Almost There: River Phoenix in "My Own Private Idaho"
Tuesday, July 21, 2020 at 1:00PM This article is dedicated to Mark, one of our subscribers (thank you!), who requested a piece on River Phoenix -Editor.
It's difficult to write, it's difficult to think, about River Phoenix without the tragedy of his premature death casting a dark shadow over all other considerations. His acting is often talked about in terms of wasted potential, another facet of the same mythos that James Dean inhabits in the public consciousness. Sure, his film work is important, but only as far as it adds to the narrative of a flame that burned too bright and died out too soon. That can be a blessing to one's legacy, a promise of cultural immortality. However, it's also a curse that makes a young actor's amazing career into a footnote of a Hollywood tale of doom and gloom. River Phoenix was and is more than the protagonist of a real-life story about dying young. He's a great actor, one whose performances still have the power to amaze and impress, to enlighten and hurt.
This piece is about such a feat of acting, one that takes my breath away every time I gaze upon its magnificence. It's about River Phoenix in Gus van Sant's My Own Private Idaho…
This classic of early 90s New Queer Cinema is a hybrid of form and text whose wild experimentations can be hard to stomach. Working from two different screenplays, a short story and the ghost of Shakespeare's Henriad, van Sant tells the story of two male hustlers living in contemporaneous America. Phoenix is Mike Waters, a narcoleptic teenager born of oedipal parentage into the kind of squalor that seldomly shows its face on the silver screen. Like many youths in similar destitution, he sells his body as subsistence, walking through the urban darkness in search of some interested client that wants to enjoy him, if only for a night. It's an existence of constant helplessness and hunger, be it for food or the sustenance of affection that one cannot buy.
Still, when we first meet him, Mike's not in the city. We meet him on a road, alone, a speck of life in a landscape of desert dirt slashed by the highway. Like he often does, he coughs and fidgets about, a beautiful icon of consumptive frailty with wispy blond sideburns and a pasty complexion. Whatever unstable sense of peace the deserted tableau might suggest, it's quickly broken when Mike seizes, his body trembling. Muscles tense and face scrunched, it seems as if the boy might explode from accumulated tension like a rope wound up too tight or a bomb ready to go off. However, Mike doesn't explode. He implodes, collapsing unto himself and falling to the ground, even more helpless than before. Then, he orgasms.
The sexual climax is from another scene altogether, a meeting with a generous client who likes to blow the young hustler. Van Sant's transitions in My Own Private Idaho are never gentle, even if the way he looks at his characters might be. Like a shattered mirror, this indie flick is a storm of jagged edges ready to draw blood, full of weird stylistic inventions that are as abrasive as they are dazzling. Such a directorial approach could result in an alienating disaster, but the project's actors hold it together. Phoenix, in particular, is both anchor and glue, grounding the experimentation in visceral humanity and joining its disparate faces in a coherently incoherent union.
He's not alone, not in that regard. My Own Private Idaho might be a story philtered through the perspective of Mike, but it's a two-lead movie. Keanu Reeves is the other hero, a modernized Henry V by the name of Scott Favor, now the prince of Portland, son of an American mayor instead of an English king. He's Mike's best friend, his protector, and companion. He's also the focus of his unrequited love, a desire bound to end in heartbreak for the man to whom poverty is a way of life and not a distraction. You see, for Scott, misery is a hobby to indulge in before the advent of adulthood. Mike's not stupid, he knows his feelings are not mirrored by the insouciant Scott, and that their worlds aren't the same. Still, he longs for the other man. We can't control who we want. Nobody can.
That attraction is at the center of the movie's most famous and best scene, a campfire confession made in the embrace of a lonesome desert night. There, shrouded in apparent isolation, Mike opens up to his friend, slashes open his own heart with honest words, and lets Scott see the bloody mess inside. He speaks of love that needs no payment, of a need that the character seems unable to fully put into words but that the audience can clearly understand. He never looks at Scott, he shrinks, limbs hugging each other in a desperate attempt at shielding himself from some cruel aggression that might come. Shielding himself from the cold light of the fire. At that moment, River Phoenix's Mike is a scared animal covering his soft belly and hoping that pain isn't on its way. Physically there's no issue, but, emotionally, Mike's in for a world of pain.
