Gus van Sant‘s new film DON‘T WORRY, HE WON‘T GET FAR ON FOOT is named after a cartoon by John Callahan. The cartoon shows a western scene: a posse discovers the tipped over wheelchair of a bank robber they‘re chasing in the desert. John Callahan might have seen himself as a wheelchair using desperado. The cartoonist, who isn‘t very known in Germany, has gotten the biopic treatment with Joaquin Phoenix in the main role. Callahan had a car accident at 21 during a drinking bout and became paralyzed from the neck down. His shaky lines come from him being able to only hold a pen with both hands on a tablet he holds on his knees. Van San shows how Callahan overcame his alcoholism with the help of his eccentric AA group and how he managed to step on everyone‘s toes with his cartoons: the disabled, POCS, the LGBTI* community...a blind black man has a sign around his neck that says: “Please help me, I‘m blind and black and not musically gifted.“ A man is yelled at by a huge woman at a bookstore: “this is a lesbian bookstore, there is no humor section!“ Callahan liked to published the hate mail he received on his website. He saw himself as someone “anti politically correct.“ The fact that his cartoons play with hurtful cliches in a way that exposes them rather than perpetuating them is often overlooked. Van Sant‘s film is less a critique on PC culture and more a portrait of a group of outsiders.

Tom Dorow (INDIEKINO MAGAZIN)

Translation: Elinor Lewy