Let it be known, I’m Still Here was indeed a hoax. Joaquin Phoenix, the actor who played Johnny Cash in Walk the Line, announced about a year ago that he was retiring from his movie career to pursue another one in hip-hop, a move that hit the media world like a gutterball with the bumpers up. Luckily, we were all in on the joke, whether we knew it or not. It was all a performance for a mockumentary about his pseudo-retirement, although it would be advertised as an actual documentary. Of course people doubted the legitimacy of the announcement from the start, and it was only natural. People have doubted the existence of gods from the beginning, and in this movie its is shown how celebrities, like Phoenix, are idolized in America (typically) in the same sense as mythological gods were in Ancient Greece, among many other places. The rumors of it being a “hoax” were from the very beginning a part of this film, whether we knew it or not; our natural reactions to Phoenix’s announcement played perfectly into the story that was being told in this mockumentary. So a lot of people should complain for not getting a paycheck. But of course there are those that just didn’t care, and they even play into the story as well.
In this story, Joaquin embarks on philosophical and psychological journey to become a famous musician. In fact, he just wants to be famous. He says it himself. He doesn’t want to be mediocre; he, like everyone else, wants to be great. He begins to write his music with the help of another “mediocre” musician, and it is then that the exploitation begins to shine like a limelight on not only celebrity life but the audience as well. While we’ve been keeping up (at least I have) with the rare news about Joaquin’s post-retirement hip-hop career, we’ve been laughing at his infamous interview on Letterman, waiting for something new from this former actor that we could now ridicule. But why do we want to ridicule him? Do we all subconsciously wish for this all to be a hoax?
Whether we do or not, the idea of this being a hoax plays a part into the entire message of the film, which is by far the best response to anyone who has ever (sarcastically) said, “celebrity life must be sooo hard.” Phoenix’s aspirations to rap coincide with his character’s flaw: the inability to realize how high in society he really was, as well as having a hypocritically misconceived perception on the hip-hop industry. Most (but not all) rappers come from lower-class lifestyles, and on occasion from higher class lifestyles as well, but Joaquin’s conditioned mindset is that he is a normal person striving for greatness by imitating the struggles of lower-class life, although he thinks he’s being artistic the whole time because he wants to “leave a mark” in history. But maybe that’s another message of the movie, that the entire idea of the three “classes” is a idealistic concept that only separates the rich from the poor, when everyone is actually in the middle; it is only when we try to act like we belong to a class that we begin to lose our minds as well as our perception of reality, as it is demonstrated by Phoenix’s character. So basically, he’s tired of supposedly doing little to nothing to live life like a god, and when he falls out of the clouds (figuratively speaking) he starts to lose touch with reality while questioning the value of his existence in such a cruel world.
Although it is a hoax, the movie still made me feel ashamed of myself at times. Why? Because I, like most people I’m sure, expected this movie to be somewhat funny, and although it was at times (in a very dark sense), it wasn’t enough to make me consider it a comedy of any type. However, it was enough to make me realize just how serious Joaquin Phoenix and Casey Affleck (the director, Phoenix’s brother-in-law) were about this movie’s message. It was a joke, a hoax, advertised as a documentary. Maybe it really was a documentary. Maybe this is an entirely new type of storytelling only possible through film, and we just can’t realize it because we’re so pissed we had to see some guy’s dick twice. Phoenix also smokes pot, snorts cocaine, plays with hookers, pisses off P. Diddy and Ben Stiller (Stiller was in on the “joke”), and gets used as a toilet (via his face), showing a somewhat exaggerated point of view of the psychological impact of celebrity status, exploiting the relationship between American audiences and their celebrity idols, showing that inevitably gods do not care for normal people, and cannot realize that they are not normal themselves because of their need for selfishness to justify their own existence. It is the driving force of art, of life itself, to justify and find some meaning out of our own existence, and that when we try to look too hard we may sometimes find nothing at all but a crystal-clear reflection of ourselves, which is basically where Phoenix ends up in the story.
While I’m Still Here will more than likely go unappreciated because the majority of audiences expecting and still believing this to be an unfunny joke, trust me when I say that it is not a joke at all. It is very serious, and if you fail to see that, then you have failed to see your own reflection as Joaquin sees his in this movie. When the story reaches its pivotal point, the interview with David Letterman, it is then that we can see the truth of this movie. While we have been laughing this whole time with Letterman, we can finally see our own cruel judgmental nature in his ignorant attitude towards Joaquin, now that we see the story from a completely different angle. That is the whole point of the movie, to point out how we view celebrities.
Casey Affleck did an excellent job in piecing this story together, although I wasn’t really ever thrilled by seeing other cameras in the shots or of them mentioning the documentary. Honestly, I feel the movie would’ve been more captivating if it were treated like an actual movie in the sense Cold Souls featured Paul Giamatti playing himself and the same for Jaun Claude Van Damme in JCVD, but of course you have to respect Affleck and Phoenix’s aspiration to make something somewhat original, as that is also a point of the film’s story. It would’ve been somewhat more difficult to get “real” reactions from the world if word had gotten out that this was indeed a hoax, but I still think it’s a missed opportunity/possibility. Either way, Phoenix’s acting (let’s just hope it really is acting) is beyond superb, although I doubt he’ll get a much-deserved best acting nomination at many (if any) award ceremonies. I’m Still Here is a genuine gem that’s surprisingly not getting the attention it deserves, but at least Affleck came out and clarified that it’s not real, so just keep that in mind. It’s a hoax, but it’s real life.
VERDICT:
And here is the infamous Letterman interview that is a part of the film, but hopefully you've already seen it, otherwise you're missing out on the "joke."
