I’m
Still Here, a documentary about the tumultuous life of Joaquin Phoenix
that offers Scientologist whackjob Edward James Olmos as its poet
laureate and Sean Combs (aka Puff Daddy, P Diddy, Sean John, etc.) as
its voice of reason, will be a litmus test viewing experience for people
concerned with issues of authenticity, ethics or good taste.
After
going through the Young Hollywood rites of passage, maturing from child
star, to indie “it boy” and eventually into a bona fide mainstream
success (even winning a Golden Globe for his role in Walk the Line),
Joaquin Phoenix announced in late 2008 he would retire from acting to
pursue a new career as a hip hop musician. According to his imdb
biography, Phoenix attended rehab for alcoholism in 2006, but his
sobriety is never commented on throughout the many scenes where he
snorts cocaine, smokes marijuana or goes on protracted rants about the
communication practice of bees or how people are out to get him.
And
even though he takes his public declaration (an exclusive he gave to
tabloid tv show "Extra") very seriously and spends many hours in his home
studio laying down tracks, when his big break comes, a chance to play
his demo for rap mogul Puff Daddy, he’s too doped up to make the meeting
and spends the rest of the film chasing after Puff’s approval. While
waiting on phone calls to be returned from the famed producer he sleeps
with hookers, does more drugs, goes on tyrannical rants threatening his
employees (all of his creative collaborators also seem to work as his
personal assistants). When he finally gets a chance to visit Puffy in
the studio (the first time we really get to hear Phoenix’s music since
he mumbles his way through his public performances) he is devastated by
the polite but firm rebuking his songwriting skills receive.
The
collaboration between Phoenix (given a Writer/Producer credit here) and
director Casey Affleck (also a young actor who benefited from
nepotistic opportunity but seems to hold less anxiety about it) is
constantly commented on by the duo. For people who spend their
professional life performing for cameras and have their personal lives
documented by tabloids the concept of “inner life” is a fairly tenuous
one. Unfortunately for Phoenix, his only apparent framework for
understanding how people’s stories can be developed is narrative films.
In one scene, he screams at an assistant who’s been feeding insider
information to entertainment writers “you’re the villain here, the
audience is going to see the good guy win now!” [Point of order: the
assistant is not fired for feeding supposedly false or private
information to the media.]
The
presence of Affleck’s camera has transformed Phoenix’s decline into an
object of endless public speculation. Rumors of Phoenix’s retirement
being an elaborate prank have been given far more credibility than the
more obvious possibility that Phoenix is an indecisive, over-indulged
junkie surrounded by people who have a financial stake in keeping him in
the news. Two actors collaborating to make a documentary about
celebrity culture is fertile grounds for bullshit (excuse me,
“performance art”), but it still seems like a better perspective on the situation than the pageant of
inanity we see in Phoenix’s final press junket wherein entertainment
writers meekly ask questions like “Will Puffy be writing lyrics as well
as music?” Too inert or afraid to make the same bold proclamations they
do on their Twitter accounts.
Affleck
deserves less ambivalent kudos for his sense of composition and pacing.
Periodically he frames Phoenix as a stolid lump being spliced to bits
by paparazzi flashbulbs; there’s a long, silent scene where the sad
actor shares a table with his father that speaks volumes and the final
shot (a takeoff on Michelangelo Antonioni’s last scene in The Passenger) is a wonderful, contemplative moment to wrap up his noisy, chaotic
film.
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