Art can sometimes articulate what our mind cannot, reflecting and revealing who we are to ourselves. When I first saw Phoenix play that campfire scene, many years ago, it was like a lightbulb going off in my head. There it was, that need for someone to see me, to love me and touch me, to make me feel normal. A need I didn't comprehend but this film did. The fear of rejection was also there, the fear that the loneliness I felt was permanent. River Phoenix's take on Mike is one of the most honest representations of that need and of that terror I've ever seen on film, be it his desultory odyssey-like pursuit of an absent mother or that amorous want confessed by the campfire.
Often, throughout My Own Private Idaho, Van Sant brings the camera close to Phoenix's face and the actor always turns his eyes downward, keeping his gaze private from the audience. I find myself thankful for it since I fear what I might have felt if he had allowed me to look directly at Mike's pain crystalized in close-up. It might have been too much. After all, the campfire scene is almost too much already. Phoenix looks away so we don't have to. I'm also thankful for the glimpses of childlike innocence he allows to show through his epic painting of American misery. It's the glee of a bubble bath, the adolescent joy of a well-executed prank, the rebellious smile during the funeral of a vagabond Falstaff, the playful swats when Scott pulls on his chest hair. Such details allow Mike to feel human, to feel real, painfully so at times.
Thank you, River, for this lost boy that let me understand myself a bit better. Thank you, for everything.
My Own Private Idaho is available to stream on the Criterion Channel. You can also rent it from Amazon, Apple iTunes, Google Play, Youtube, and others.
Reader Comments (26)
He should have won the Oscar that year, easily. And it was a good year for male performances.
It truly is a great performance and deserving to be called the years best (I see Hopkins as a supporting contender honestly). His passing is tragic as I shutter to imagine all the amazing things he might've accomplished, my usual thinking when it comes to artistic talent lost too soon.
I have always wondered what Joaquin's career might've been if his brother had not passed and if the two could've worked together.
<3
I was waiting for this Post ! He’s amazing here and one of the bests of the whole decade
But I’m not sure that he was close to that nomination given the fact how the academy treats this kind of films!
I think he had support but 6th place was probably Costner,Bridges,Duvall or Turturro,I'd place Phoenix at 10.
NATHANIEL R -- He is my pick for Best Actor of 1991, that's for sure. I also love Hopkins, but I'm always undecided whether he's a lead or not. Lecter is in so little of THE SILENCE OF THE LAMBS, despite how memorable he is, that it makes me doubt the category placement.
Amirfarhang & markgordonuk -- Reading articles from the time, it seems like Phoenix had a lot of buzz despite the movie's subject and the lack of love from the Globes. MY OWN PRIVATE IDAHO is often credited with bringing New Queer Cinema to the mainstream and Phoenix was singled out in every review, not to mention the Academy liked him since he was already an Oscar nominee. He also won the Venice Volpi Cup unanimously, the Spirit Award, the NSFC Award, and the NYFCC prize for Best Actor,
I believe he was probably sixth or seventh, give or take Jeff Bridges. I'm sure he ranked higher than Turturro (AMPAS seems to have no love for him, despite a number of buzzy titles during the 90s), Duvall (little precursor love and category confusion were issues), Costner (in a movie with a huge cast he was seldomly singled out in reviews or awards, always overshadowed by the colorful supporting cast).
Initially, I mentioned the Oscar race much more in this write-up, but I ended up redoing the whole thing. Since it's a performance that I love dearly, I thought it appropriate to be a bit more personal and sentimental rather than focusing primarily on the Oscar narratives of 1991. Hopefully, that wasn't a bad choice.
Thank you all for the feedback. It's always appreciated.
The film came along in a time when I really neaded it.
God, please, let's not start the Hopkins is supporting coversation again. I had enough on Twitter.
Peggy Sue -- Sorry.
The Oscar race should have been between Phoenix and Anthony Hopkins for The Remains of the Day.
