Ryan McNeil
According to my notes, I watched this film seventeen days ago. So much has changed in between then and now that it might as well be seventeen years.
Let’s start at the beginning. In late 2008, Phoenix surprised many by announcing that he was retiring from acting to pursue a career in hip-hop music. For many, this was surprising, but what was more surprising was Phoenix’s demeanour and physical appearance. The brooding good-looks were gone, and in their place were a sunglass sporting, yeti.
Phoenix seemed obsessed to get his hip-hop career going, even though it was clear to anyone who heard his material that he had no talent for the art form. Undeterred, he pestered no less than Sean “P.Diddy” Combs to work with him and produce an album. As if the lack of talent wasn’t enough for people like Combs not to take him seriously, Phoenix was also putting people off with his erratic behaviour and unkempt appearance.
The tipping point came in mid-Januray, when Phoenix appeared on The Late Show With David Letterman to promote his final pre-retirement acting in TWO LOVERS. It’s here that his demeanour really got the public’s attention as he seemed aloof as ever, and became little more than a punching bag for Letterman to pick on. Two months later in Miami, Phoenix performed his final concert at a club…one that was unceremoniously ended by Phoenix getting into a dust-up with a heckler mid-song.
Now we know that none of it was true.
When I first wrote about I’M STILL HERE, I considered it a success no matter whether it was staged or whether it was all true. I’m very surprised that Phoenix and Affleck decided to admit the truth so quickly, but now that they have at least I can formulate an opinion with full context.
As a piece of filmmaking, it’s flawed but impressive. Affleck, a first-time director, shows good storytelling skill. The mockumentary includes many sequences of subtle photography and clever editing. While there are one or two technical clues that lead one to believe that everything is a hoax, it nontheless shows a deft hand at the usually mundane “Let’s follow a celebrity around” genre that most reality TV junkies cannot get enough of.
As a piece of performance art, I’M STILL HERE is a daring idea for Phoenix to let loose. The entire experiment was meant to hold up a mirror on society’s fascination with celebrity breakdowns.
Let’s be honest – we have reached a point where shadenfreude has given way to full blown obsession, and famous people getting in trouble with the law, substance abuse, or even their death seems to set us off int a fervour. It’s true that some in-the-know saw the signs that what Phoenix was doing was all an act, but by and large, the people who feast on celebrity misery bought it. Phoenix fooled them, and by this measure, his performance is a success.
While I’M STILL HERE now comes with an entirely different context knowing that it’s a performance, it’s still worth watching. While it includes a few moments of some vile humour involving bodily functions, it is engaging on the whole. One can watch it and try to pick out who was in on the joke, and who wasn’t. Likewise, one has to ask themselves how many people who have worked with Phoenix and care about him, watched him seemingly crash and burn, and never reached out to him. If they did – it’s not evident in this movie.
As Phoenix makes his “announcement” to an entertainment reporter, Casey Affleck is standing right next to him in the shot. Phoenix tells about how he’s finished acting and wants to work on his music, and all the while Affleck is staring straight at the lens with a very odd expression on his face. This expression puzzled me when I first saw the film. Was it “Good Grief, what is he saying?”. Was it “I know he’s crazy folks, but he won’t listen to me”? Or was it “Here goes nothing”?
Now it is safe to assume that it’s the latter – with a hefty dose of “Get a load of this!” – and that Affleck knew that Phoenix was at least a little crazy to go forward with this whole mad experiment.