Gus Van Sant on His Comeback Film ‘Dead Man’s Wire’, the Unintentional Movies He’s Made and Why He Still Thinks About River Phoenix All the Time

“I think a lot of the films I’ve made, even unintentionally, have been based on real things,” Van Sant says with his familiar mix of understatement and curiosity. “That’s a genre, I guess. I’ve always been drawn to what makes people do what they do.”

In “Dead Man’s Wire,” Van Sant’s latest film, which premiered at AFI Film Festival on Saturday, that fascination becomes electrified — literally. The historical true-crime drama, based on the real-life 1977 Tony Kiritsis hostage case, unfolds like a pressure cooker between desperation and spectacle.

“When I read the script,” he recalls, “there were links embedded in it — you could click them and hear the real 911 calls. Tony talked so fast, like Scorsese on a cocaine bender, cracking jokes and losing his temper. I thought, ‘This is an amazing character.’”

Van Sant’s words carry a quiet thrill,…