Get Your Reps In: “My Own Private Idaho” Hustled Portland Into the Mainstream

My Own Private Idaho (1991)

Among Portland’s most prominent local celebrities is Gus Van Sant, a leading New Queer Cinema voice whose early works were filmed across Oregon, often in the Rose City itself. My Own Private Idaho remains his best-known and best-regarded indie effort, a loose modernization of Shakespeare’s Henry IV that highlighted Van Sant’s avant-garde style and affection for the marginalized and the outcast.

A pair of young hustlers turn tricks on the streets of Stumptown. Mike (River Phoenix) is a shy narcoleptic searching for his missing mother (Vana O’Brien). Scott (Keanu Reeves) is an affluent runaway who would rather party with the rabble than live with his father, the mayor (Tom Troupe). Idaho was not only Van Sant’s breakout film, but its leads’ too. Reeves uses a confident, playful swagger to cover his insecurity and internalized self-loathing, but it’s Phoenix who shines brightest as our soft-spoken, vulnerable hero, reminding us what we lost with his untimely death in 1993. Idaho is ultimately a singular film, a heartbreakingly poetic gem from one of our city’s most prominent creators.

The Clinton Street Theater will follow up June 3’s screening of Idaho with a new documentary short featuring late Portland actor and filmmaker William Richert, who appeared in Idaho as Bob Pigeon, the flamboyant Falstaff to Scott’s wayward Prince Hal.

Also Playing:

5th Avenue: Little Murders (1971), May 30 and 31, June 1. Academy: The Graduate (1967), The Umbrellas of Cherbourg (1964) and A Silent Voice (2016), May 28 and 29. Cinema 21: Lady Snowblood (1973), May 30. All About Eve (1950), May 31. Eureka (2023), June 2. Cinemagic: Ring (1998), May 28. Terrified (2018), May 28. Suspiria (1977), May 29. Clinton: The Wicker Man (1971), May 31. The People’s Joker (2022), June 1. My Own Private Idaho (1991), June 3. The Damned House of Hajn (1989), June 4. It’s All Gonna Break (2024), June 5. Hollywood: Killer of Sheep (1978), May 30 and 31, June 1. Jeanne Dielman, 23 quai du Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles (1975), May 30. Moonstruck (1987), May 31. Burst City (1982), May 31. Hundreds of Beavers (2022), June 1 and 2. The Seven Year Itch (1955), June 1. Super Xuxa vs. Satan (1988), June 4. The Goonies (1985), June 5. Tomorrow: You’ve Got Mail (1998), May 31. When Harry Met Sally… (1989), May 31. Before Sunset (2004), June 1. High Art (1998), June 1.