After a recent market screening of Joaquin Phoenix ‘s documented attempts at a rapping career last year, potential buyers who saw the film have reportedly expressed confusion at its lead’s authenticity with many walking out “more mystified by Phoenix’s behavior than when they walked in.”
Directed by Phoenix’s brother-in-law Casey Affleck, the documentary titled “I’m Still Here: The Lost Year Of Joaquin Phoenix” apparently provides no set up for the odd behaviors of its lead last year, instead blurring the lines between documentary and mockumentary and leaving audiences in a state of genuine confusion on whether Phoenix was truly was going for a career change or whether it was all for show.
The film does document failed attempts to woo Sean “Diddy” Combs as a producer on a potential rap album but, along with that, also come with Phoenix uncharacteristically “snorting cocaine, ordering call girls, having oral sex with a publicist, treating his assistants abusively and rapping badly.” Other notable scenes include what is being described as “more male frontal nudity than you’d find in some gay porn films and a stomach-turning sequence in which someone feuding with Phoenix defecates on the actor while he’s asleep.”
Now come on, if there was ever any doubt, that description surely answers questions about how genuine Phoenix was about being a rapper. Would an acclaimed, Oscar-winning thespian really give up his flourishing career for all this “Jackass”-style “Hollywood debauchery” and what is evidently “very little talent for [rap] music”? Surely, this can all be explained by Phoenix’s devotion to method acting…
Confusion aside, buyers were apparently fascinated by the documentary, agreeing that “they’d never seen anything like it” while debating its commercial prospects. It is really a debate or are studios just holding their cards close to their chest? Phoenix’s red carpet antics and his appearance on David Letterman’s ‘Late Show’ last year sparked a flurry of interest — the official Youtube video is clicking close to four and a half million views — with the whole stunt pretty much making for a greater marketing campaign than money could buy.
Phoenix’s dedication alone should be an attraction for viewers with the role not only consuming the actor’s life but also sidelining his career. One sequence in the film apparently shows Ben Stiller approaching Phoenix about starring in Noah Baumbach’s “Greenberg” to which Phoenix’s rapper incarnation was obviously not interested in. We assume Stiller was offering the part eventually played by Rhys Ifans.
It remains to be seen then if and when Phoenix will come out of his acting “hiatus.” The actor has already broken out of his rapper persona and was even briefly linked to play Edgar Allen Poe in Daniel Stashower’s “The Beautiful Cigar Girl” before that eventually fell through. Surely, he’s not that method to keep it up until the release of ‘I’m Still Here’?