If it’s a performance, it’s a jaw-dropping one. And isn’t that what we’re all here at the Toronto International Film Festival to see?
The documentary I’m Still Here, directed by Casey Affleck, chronicles the tumultuous months in 2008 in which his brother-in-law, Joaquin Phoenix, declared that he was quitting acting to become a rapper, grew a mountain-man beard and mumbled his way into talk-show infamy. Or is it a documentary? After the film’s first TIFF press screening on Thursday afternoon, critics were divided as to how much – if any – of what they’d just seen was real.
Either way, the movie is pretty astonishing. If it’s real, it’s a triumph of access (and – warning – rated AA-18). Phoenix allowed himself to be filmed scrolling call-girl sites on the Internet (“I want to smell their little butt holes,” he squeals), snorting cocaine off a hooker’s bare breast (her face is digitally blurred), vomiting after a fist fight, humiliating himself in front of music impresario Sean (Diddy) Coombs and raging, shirtless and flabby, at his various hangers-on. His hair grows ever more matted, and the ratty pieces of tape holding his sunglasses together get bigger and bigger. (He also uses his sunglass arm, deftly, as a coke spoon.) So startlingly intimate are some scenes, that either Affleck and Phoenix have the most trusting relationship ever, or there’s going to be one hell of a battle at their next Thanksgiving dinner. (Affleck is married to Phoenix’s sister Summer.)
If the film is staged (and please note, a closing credit reads, “Written and produced by Joaquin Phoenix and Casey Affleck”), it means something even bigger: It means that Phoenix was willing to give over two years of his life, and risk the utter ruination of his acting career – an Oscar nominee, he once did fine work in many movies, including To Die For and I Walk the Line – to a piece of performance art.
Personally, I think “reality” is somewhere in the middle: part actual footage, part damage control to suggest that Phoenix is in on the joke he’s become, and not as crazy as he seems.
Phoenix could be that great an actor. But I’m not sure his long-time publicist could have faked the look on her face while watching Phoenix’s now-legendary meltdown on David Letterman’s show. (“What can you tell us about your days with the Unibomber?” Letterman asked, while Phoenix stared back blankly.) Her expression goes from hopeful (Is this funny?) to uncomfortable to sad in a way that sure looked real to me.
Ultimately, it doesn’t matter, because the film isn’t just about Phoenix. It’s about the toxicity of celebrity culture. So whether he’s been genuinely burned or is merely presenting a cautionary tale, he’s shining a light on something that everyone enamoured of celebrity culture needs to think about. (Especially all of us here at TIFF, where there are more handlers per actor than ever, and movie companies have started making critics sign embargo agreements saying they won’t write about a film until a specified date. Both are desperate-feeling attempts to control what everyone knows is uncontrollable.)
Phoenix says he’s sick of being a characterization rather than a person; that he no longer wants to be a “puppet who wears, stands and says what someone else wants me to.” That’s not uncommon among celebs, I’m sure. But what Affleck’s film demonstrates brilliantly is how relentless and endless that objectification has been rendered by recent media technology.
