Van Sant's poetic yet clear-eyed excursions through America's seamy, skid row underbelly have yielded some of the more potent independent films of the late 1980s and early 90s. "I guess I'm interested in sociopathic people," he has stated, "in life and in my movies". With art school training in painting as well as film, Van Sant worked in commercials before entering the film industry by making small personal films that played the festival circuit, notably in highbrow gay and lesbian venues. Openly gay, he has dealt unflinchingly with homosexual and other marginalized subcultures without being