I’m Still Here, Casey Affleck’s documentary about Joaquin Phoenix’s two year quest to become a rap star and forgo acting is making the rounds in theaters and making lots of critics angry. The central issue seems to be no one has been able to decide whether it is sadly, poignantly real or a Spinal Tap-esque mocumentary and a very clever ruse. Could the slow spiral into madness of Joaquin Phoenix be as depicted or was Phoenix pulling off a career-making performance? For me, the pendulum swung definitively towards this being a careful crafted fiction. The deciding factor was, considering what happened to Phoenix’s brother, River, there was never a moment when anybody close to the actor stepped in to try to have any sort of intervention or seriously talk to him about his destructive path. Now, the other shoe has finally dropped as Casey Affleck has revealed to The New York Times that I’m Still Here was completely fictional, apart from a brief piece of footage showing Phoenix and his siblings performing in their youth.
“It’s a terrific performance, it’s the performance of his career,” Affleck said of Phoenix’s portrayal of himself in the film. He is quick to add, “I never intended to trick anybody.”
So, what do we now make of this? Is this the performance of Phoenix’s career? I don’t think either of those questions can be readily answered right now. One of the most bizarre parts of the “documentary”, and the real-life facade carried out, is Phoenix’s spacey, mumbling appearance on Late Show with David Letterman on February 11, 2009. According to Affleck, Letterman was not in on the joke (the talk show host famously ended the interview by quipping, “Joaquin, I’m sorry you couldn’t be here tonight.”) and Phoenix is scheduled to make a return appearance on September 22nd. Affleck claims the “JP” character that his brother-in-law has been playing for the last several months will not be in attendance. That should be a very interesting interview indeed and I plan on expanding this article afterward to take into account Joaquin Phoenix’s side of this whole thing.
Bottom line, I think a great deal of people are relieved to know that it is just and act and I, for one, definitely look forward to seeing Phoenix return to “serious” acting.
