Back to Idaho: director Gus Van Sant revisits My Own Private Idaho for the film's long-awaited U.S. DVD debut.

My Own Private Idaho, Gus Van Sant's tale of unrequited love that featured River Phoenix and Keanu Reeves in their career-making performances as hustlers, has been reissued on DVD by the Criterion Collection. As usual with this noted company, this deluxe-edition Idaho is filled with extras including a making-of documentary, several deleted scenes, and two audio commentaries--one a conversation between Van Sant and fellow "new queer cinema" auteur Todd Haynes, the other an exchange including J.T. LeRoy (who wrote the first draft of Van Sant's Elephant) and Tarnation sensation Jonathan Caouette, for whom Idaho was a seminal moviegoing experience.

When I first met Gus Van Sant in the mid 1980s, My Own Private Idaho was his dream project, almost utopian in design, for its unabashed (and at that point unprecedented) portrayal of same-sex love. Then one day in 1989 ...

I was working at Variety then, and you walked in and told me you were going to make Idaho at last and that you were going to get Phoenix and Reeves. I could hardly believe it, but you seemed certain. Back then it was too unusual for name actors to play gay roles.

Well, I just was certain. Keanu was easier to meet, and he wanted to do it right off. River was more wary. He kept circling around it. I didn't know he'd finally agreed to it until I learned he was turning other movies down for mine.

It was so unusual to make a kind of documentary-type drama about hustlers that suddenly turns into Shakespeare's Henry IV. Now Idaho is kind of legendary, because of River and because no one has ever done anything like it since--especially that campfire scene where Mike [Phoenix] declares his love for Scott [Reeves].

I had been using other people's stories for my films. Mala Noche was [screenwriter] Walt Curtis's story; Drugstore Cowboy was [novelist] James Fogle's story. Idaho was all coming out of me except for the Shakespeare--which is why some people were aghast. I remember [the late actor] Paul Bartel didn't like the Henry IV material.

Paul could have been in Idaho.

Yes, he could have been Bob Pigeon [played by William Richert], the Falstaff character. He would've been great. But he was trying to give me an honest opinion. He really thought it was fantastic until it got to Shakespeare, which was a complete 180 for him. On the other hand, [Deliverance director] John Boorman told me the first part was less interesting than when it hit the Shakespeare.

Outside of Midnight Cowboy, there hasn't been a film about male hustling like this. You know [John Rechy's 1963 novel] City of Night, right?

Idaho had earlier drafts that were about Hollywood Boulevard rather than Portland [Ore.], where it takes place. Then I read City of Night, and I thought I'd better abandon that because I didn't know what I was talking about. Rechy had lived it. He liked Idaho. I even considered doing City of Night. There's a screenplay, but it's rather daunting.

I always found it fascinating that Idaho premiered in Japan.

Somehow it got released there before everyone else, 'cause I think the Japanese were already going for River. The audience was all 14-year-old girls. I was disappointed until I was told that those were the arbiters of their culture. And that that was the good sign.

I love that you're getting together with Todd to talk about it on the DVD. Since you both live in Portland, is there a project for the two of you down the line?

Well, we're both pretty methodical and don't just toss things off. I'm getting my new film, Last Days, ready for release, and Todd is working on his Bob Dylan script. But we should get together on something sometime. He could do one half, and I could do the other. That would be really great.

Ehrenstein is the author of Open Secret.