![]() As his new identity is revealed to the audience, he becomes a target for public criticism and mockery. Through this journey, we get to see how a celebrity scandal unfolds: Phoenix announces his retirement in October 2008 and adopts his new persona – a scruffy, uncontrolled, and unstable version of himself, who turns out to be not particularly successful as a rapper. I'm still hereĪt first sight, the film seems to be a project by director Casey Affleck, who follows Joaquin Phoenix around with a camera as he plans to retire as an actor and focus on his new hip hop career. It explores celebrity culture and its scandals and in doing so it plays with the boundaries of truth and fiction. Good film dodgy career move.I’m Still Here is a 2010 film by Casey Affleck and Joaquin Phoenix. ![]() Joaquin Phoenix will undoubtedly still be here after this is all over: how he sheepishly climbs down from this pose may be the subject of a second mocu-docu-piece. But even as a conscious hoax, it could be the symptom of, or diversion therapy for, some genuine psychological problem which is never admitted to on screen. ![]() Yet this whole stunt could also have been a piece of celeb-savvy performance art, which Phoenix approached with the dedication of Robert De Niro bulking up for Raging Bull. It could, of course, be that Phoenix was hedging his bets, taking a stab at music stardom which he could, if necessary, later dismiss as irony. These scenes look very staged, but amusingly so, and Combs is particularly good. The high points are his sycophantic best friend taking a horrible revenge for being humiliated, and Phoenix's own humiliation when he goes to see Sean "P Diddy" Combs in his studio, and the great man tries gently to tell this desperate wannabe rapper that he will not be producing him. So we get to see Phoenix trying to set up deals for recording and live performance, and being embarrassingly awful on stage, and of course he gets vexed and whiney with various assistants and hangers-on who are identified only by their first names.Īffleck appears in front of camera at the beginning a fair bit, so that he and Joaquin can pre-emptively laugh off the alleged irony of Phoenix quitting films and yet appearing in a film. Phoenix is mumbling, ranting and raving about how acting isn't for him any more – well, no, not if he's going to act as badly as this – and that he wants to express himself through rapping. He has grown a huge gut and a huge beard, and wears sunglasses a lot indoors – a shambolic new look similar to Zach Galifianakis's character in The Hangover. ![]() His sleek, sexy and somewhat effete persona has been replaced by a big blob. We join the story in 2008, just after Joaquin Phoenix completed work on James Gray's drama Two Lovers, and Affleck's handheld camera now captures a shocking transformation in the star. Is it a hoax or a spoof? Is it an obvious wind-up, or a palpable put-on? Is it outrageously and continuously fake, or is it, on the other hand, flagrantly and persistently inauthentic? Well, it is funny. Ever since actor and film-maker Casey Affleck unveiled this movie, apparently a documentary about a troubled Joaquin Phoenix quitting Hollywood to pursue a career in hip-hop, audiences have been intrigued by a profound ambiguity at the film's very heart. ![]()
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