Casey Affleck isn't still here
Last Thursday, my so-called friends dragged me to a late night showing of Casey Affleck’s directorial debut "I’m Still Here." For those of you out of the loop, "I’m Still Here" is the kind of real, mostly not real chronicling of actor Joaquin Phoenix’s dizzying downward spiral.
At the beginning of January 2009, Phoenix abruptly announced he decided to retire from acting to chase the dream of being a rapper. Immediately afterward, Phoenix grew a beard, a belly and his brother-in-law Casey Affleck began following Phoenix around with a film crew. The bizarre brusqueness of the whole affair garnered immediate skepticism. Was Phoenix putting on a show or was he really in need of an intervention?
Early last week, Affleck admitted to constructing the entire film with Phoenix, who is as normal and sane as ever. Affleck revealed who was in on the operation and who wasn’t. Which is appreciated, aside from the fact that it contradicts other surfacing reports.
It’s hard to sift through the rumors and the truth, but here’s the general consensus:
We can discern that Ben Stiller and Natalie Portman were both in on Phoenix’s ruse, and Stiller’s impression of Phoenix was in support. Aside from those two, Affleck said only Phoenix’s family and friends were aware of the hoax. P. Diddy’s part in the film was absolutely real, but the hookers were staged. The drugs were also staged, though I can’t honestly decide if that makes the whole situation easier to stomach or not.
As for the infamous David Letterman interview, the jury is still out. Word of God says the appearance was completely unscripted and that Letterman had no inkling of Phoenix’s fallacy. Letterman had, at one point, revealed that he “found out” that Phoenix was only in character during the interview and exploited it. To properly muddle this, Letterman recanted his knowledge of the ruse in their newest interview. So who knows.
What baffles me is that the film critic community watched "I’m Still Here" and could not decide if Phoenix was acting or not. The technicality of the film is riddled with obvious reshoots and even an instance where an underwater camera is used to capture Phoenix’s impromptu dip in a creek. On top of that, the editing of the film is decidedly comedic.
For all of Affleck’s dancing around the issue, "I’m Still Here" is stunningly easy to explain: If "Borat" were about how celebrities function in society, you’d have "I’m Still Here." The End.
