Franco's own River Phoenix remains private ... for now, at least

[SnarkyOracle!]

I remember hating MONSTER'S BALL at the time. It seemed like such a patronisingly liberal white man's view of black people and I was really surprised to learn that the writer and/or director was black.

Although I didn't hate it, my reaction to MONSTER'S BALL was similar. Part of that might have had something to do with Halle Berry -- I don't hate or even dislike her, but I find myself wincing at her with frequency.

She dresses very well.

I wonder who owns the rights to the unused Idaho film? New Line, the filmmaker? Also I can't imagine that Franco's version (12 or 2 hours) would cut into the profits of the original theatrical release, I think it would make the original even MORE popular. Hell, New Line could even distribute it! There's something that doesn't quite smell right about not releasing Franco's version.

Yes, in one of the articles I posted above, they suggest he might be joking. I know the Phoenix family tries to suppress nearly All Things River if they can -- even harmless things, unless it's something they can control completely.

They just opened a River Phoenix Peace Center someplace. I'm not sure where and what it is, or how groovy it might be. But they did sign off on that.

I haven't watched your video interview yet. Maybe that will answer some questions.

[minx]

I remember hating MONSTER'S BALL at the time. It seemed like such a patronisingly liberal white man's view of black people and I was really surprised to learn that the writer and/or director was black.

A lot of people focussed on race relations and death penalty isssues in the movie when it was released. That's fair, but I really saw it as a film about loss, the grief, guilt, and loneliness that comes as a result of it, and the way two (mostly unlikeable) people are affected and changed by it. I'd never seen a movie that dealt with anguish in such a stark, bare-your-soul kind of way before.

[SnarkyOracle!]

I really have to look at PARIS, TEXAS again.

Not to be confused with HAPPY, TEXAS, which is a different thing altogether.

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19 years after his demise, Phoenix's final film is being released:

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The premise looks interesting. I wonder, though, how long is a film that's advertised as "The Unfinished Movie"?

[SnarkyOracle!]

The premise looks interesting. I wonder, though, how long is a film that's advertised as "The Unfinished Movie"?

They apparently had 10% left to shoot when Phoenix hit the sidewalk. The director reportedly found a way to sew it together.

[SnarkyOracle!]

http://www.guardian.co.uk/film/2012/...iew?CMP=twt_gu

Nineteen years after abandoning Dark Blood when his star River Phoenix died of a drugs overdose shortly before the end of the project, Dutch director George Sluizer has finally completed the film. "Complete" in this case is a relative term. The movie unveiled in Utrecht this week came with a preface in which the director warns us that we are about to watch an "unfinished" work. He likens the movie now salvaged to a chair with three legs. "The fourth leg will always be missing but the chair will be able to stand upright."

Dark Blood is fragmentary, uneven and downright odd in parts but it's also has huge curiosity value. The director's solution for bridging the considerable gaps is to read out descriptions of what is missing. It's a simple but surprisingly effective tactic. His narration ensures that the film is just about coherent.

Scripted by Jim Barton, this is largely a three hander. Imagine Polanski's Knife in the Water relocated to the Utah Desert and you'll come close to its essence. Jonathan Pryce and Judy Davis play Buffy and Harry, a Hollywood couple who have driven out into the desert (filmed with a grandeur reminiscent of old John Ford films by Ed Lachman) for a dirty weekend. Their Bentley breaks down in the middle of nowhere. Just before they die of thirst, they're rescued by Boy (River Phoenix), a loner who behaves like Huck Finn as played by Klaus Kinski. He is still in mourning for the death of his wife, whose cancer was caused by radiation poisoning from nuclear testing.

Boy is convinced the world is about to end. He also has a strong attraction toward Buffy and wants her to join him in his underground bunker. Unlike the pampered Hollywood star played by Pryce, he is in touch with nature. Living off rats and snakes, communing with his mongrel dog, he has a primal quality. Phoenix brings a wild physical energy to his role – in truth, his character verges on the preposterous but Phoenix tackles it with such commitment that he just about keeps absurdity at bay.
Pryce and Judy Davis are likewise impressive as a bickering couple utterly bewildered by the idiot savant who has kidnapped them. Davis, who reportedly didn't get on with Sluizer at all, combines prickliness, flirtatiousness and vulnerability to good effect. She shows her character's desire for Boy as well as her growing disgust at his behaviour. Pryce is the Brit abroad, growing ever more pompous as Boy keeps him in captivity and eventually discovering a capacity for violence.

This is determinedly strange film-making. There was dismay in certain quarters that Sluizer (whose best known film remains The Vanishing) even decided to revive the project. However, what saves Dark Blood from seeming unbearably self-indulgent is the craftsmanship. The film has been painstakingly restored and graded and doesn't appear half as dated as might have been expected. Meanwhile, Phoenix's performance is as fragmentary and uneven as the film itself but has an energy about it that reminds us of why he seemed such a distinctive screen presence before his untimely death.

