Click here to view the embedded video.

James Franco was at the Hollywood Theatre yesterday, screening My Own Private River, his feature length, River Phoenix-centric, remix of My Own Private Idaho outtakes. Not eligible for theatrical release (due to copyright issues, I am guessing), James Franco and Gus Van Sant presented the film personally, as a fundraising event,  to a theater packed with grateful, eager film nuts.

My Own Private River tells the story of Mike Waters, the narcoleptic street hustler whose brother might be his father, whose his best friend won’t be his lover, and who seems to be, like the Johnny Depp character in Jim Jarmusch’s 1995 film, a walking dead man. More sentimental than My Own Private Idaho, My Own Private River jettisons the Prince Hal plotline, and Scott (Keanu Reeves) only appears around the edges, in scenes which serve as markers of Mike’s decline.

To get the most obvious question out of the way, My Own Private River does stand on its own as a feature length film. I cannot speak to what the experience would be like for someone who had not seen My Own Private Idaho (or who has seen it 20 times, as Franco has) but for me, this odd scramble of rejected footage felt like a real movie, mostly because of the power of Phoenix’ performance, which I imagine was exactly the point Franco was trying to make when he proposed the project to Van Sant.

Van Sant granted permission to Franco on the condition that if he (Van Sant) didn’t like the result, it would never be seen.

But he liked it. And now Franco’s exploration of River Phoenix’ performance permanently raises the bar for film scholars everywhere. The outtakes he drew from include scenes which made it into My Own Private Idaho as well as ones which never did, such as a outdoor love scene with a fellow street rat (female), a dinner table scene where Mike wordlessly editorializes on the bad manners of Scott and his new Italian girlfriend, and a hot dog vending scene where Mike discovers, after coming back from Italy, that his street rat friends (male) now have jobs.  Franco’s goal, to re-tell the story solely from Mike Waters’ point of view, ends up illuminating Van Sant’s directorial choices as much as it sheds additional light on the profound all out commitment of River Phoenix’ performance. Van Sant is lighter, drier, and more peculiar then Franco. Franco’s Mike Waters is histrionic (sometimes hilariously so, as when he suddenly begins fighting his own jacket, Buster Keaton style, in the middle of a bedroom seduction he has been hired to perform) and self pitying. In the world Franco creates, death is a foregone conclusion. It is Van Sant, less emotional and more worldly, who leaves room for redemption.

Which interpretation best reflects River Phoenix’ own understanding of the character? I am hoping all future scholars of  My Own Private Idaho will see My Own Private River and come to their own conclusions.

I hereby claim My Own Private River as an Oregon film, on the basis of the contribution of River Phoenix, a native Oregonian, and on the basis of the location shooting, and the setting.

Karl Lind documented the artists’ talk before the screening:

Click here to view the embedded video.

Is there something about Oregon’s geographic isolation which inspires artists to dumpster dive and recycle art? Nevermind the Bronx beginnings of remix culture in hip hop; there is plenty of repurposing going on here in the Northern Left Coast.

Witness Bobby “Fatboy” Roberts, Portland radio wit and sometime film critic, who has remixed ” a decade’s worth of ruined pop-culture memories”.

Witness Bruce Conkle’s and Marne Lucas’ Warlord Sun King:  The Genesis of Eco Baroque.

Yes, that’s Marne and Bruce, surrounded by flattened tin foil and a thrift store frame.

And now witness the permission Gus Van Sant gave James Franco to cut together outlakes, deleted scenes, alternate takes and behind the scenes footage from My Own Private Idaho to create a 12 hour installation, Endless Idaho, which is up until April 9 at Gagosian Gallery in Los Angeles.

Also in the gallery: paintings by Gus Van Sant, and a second remix of My Own Private Idaho footage by Franco, titled My Own Private River, which concentrates on River Phoenix.

Endless Idaho/My Own Private River is Franco’s third Van Sant collaboration.  Van Sant directed him in Milk, he starred in Howl, which Gus Van Sant executive produced, and now Franco has emerged from the editing room,where he had locked himself up, like Rumplestilskin, with all the parts of My Own Private Idaho we never saw.

