Country:
USA
Recognizable Faces:
Joaquin Phoenix
Casey Affleck
Anthony Langdon
Jack Nicholson
Bruce Willis
Danny Glover
Billy Crystal
Robin Wright
Danny DeVito
Directed By:
Casey Affleck
This is one odd little piece of cinema. It's also a relevant viewing in the trail of Charlie Sheen and Britney Spears' celebrity meltdowns. I'm Still Here chronicles Joaquin Phoenix's allegedly fake retirement from acting and new dawn as a hip-hop artist. It's a scripted movie, a mockumentary. Phoenix himself is credited as a writer, along with director and brother-in-law Casey Affleck. It was referred to as a piece of gonzo art by Affleck himself, which Gonzo Journalism, according to Wikipedia, is a style of journalism that is written subjectively, often including the reporter as part of the story via a first-person narrative. The style was created by literary legend Hunter S. Thompson, in the wake of New Journalism. I know, it doesn't help. It's still not completely clear if I'm Still Here is a hoax or not.
In 2008, Joaquin Phoenix announced that he was retiring from acting to pursue a career as a hip-hop artist. His entourage is a little shocked, but follows him into this new adventure. It soon becomes evident that Phoenix is not really interested into succeeding. He's sniffing coke, flushing his money in crazy expenses and chases the status rather than diligently make music. He gets into fights with his people whenever they call him out on his weird behavior, indulges in every possible excesses and harms his own career by deliberately sabotaging an interview with David Letterman. He did that. It's all scripted into I'm Still Here, but it's what Phoenix really has been doing for the last two and a half years. The Letterman interview had caused an uproar in the media in 2009 as to know whether or not J.P (it's how Phoenix refers to himself during the movie) had lost his mind.
Here's my problem with the fictional character of I'm Still Here. When the movie came out, Phoenix and Affleck went out all smiles, saying it was a hoax, that the strange last two years of Phoenix's life were staged for mockumentary purpose. I'm not sure if it was planned, but since then, nothing. Niet. Nada. J.P is keeping to himself. Is it voluntary or is he pouted by the industry? It's hard to say. A part of me wants to think it's a kiss off to the movie business. A way to walk out in the sunset. Because the movie addressed real celebrity issues like the lack of freedom for example. You're a millionaire, you have whatever you can desire except maybe for your liberty to create. When you're in Hollywood, even your image doesn't belong to you. I'm pretty sure Joaquin Phoenix destroyed his image on purpose. If I'm Still Here is a hoax or not is irrelevant to this. It's a raw movie, sometimes tasteless (full frontal male nudity, feces, vomit) that would damage Phoenix's image for sure.
There are hard images in I'm Still Here, but there are beautiful moments also. J.P's quest for freedom and innocence is desperate, beautifully tainted. It seemed to me that by going in a different direction, he tried to recapture the first moments of his Hollywood career, his honeymoon with celebrity. Here we go, I'm talking about it like it was an all-out documentary. That's how weird the viewing was to me. I wouldn't be surprised to see Phoenix re-emerge from his silence soon and give us a definite answer as whether he really lost his reason or not. Because keep this in mind, he has been struggling with alcoholism for a while and showed signs of being really fed up with celebrity. I guess you have to watch I'm Still Here for yourself to make your own opinion of it. Roger Ebert was saddened, I'm skeptical, but I believe that the movie contains more truth than its creators pretend. It's easy to say: "it's a hoax", but it's one buzzkill-career-killer of a movie. And you, what were your thoughts?
SCORE: 81%
In 2008, Joaquin Phoenix announced that he was retiring from acting to pursue a career as a hip-hop artist. His entourage is a little shocked, but follows him into this new adventure. It soon becomes evident that Phoenix is not really interested into succeeding. He's sniffing coke, flushing his money in crazy expenses and chases the status rather than diligently make music. He gets into fights with his people whenever they call him out on his weird behavior, indulges in every possible excesses and harms his own career by deliberately sabotaging an interview with David Letterman. He did that. It's all scripted into I'm Still Here, but it's what Phoenix really has been doing for the last two and a half years. The Letterman interview had caused an uproar in the media in 2009 as to know whether or not J.P (it's how Phoenix refers to himself during the movie) had lost his mind.
Here's my problem with the fictional character of I'm Still Here. When the movie came out, Phoenix and Affleck went out all smiles, saying it was a hoax, that the strange last two years of Phoenix's life were staged for mockumentary purpose. I'm not sure if it was planned, but since then, nothing. Niet. Nada. J.P is keeping to himself. Is it voluntary or is he pouted by the industry? It's hard to say. A part of me wants to think it's a kiss off to the movie business. A way to walk out in the sunset. Because the movie addressed real celebrity issues like the lack of freedom for example. You're a millionaire, you have whatever you can desire except maybe for your liberty to create. When you're in Hollywood, even your image doesn't belong to you. I'm pretty sure Joaquin Phoenix destroyed his image on purpose. If I'm Still Here is a hoax or not is irrelevant to this. It's a raw movie, sometimes tasteless (full frontal male nudity, feces, vomit) that would damage Phoenix's image for sure.
There are hard images in I'm Still Here, but there are beautiful moments also. J.P's quest for freedom and innocence is desperate, beautifully tainted. It seemed to me that by going in a different direction, he tried to recapture the first moments of his Hollywood career, his honeymoon with celebrity. Here we go, I'm talking about it like it was an all-out documentary. That's how weird the viewing was to me. I wouldn't be surprised to see Phoenix re-emerge from his silence soon and give us a definite answer as whether he really lost his reason or not. Because keep this in mind, he has been struggling with alcoholism for a while and showed signs of being really fed up with celebrity. I guess you have to watch I'm Still Here for yourself to make your own opinion of it. Roger Ebert was saddened, I'm skeptical, but I believe that the movie contains more truth than its creators pretend. It's easy to say: "it's a hoax", but it's one buzzkill-career-killer of a movie. And you, what were your thoughts?
SCORE: 81%