[SnarkyOracle!]

River Phoenix’s final film is finished, nearly two decades after his death

By Claudine Zap | Movie Talk – 21 hours ago

Nineteen years after the death of River Phoenix, the actor's final movie, "Dark Blood," is finally finished. The older brother of Joaquin Phoenix was just 23 when he died of an apparent overdose on October 31, 1993.

The "Stand By Me" co-star was shooting "Dark Blood" the day before he died, and his blond hair was still dyed dark brown for the role. The Danish director of the film, George Sluizer, got hold of the footage, which was left unfinished, and completed it with his own voice-overs.

The film opened at the Netherlands Film Festival, and Variety called it "a surprisingly coherent vision of a decidedly oddball story set in the Arizona desert."

The Hollywood Reporter describes Phoenix's role in the film as a hermit who lives on a nuclear testing site and is waiting for the end of the world. He is joined by two stranded vacationers (played by Judy Davis and Jonathan Pryce), who are seeking shelter after their car breaks down. Phoenix is "suitably charismatic and commanding air in his final role," according to Variety.

That the movie was finished at all is somewhat miraculous. According to Variety, back in 1999 the insurance company that had the footage wanted to destroy it rather than pay storage costs. Sluizer took back the unmade film, but some legal issues over its rights still exist.

Other film festivals have expressed interest in the movie, and it could potentially be shown at colleges and museums. Although Sluizer is hoping for a wider release, he does not own the commercial rights to the film.

There could be plenty of interest in the movie, which adds a final chapter to the young heartthrob's meteoric career. Before his untimely death, the talented young star was in huge demand. He had received attention for his role in the indie film "My Own Private Idaho" and in blockbusters like "Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade." He was set to star opposite Tom Cruise in "Interview With a Vampire." (Christian Slater took over the role.)

The Dutch director, now 80, who says he was "devastated" by Phoenix's death, told Entertainment Weekly, "It's a complete film. It's not pieces stuck together. It has a beginning and it goes up to the end, like it should. The film is finished."

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I'm wondering how many people would turn up to see the film. It just occurred to me that River never really got the same treatment that other celebrities received after their early deaths. I assume it's because his family didn't want to talk about him. Sad though, because I still see T-shirts and posters dedicated to John Lennon, James Dean, Marilyn Monroe, Kurt Cobain, Jimi Hendrix, Janis Joplin, Jim Morrison, Sid Vicious, and Elvis, etc., all helping to keep their memories alive, but I haven't seen a picture of River in years. It's the first time I've realized that an artist's posthumous work might get lost in the shuffle, simply because his image wasn't marketed to death after he died.

[SnarkyOracle!]

I'm wondering how many people would turn up to see the film. It just occurred to me that River never really got the same treatment that other celebrities received after their early deaths. I assume it's because his family didn't want to talk about him. Sad though, because I still see T-shirts and posters dedicated to John Lennon, James Dean, Marilyn Monroe, Kurt Cobain, Jimi Hendrix, Janis Joplin, Jim Morrison, Sid Vicious, and Elvis, etc., all helping to keep their memories alive, but I haven't seen a picture of River in years. It's the first time I've realized that an artist's posthumous work might get lost in the shuffle, simply because his image wasn't marketed to death after he died.

Yes, River was considered the most "important" young actor of his generation on the cusp of the '80s/'90s, the one with the most potential. Now, of course, many younger people have never heard of him, and many older ones don't remember how he was regarded at the time.

His family understandably resented the abuses of the media upon River's death, even in the pre-Internet age, largely because they used River and his family as a metaphor for the failure of the "hypocrisies" of liberalism because the young actor had such a clean-living/vegan image.

But there were also the Children of God molestation issues which trickled out, and Mama Phoenix was on the defensive. So it became a wall of silence for 20 years about River.

Although he was very good in STAND BY ME (an '80s film I some some '80s film problems with) and MOSQUITO COAST (Harrison Ford's favorite among his own pictures) and certainly Sidney Lumet's RUNNING ON EMPTY (although Judd Hirsch is too old and woefully miscast) and MY OWN PRIVATE IDAHO (a very flawed movie in which those flaws somehow don't seem to matter) I would have liked to have seem him in at least one solid iconic picture... I'll always wonder what INTERVIEW WITH THE VAMPIRE would have been like if it had been made with Ann Rice's choice of River for Lestat (although he seems more like tormented Louis material) instead of being bumped down to the role of The Interviewer by producer David Geffen to make room for prettyboys like the eye-rollable Tom Cruise and non-acting Brad Pitt, before dying on the sidewalk on Halloween under a full moon in front of a club called The Viper Room.

In a weird way, though, it's somehow fitting that he and his image didn't go the John Lennon/James Dean/Marilyn Monroe/Kurt Cobain/Jimi Hendrix/Janis Joplin/Jim Morrison/Elvis route. He seemed special. So perhaps it's appropriate that you have to go and find him.

[SnarkyOracle!]