How fitting because My Own Private Idaho is itself a magpie’s nest of appropriation and repurposing. Drawing on the B-52’s for his title and Shakespeare for his plot, Van Sant remixed two of his own unproduced screenplays into one heartbreaking romantic tragedy. Shawn Levy marvels at Van Sant’s eye for location as he peopled an imagined city with a mix of real Portlanders (including Tom Peterson, Tom Cramer and some real street hustlers), and Hollywood leading men, one of whom was giving the performance of his career.

Call it remix or collaboration: Gus likes it. It is his secret weapon as a director.  The work of Fatboy, Bruce Conkle and Marne Lucas indicates he may be expressing a regional tendency.

]]> http://www.talltalestruetales.com/2011/02/my-own-private-remix-culturefatboy-roberts-gus-van-sant-and-james-franco/feed/ 0 http://www.talltalestruetales.com/2010/03/my-own-private-idaho-1991/ http://www.talltalestruetales.com/2010/03/my-own-private-idaho-1991/#comments Sat, 13 Mar 2010 00:50:15 +0000 Anne Richardson http://www.talltalestruetales.com/?p=3589 Click here to view the embedded video.

“When Van Sant shows us speeded-up images of clouds rolling past wheat fields, the familiar device transcends cliche, because it’s tied to the way that Mike, in his benumbed isolation, experiences his own life-as a running piece of surrealism. The sheer, expressive beauty of those images haunted me for days.” Owen Gleiberman

Gus Van Sant knew it would be hard to find backing for a love story between two street hustlers, so he was prepared to make My Own Private Idaho with amateur actors, the approach he had used with Mala Noche, and would go on to use with Elephant and Paranoid Park. But Keanu Reeves surprised him by signing on as Scott, the slumming rich kid, and then persuading River Phoenix to take the role of Mike, the narcoleptic street hustler.

However Van Sant’s largest gamble wasn’t throwing two straight Hollywood A list actors in bed together. It  wasn’t  re-writing Falstaff as a chicken hawk and it wasn’t asking Keanu Reeves to do Shakespeare. It was shooting a screenplay he had written himself, and which was not based on source material, as both Mala Noche and Drugstore Cowboy had been. This was a first for him.

“Van Sant’s cleareyed, unsentimental approach to a plot that pivots on betrayal and death is reflected in magnetic performances from Reeves and Phoenix.” Peter Travers

Written and directed by an Oregonian, inspired by real Oregonians, shot by two Oregon DPs in Oregon (and Washington and Idaho), and starring an Oregon actor – River Phoenix was born in Metolius, during his parents’ hippie years – there has never been a film with more impeccable Oregon credentials.

Strange but true: the screenplay was cobbled together from  several screenplays-in-progress Van Sant was writing, none of which he found satisfactory on its own.

Strange but true: the wonderful hotel living room performance which Hans (Udo Kier) gives was not written by Van Sant.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Neither was the famous campfire scene where Mike declares his love for Scott. In both instances, Van Sant allowed the actors to take over the writing, and in the case of the campfire scene, allowed River Phoenix to not only write the scene, but direct the rehearsal of it as well.

Strange but true: in his recent interview with James Ivory, Gus Van Sant described directing actors, which he does so well, as the part of filmmaking he likes the least.

“The performances, especially by the two young stars, are as surprising as they are sure. Mr. Phoenix (Dogfight) and Mr. Reeves (of the two Bill and Ted comedies) are very fine in what may be the two best roles they’ll find in years. Roles of this density, for young actors, do not come by that often”. Vincent Canby

It is my very great honor to claim My Own Private Idaho as an Oregon film.

Strange but true: the original director of Stand By Me was Adrian Lyne - but he was all tied up shooting Nine 1/2 Weeks – so the producers tapped Bronx born, Beverly Hills raised Rob Reiner to tell this story of the pilgrimage four small town boys make into the woods to see a dead body.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Stand By Me was shot in multiple Oregon locations.

For this reason, and because River Phoenix, one of the lead actors, was born in Oregon, I hereby claim Stand By Me as an Oregon film, qualifying under both the new and old definitions.

Here’s a wonderful discussion of the emotional power of this film, on The House Next Door.

Strange but true: Native Oregonian River Phoenix started his acting career by appearing in the 1982 television series Seven Brides For Seven Brothers.