BVR -- The Remains of the Day is from 1993 and Hopkins was indeed nominated for Best Actor. I do think he was the best nominee of that later lineup, despite preferring David Thewlis and Leslie Cheung when it comes to the overall cinematic year.
River Phoenix was heartbreakingly real in that film. His early tragic death is one of the great losses of cinema.
Cláudio
I have no problem with focusing on the performance and not the oscar race
Your writings Are always well appreciated and definitely enjoyable to read but I think it would be fun to discuss the race in the comments!
I guess it was hopkins who won the NYFCC that year not phoenix (he was the runner-up)
Also I thinks phoenix age would be an important issue he was only 21 and we all know how the academy reacts to the young men in this category!
I read in wikipedia that after winning the volpi cup phoenix said "I don't want more awards. Venice is the most progressive festival. Anything else would be a token" maybe this had a bad effect on the voters too!
Amirfarhang -- Yes, it's fun to discuss the Oscar minutia in the comments, I agree :) Also, sorry about my mistake regarding Phoenix and the NYFCC, again you're right.
The actor's young age was very likely a big issue, I think, especially considering how middle-aged the category was during the 1990s. In the 80s there were a few 20-somethings nominated but the 90s' Best Actor races were dominated by men in their 30s or more. I don't imagine Phoenix's comments helped his case when it came to the Oscars. That being said, AMPAS has been known to embrace certain performers who talk shit about the Academy Awards - see Marlon Brando and George C. Scott, for instance.
I love his performance in Stand by Me. I think its very mature for such a young actor. Also, his performance as young indiana Jones suggested a complete star with a huge future ahead. But you are right, in my own private Idaho, River Phoenix was imortalized in celluloid.
That death hurt. So much loss from what could have been.
He should have had some Oscar traction for "Stand by Me". That monologue about the dress. There's a lot going on across that teenage face.
This is the kind of performances I like most, when the actor does a specific characterization with gestures, voice and body language but it feels SO real that you can barely note that is an acting even in a film as experimental as this.
Excelent choice and as always beautifully written Claudio.
Whoops! I genuinely thought My Own Private Idaho was from 1993.
This performance is an exquisite piece of heartbreak. What a stunner.
Gorgeous piece, Claudio.
I saw this film as a teenager as it was probably one of the first art-house movies I had ever seen as it was very bittersweet considering that we would never see what River Phoenix would become as he was definitely on his way to greatness. It also made me think of Joaquin and probably wouldn't have returned to acting if it wasn't for River. While I don't think Joker is a great movie and there were better performances that year but I don't have a problem with him winning the Best Actor Oscar though it probably does feel bittersweet for him considering that his accomplishments wouldn't have happened if it wasn't for River.
I haven’t seen this but this article has convinced me I should.
Loved that Joaquin spoke about River at the Oscars this year. I’d never heard him talk about him before and he didn’t at any of the precursors, so it was really nice he saved it for the Oscars.
What a mighty perf and MOPI is a film I cherished a lot, especially thanks to an home vision (VHS era) I had with my younger bro and (quite surprisingly) my father back then. Phoenix was a great talent and I can’t start to say how big it was his loss for me. Yep, the role and the film were not probably Ampas cup of tea but at least Venice Film Festival jury made this right move, even if that particular year there were several contenders (Italian newspapers stated that the jury chose to give Volpi Cup to Phoenix after considered veterans such as John Gielgud or Michel Piccoli)
River Phoenix was such a terrible loss. He would be turning 50 this year, and I think had he lived he probably would have an Oscar by now.
Raul -- i totally think so too. I loved him so much. I wanted him to win for RUNNING ON EMPTY and then again for PRIVATE IDAHO but at least he was nominated for the former (albeit in the wrong category)
I wonder what films he would graced and enriched had he continued. James Cameron has been very vocal that he was designing the role of Jack Dawson in Titanic for River Phoenix. I wonder what other films would benefited from his talent.
I cannot thank you enough for this beautiful piece on River. And to have it dedicated to me is quite the honour. Thanks so much and continued thanks for your great work with the blog.