Is Bogdanovich really suggesting River was murdered??

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Interview With Peter Bogdanovich About River Phoenix

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/nicki-..._1910532.html?




If Generation X had a hero, it was River Phoenix. In his every vulnerable performance, he seemed to embody the thoughts and concerns of an entire generation. On September 27, Dark Blood the last film that Phoenix appeared in, yet never completed, will premiere at the Netherlands Film Festival in Utrecht. Nearly nineteen years after his death, the Dutch director George Sluizer will unveil Phoenix's final film.


I met Phoenix once on tour with his band Aleka's Attic in a derelict underground club in Knoxville, Tennessee. During a pre-show sound check, the crowd chanted, "River! River!" I noticed a scruffy urchin with faint Spanish moss covering his cheeks. As he looked at me sheepishly, he said, "They have no idea it's me." Then it dawned on me the boy they were screaming for (River! River!) was standing next to me. I was so shocked I could hardly speak, but in those few moments I glimpsed a private hidden person, a young man who craved anonymity, but felt compelled to perform for his admiring public, just as he had as a child on the streets of Caracas, Venezuela.

Phoenix's younger brother Joaquin also created I'm Still Here, a disturbing look at how fame distorts a person's identity. In River Phoenix's many luminous portrayals of young, often troubled men - the one that left a lasting impression was The Thing Called Love. With his last movie that he starred in and completed, Phoenix stole the show as a sweet young man named James Wright trying to make it as a country music singer in Nashville. I spoke with director Peter Bogdanovich about the making of his film and those last horrible days after Phoenix died.


Nicki Richesin: In 1993, you directed an incredibly charming film The Thing Called Loved with River Phoenix and then relatively unknown stars Sandra Bullock and Dermot Mulroney. You cast River Phoenix as a wayward kid- a kind of bad-boy-trying-to-turn-good in James Wright. What originally drew you to River as the lead and how did you find working with him on your film?

Peter Bogdanovich: When we were preparing the film, we thought he was too big a name and that he wouldn't be interested since it's essentially written from a women's point of view. River wanted to sing in a film and this would give him a chance to sing. When we spoke on the phone, I said, "I have just one question for you. You've never played a character with such an edge to him. How would you do it?" and he said, "silence." I thought that was such a brilliant response.

NR: There is a remarkable scene in the film when James sees Miranda Presley (played winningly by Samantha Mathis) perform at the famous Nashville bar Bluebird. He says, "That was so soulful" and it kind of breaks your heart to hear him utter this phrase. He's proud and vulnerable and passionate, but there's this sad determination in his bearing. Was this line ad-libbed or did you direct Phoenix to reveal all of this in that moment?

PB: That was an ad-lib. Samantha Mathis broke up with John Leguizamo after working with River. They were very much in love. They fell in love when they kissed in the back of the truck.

NR: Why was it important for you to direct this film about doomed young love and in kind of a twist on the theme: a big city girl who goes to a smaller city to try and make it?

PB: I like country music and young people. I liked the basic plot and thought it was a good story of four kids trying to make it. I was attracted to the notion.

NR: How do you think River achieved such intensity on the screen?

PB: He really got into it. I didn't meet him until he was into the part. By the time he came to California, he was into the role. I thought he was a little edgy, a little difficult. I didn't meet the real River Phoenix until after the shoot. I found out he was more like Huck Finn. He was adorable and a great help on the picture. He had what Hemingway called "a built-in shit detector." We had two writers on the script and he would complain if he didn't like the lines, but he was glorious to work with.

NR: How did you feel when you found out he had died?

PB: He was straight during filming. I had a date with him on November 1, the day after he died. When I spoke with him a few weeks before, he said he was clean and had been clean for 3 or 4 months. I was devastated by his death. We had just attended the Vienna Film Festival and it was shown to great acclaim. We left Portofino for a few days and on the flight back to L.A., I was talking to a friend, the screenwriter Robert Towne. He was raving about Johnny Depp and I was raving about River Phoenix. When we landed, Bob told me he wasn't sure, but he had just heard that River had died. My assistant met me at the airport to tell me. I felt like I had been hit over the head. The next day, I went over to his house and Joaquin cried in my arms.

NR: What do you think River Phoenix's legacy will be?

PB: He was a brilliant actor. A very talented actor and a sweet person. I think indecent play was at work his last day. Someone slipped him uncut cocaine or heroin. Something lethal. They decided not to pursue it. He didn't make that many films and so he didn't have a chance to live out his potential. Tony Curtis said, "It's impossible to calculate the level of envy in Hollywood." I think envy killed him.

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The Thing Called Love (Director's Cut) starring River Phoenix and Samantha Mathis is available on DVD.

-- Nicki Richesin is the author and editor of Crush, What I Would Tell Her, Because I Love Her, and The May Queen. She is the San Francisco correspondent for Du Jour and a frequent contributor to Sunset, The Huffington Post, Daily Candy, and The Horn Book.