I’m Still Here (2010)
By thisguyoverhere | September 10, 2010
Cast: Joaquin Phoenix
Directed by: Casey Affleck
Written by: Casey Affleck, Joaquin Phoenix
Genre: Comedy, Drama
People were a little baffled when word started to spread around that actor Joaquin Phoenix announced that he was retiring from acting. The world was even more confused when he said he would be pursuing a career in rap music. However, when he showed up looking like a survivor from a deserted island on David Letterman’s show in early 2009, his new apeshit-crazy persona became a subject of debate over its authenticity, and thus rumors of a ‘hoax’ began to circulate. After nearly two years of immersing himself in this new identity, Joaquin and director Casey Affleck confirmed that it was.
Essentially, I’m Still Here “documents” Joaquin’s transition from retiring as an actor to getting his hip hop career off the ground. During his publicity tour for Two Lovers, Phoenix announces his retirement and delves into rapping head first, but his talents as a hip hop artist are undeveloped and amateur at best. Ignorant of this, he uses his acting notoriety to attempt to hire P. Diddy to produce his album. He experiences setback after setback both publicly and personally, spiraling him into a deeper state of delusion.
As convoluted as the intentions were for attempting to blur the lines between reality and fiction, the film still succeeds in making its point, (or rather a point). This is film is required to be viewed as a satire, much in the same light as Being John Malkovich, where the main character plays a version of himself to make a point about celebrity and the disillusions associated with it. Phoenix displays an ignorance and naivety similar to the hundreds of aspiring artists who move to Los Angeles every year as he immerses himself into the rap game, however he retains the condescending sense of entitlement that so often accompanies fame. The result of this character he creates is one of a dog whose bark is worse than its bite – which is oddly fitting for rap music. Phoenix verbally abuses his assistants by reprimanding them for not succeeding at the impossible tasks he sets out for them, then minutes later exhibits a pure sense of timidity when speaking to P. Diddy about his songs making his insecurities entirely transparent.
Joaquin Phoenix in I'm Still Here (2010)
The beginning of the film contains a tirade from Phoenix about the media depicting his persona to bedifficult and reserved and his lack of understanding whether the media was reacting to who he really was, or whether he was reacting to the portrait the media painted him out to be.
The beginning of the film finds Phoenix pacing through some trees as he spouts off his thoughts on whether or not his difficult and reserved public persona is a reaction to what the media makes him out to be, or if the media makes him out to be that way because he actually is. This seems to be the mission statement of the movie, an exploration of how we accept and react to celebrity assuming we know the person based on tabloid headlines. And Phoenix goes for broke. His character accomplishes something that most actors dread: appearing ugly and unappealing and downright revolting. He pushes his character to the extreme challenging the preconceived notions of stardom. It is an astonishing performance – and it is a performance – that should be heralded.
The indistinct lines between reality and fiction have ended up being a detriment to the film as well as Phoenix’s career. In a way, it seems that as art imitated life, life has imitated art and the enigmatic persona that Phoenix had previous to the release of this film has only become more cryptic. This may have been beyond the foresight of Affleck and Phoenix, which makes the point of I’m Still Here even more convoluted. What was disguised as a documentary of a celebrity’s life falling apart was intended to be a mockumentary about the presumptions of celebrity, but it actually ends up being an abstract documentary about a real actor playing a fictional version of himself destroying a fictional version of his career, but harming his actual career in the process. There very few more provocative films than I’m Still Here. Even Charlie Kaufman couldn’t make this stuff up.
USA. 108 minutes. Rated R.
