for those who wanted to know what casey affleck and joaquin phoenix have been working on, trailer just went up today.
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I'm Still Here
Moderator: drizzle
for anyone wondering if the movie was at all real:
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/09/17/movie ... PEGAq0rXvQ
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/09/17/movie ... PEGAq0rXvQ
CASEY AFFLECK wants to come clean.
His new movie, גIגm Still Here,ג was performance. Almost every bit of it. Including Joaquin Phoenixגs disturbing appearance on David Lettermanגs late-night show in 2009, Mr. Affleck said in a candid interview at a cafe here on Thursday morning.
גItגs a terrific performance, itגs the performance of his career,ג Mr. Affleck said. He was speaking of Mr. Phoenixגs two-year portrayal of himself ג on screen and off ג as a bearded, drug-addled aspiring rap star, who, as Mr. Affleck tells it, put his professional life on the line to star in a bit of גgonzo filmmakingג modeled on the reality-bending journalism of Hunter S. Thompson.
גIגm Still Hereג was released last week by Magnolia Pictures to scathing reviews by a number of critics, including Roger Ebert, who wrote that the film was גa sad and painful documentary that serves little useful purpose other than to pound another nail into the coffin.ג
גThe reviews were so angry,ג said Mr. Affleck, who attributed much of the hostility to his own long silence about a film that left more than a few viewers wondering what was real ג The drugs? The hookers? The childhood home-movie sequences in the beginning? ג and what was not.
Virtually none of it was real. Not even the opening shots, supposedly of Mr. Phoenix and his siblings swimming in a water hole in Panama. That, Mr. Affleck said, was actually shot in Hawaii with actors, then run back and forth on top of an old videocassette recording of גParis, Texasג to degrade the images.
גI never intended to trick anybody,ג said Mr. Affleck, an intense 35-year-old who spoke over a meat-free, cheese-free vegetable sandwich on Thursday. גThe idea of a quote, hoax, unquote, never entered my mind.ג
Still, he acknowledged that Mr. Letterman was not in on the joke when Mr. Phoenix, on Feb. 11, 2009, seemed to implode his own career by showing up in character as a mumbling, aimless star gone wrong.
That was just three years after he had received an Oscar nomination for his spot-on performance as Johnny Cash in גWalk the Line,ג and memories of the film were fresh enough to induce shock in the millions who watched him on the show and in later Internet replays.
Mr. Letterman summed up the interview: גJoaquin, Iגm sorry you couldnגt be here tonight.ג
Asked whether Mr. Phoenix would be in character for his return to Mr. Lettermanגs program on Wednesday, Mr. Affleck said, גNo, no, no.ג And Mr. Letterman has not talked with Mr. Phoenix about the coming appearance, he added. Most mockumentaries, in the way of גThis Is Spinal Tap,ג wear their foolishness on their sleeves, leaving no doubt about their character as fiction. But Mr. Affleck, who is married to Mr. Phoenixגs sister and has been his friend for almost 20 years, said he wanted audiences to experience the filmגs narrative, about the disintegration of celebrity, without the clutter of preconceived notions.
So he said little in interviews. גWe wanted to create a space,ג he said. גYou believe whatגs happening is real.ג
As the film progresses, Mr. Affleck explained, subtle cues were supposed to provide hints of his real intention. Camera techniques, extremely raw at the beginning, become more sophisticated as the film goes on, for instance.
גThere were multiple takes, these are performances,ג Mr. Affleck said of unsettling sequences in which Mr. Phoenix appears to snort drugs, consort with hookers, and hunt to the ground an assistant who has betrayed him to the press ג again, mostly actors.
But the movie never quite showed its hand. גThere was no wink,ג Mr. Affleck said.
One of the trickier elements was to win the cooperation of Mr. Phoenixגs agent, Patrick Whitesell, of William Morris Endeavor Entertainment. On telling Mr. Whitesell that he planned to make everybody believe that a prized client גhas lost his mind and make him as unattractive as possible, you would think he would have me killed immediately,ג Mr. Affleck said.
But Mr. Whitesell, instead, took a part in the film.
Mr. Phoenixגs unconventional background may have helped convince some that the film was true. Now 35, he was one of five children in a free-spirited family that bounced from life in a religious cult through a time when the siblings worked as street performers. Mr. Phoenixגs brother River, also an actor, died of a drug overdose in 1993. His sister Summer eventually married Mr. Affleck.
In the film Mr. Phoenix is often called גJ. P.,ג both an attempt at a rap stage name and the inevitable shorthand of a starגs inner world. At one point in the film Mr. Phoenix howls at his crew in exasperation: גJ. P. is all of us.ג
As Mr. Affleck now makes clear, he is actually none of us ג which is something of a relief.
But Mr. Phoenix may now have his work cut out for him when it comes to repairing an image that was marred by what Mr. Affleck portrays as his best performance. The Los Angeles Times reported this week that Mr. Phoenix, who makes much of abandoning his screen career in the film, is fielding offers for new roles.
Mr. Affleck, for his part, will return to acting for a while, probably in a film for Andrew Dominik, who directed גThe Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford,ג for which Mr. Affleck received an Oscar nomination.
At least one element in the film was genuine, Mr. Affleck said. That was a snippet of a home movie that showed Mr. Phoenix and his very young siblings performing, Jackson Five style, on the streets of Los Angeles.
The rest, Mr. Affleck said, clearly requires a bit more understanding than he has allowed the viewers to date. גIt is a hard movie to watch,ג he said.
A version of this article appeared in print on September 17, 2010, on page C1 of the New York edition.
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pennsylvania jones
- 6th Man HOF
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pennsylvania jones
- 6th Man HOF
- Posts: 7269
- Joined: Thu Jan 29, 2004 12:48 pm
- Location: Beast Coast
Edward James Olmos on these hoes!Spartan wrote:If it isn't, it sounds a hell of a lot like him.Trademark wrote:pennsylvania jones wrote:Yeah who is that and is that a famous passage?ALASKA wrote:i want the voice over guy to narrate my life.
I'm not in the know
Is that not Nick note?
I kinda enjoyed this movie (even knowing it was a hoax). Basically rap's Spinal Tap. But not surprised at the overwhelmingly bad reviews.
odium-LSC wrote:The scene where he hires the hookers is pretty lolarious.
"I wanna smell her butthole"Part 2 is actually kinda funny:
"I think it was Ghostface Killah that said 'life's a stage,' so um.."
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