/Or, originally released February 25, 1997.
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