River Phoenix: Young Man River

It was the reverse scenario when River was approached for the lead as the smooth killer in A Kiss Before Dying, eventually played by Matt Dillon.

"I just don't have the cool in me to do that role. They came back eight times to try and get me to do it. Too many chances and too much money. They kept coming back, I kept saying no, no, no, and they went up, up, up, with the money. BILL MOYERS!" River shouts, the relief in his exhale almost palpable as he continues. "It was a really good script but I just didn't want to do a remake, unless I knew it was gonna be better--and I just didn't believe in the character."

An hour later we're at a Thai restaurant on the outskirts of town. River is holding court. "Martin Scorsese would've sicked the goodfellas on Julia Phillips. That's why she spared him. He's well-connected, he has the power, believe me. I bet, if he wanted to, he could hire the National Guard." Our table is loud and full. A trumpet player who will be laying down a horn track on the Aleka's Attic demo tape sits next to Suzanne, who can't stay long--her class on "Nutrition in the '90s"is tonight. The lead singer from Fromage has joined us after having spent an afternoon with another friend of River's who injested magic mushrooms.

"Yeah, and knowing him, you guys had one giant meaning of life seminar," River says, rolling his eyes.

"It got hairy," the singer concedes. "He kept saying, 'Why are there road signs? Why do hooks have pages? A silk shirt is really shit from a worm.' " We're all cracking up, but River's mood seems to be giving him some trouble; there is an unfocused melancholy in his stare, an indolent resignation in the slouch that even Suzanne can't seem to snap him out of. "When he's mad, he can get pretty crazy," Suzanne remarked back at the house. But he doesn't seem mad, just sad. Then he hears the rumor about a Japanese businessman who wants to take his Van Gogh to the grave with him, and he all but falls out of his chair, in what we have come to regard as the patented River-you-could-drive-a-semi-through-his-mouth look of astonishment.

"Oh, well I think that man should be kissed silly until he gives it up!"

"That's one way to do it."

"No, that's the best way to do it," River admonishes me. "Love conquers all. Even the assholes that don't want it."

Some of us are Still hungry; more dishes are ordered.

"Eat slowly--it's better for you," River coaches, then orders another Thai beer in Spanish. Spanish, River tells us, was his first language, growing up in Venezuela.

"It's uncanny how closely your life mirrors the storyline in Mosquito Coast," I point out, "right down to the corrupt clergyman."

"Yeah...ironic, isn't it? Paul Theroux didn't steal my life story. I just misplaced it. Needless to say, I was very comfort-able with the material."

After dinner, I'm alone with River for the first time as we make the half-hour ride out to the Phoenix family farm. It's a straight shot and a dogleg out into the uplands, a fertile stretch of swamp ooze and softwood forests separating the eastern and western coastal plains. After the Macbeth-type gloom that lingered over River during dinner, I can't get that scene in Annie Hall where Woody Allen's driving through the night with her psychotic brother out of my head. River, however, is a pleasant surprise, rallying into a warm, engaging companion. With a snowstorm of fireflies spiraling into the windshield, he unwinds, leaving the Brando-as-Zapata-as-Hamlet veil back at Bohn Thai. We're bantering over the highs and lows of his short career, starting with Stand by Me.

"It was a great film, but I had nothing to do with it. At that time in my life, I was not responsible enough for my craft to feel as though I could represent it and feel comfortable--and I was very insecure. I mean, at that time I was going through puberty and I was hurting really bad. When I watch it, it's one of the true performances for anyone of that age, or any age, for that matter. Yeah, I liked it. I thought it was very honest."

We move on to A Night in the Life of Jimmy Reardon, which had River as a teenage Tom Jones in a sputtering comedy whose self-absorption nears black hole status.

"It was confused in itself, but it depends. If it was taken on its own, and you didn't see Stand by Me or Mosquito Coast, I don't know how you would take it. As far as people I've talked to, general America loves the hell out of it."

By the time we reach the ranch, somewhere out in a blue-black residential forest, we're back to talking about the Redford film. If you want the role badly enough, you grab the bull by the horns and pursue it, I maintain. River shakes his head.

"No. I won't. I just won't. I just can't. With Bob, you gotta trust the intuition of the director and know that he had the clear picture and if you fit, it's natural. But to force it is egotism to some degree. It's like, sure, you can do a great job, but you're better off trusting the decision to the creator of the film. I'm just happy to see the film being made and I think, in this case, the way it's gone so far, who knows what'll happen--but It'll be a better film because of me not being in it. We are now entering the premises."

After numbers are punched in on a security pad, a gate swings open to a rutted, mud and roots driveway, most of it obscured by swamp fog. Rain is on the way.

"One of the things that was introduced to me," River continues softly as we head inside, "at an early stage in life was to try to make stuff happen. But nothing ever worked that way for me. What I learned on my own was that to try and play God with your life will wrack your brain and your nervous system, and mess up your natural direction in the course that's already there...But look--I just don't want to read about me being made into a basket case because of my work. It's self-pity that I hate. I mean, it comes with the territory. An actor with any conviction goes the extra mile-- but of course you're gonna suffer damage to your brain.

"You gotta just be as neutral as possible so that only the work is what you read. Otherwise you can see it in certain grade actors' performances--it might be a great performance, but you can actually see the on-set tension in their work, and that, to me, is like fool's gold. It's a hard lesson to learn, but you have to trust time and space as it is, with or without you. Then you give everything what it deserves, and there's no pressure."

The guest house of the Phoenix family ranch has been converted into an apartment/recording studio. The band is in the middle of putting together a demo tape (River has a recording deal in the works with Island Records), under the stewardship of a tempera-mental engineer named Blake.

"He's a ballbreaker, but if we did it alone we'd have nine songs done in a year. I've been using you guys as an excuse for some time off," River warns Michael and me, which explains the arctic handshake from Blake as we enter the studio.

River's running up and down the stairs from the engineer's studio to the sound booth, where he's conducting the trumpet player, to ensure the right tempo. The music has an Osterized Police/XTC/Byrds blend, at once nimble and plodding. The vocals, supplied by River and his sister Rain, are ethereal and boneless, and made all the more so by the weak self-affirmation of octave harmonies. By the fifth run-through, the horn player's got his licks down. Outside, an electrical storm fires up the landscape like a crack of light flooding in from heaven's door.

"Aleka," River explains, "is the spirit of the group. This room," he points at the crisscrossing rafters, "is Aleka's Attic. Aleka was an imaginary creature who wrote poetry and music and gave up its spirit for the band."

Later, the lights have been turned down and the crowd is gathered around a TV set. "Feel like watching a movie?' River asks, wrapping his arm around my shoulder. The gang around the set includes the two Joshes--Josh, the bass player, and Josh, the drummer--Bill, the horn player and Rain, wearing an "Ugly Americans" T-shirt, plus Blake and the singer from Fromage.

Two and half hours later we have seen a sound-and-edit work print of My Own Private Idaho, a gorgeous film. River and Keanu Reeves play male prostitutes in a kind of Watt and Murphy's Excellent Adventure. The character River plays, hopelessly in love with the Keanu Reeves character, is searching for his mother in a valueless wasteland of "dates" and betrayal. The grainy, choppy quality of the tape and the occasionally garbled sound docs noth-ing to diminish the impact of River's performance. In his first real role as a young man, he blows me away.

On the way back to town, I can't get the movie out of my head. I feel a vicarious guilt as I look out at the thousands of frogs all over the interstate. You can hear them pop under the tires.

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