river phoenix | Perfectly Hard and Glamorous

Some faces belong more to memory than to the world.

It’s a bit of an obsession, though I try not to talk about him too much. Still, his name surfaces from time to time. And then the teenage guy asks me if I know who River Phoenix was.

He asks it casually, like it’s just another name drifting out of the past. Of course I know. But I hesitate before answering, as though admitting it might reveal too much.

Who would have imagined we’d spend the entire night talking about River Phoenix? About how beauty becomes fixed in time. About the strange intimacy we form with the dead.

Every so often he tilts his head in a way that reminds me of him. Not exactly. But enough. For a moment I imagine he might be the reincarnation of River Phoenix. The thought is absurd, of course.

What he loves is not the person. Only the image. And the image never grows older.

My Own Private Idaho. Keanu Reeves and River Phoenix. Promotional still (1991)

Scott: I only have sex with a guy for money.

Mike: Yeah, I know.

Scott: And two guys can’t love each other.

Mike: Yeah.

Mike: Well, I don’t know. I mean… I mean, for me, I could love someone even if I, you know, wasn’t paid for it… I love you, and… you don’t pay me.

Scott: Mike…

Mike: I really wanna kiss you, man… Well goodnight, man… I love you though… You know that… I do love you.

***

Watched ‘My Own Private Idaho’ for the first time. Charlie asked me if I’d seen Keanu Reeves recently because he looked old. But he was 61-years-old. River Phoenix still looks exactly the same… but that was how he left things. I remembered that I’d mentioned Phoenix before… but in one of my stories, he had appeared as a ghost.

It wasn’t going to be called ‘My Own Private Idaho’… better than ‘Blue Funk’ or ‘Minions of the Moon’… and named after a B-52s song. Inspired by Shakespeare’s Henry IV plays… Prince Hal and Hotspur and Falstaff… but here it was Scott Favor, privileged bisexual, Mike Waters, narcoleptic gay hustler searching for his mother, and Bob Pigeon, coke-dealing chickenhawk. Gus Van Sant: “My films are usually about relationships. I think you make films about things you lack.”

I can’t stop thinking about River Phoenix because, I guess, I’m in love with yet another dead man.

1987… “Run to the rescue with love and peace will follow.” – River Phoenix.

1989… Star burning bright. Beautiful. Lightness. Creative. Camera object.

1991… Indie moment. ‘My Own Private Idaho’. Realism to fantasy. Challenging the norm. Self-destructive attitudes. Dark themes. Cool culture. Downbeat hustlers. Wanderers. A chance to become an adult actor. Gus Van Sant simply being Gus Van Sant.

Keanu Reeves laying in bed playing with his nipple. What River Phoenix needed after making this movie – a bath, a shave, an exfoliating facial scrub.

“How do you see yourself fitting in with younger Hollywood acting?” (A sweet voice). “I don’t see any of them in the perspective or in the limelight of Hollywood. I really don’t ever want to get that objective or self-consciousness of my place in this world of showbusiness.”

1993… LA nightclub. Halloween. Music blasting. Sitting on a couch. Tired. Intoxicated. Skinny. Bad skin. Ticking time bombs. Heroine. Cocaine. Morphine. Marajuana. Valium. Cold remedies. Addiction is an open secret here. And then the star exploded all over the pavement. Never did anyone move from casual drug use to death so quickly. The night that Fellini died – ‘A director’s sweet life. An actor’s brief life.’

Retrospective.

2025… ‘My Own Private Idaho’. Turning point. A troubling effect. Midnight rock sessions. Alcohol. Uncontrollable drug use. Crystal meth. Hooked. No chance of going back now. Progressive and fatal. Like ‘The Little Shop of Horrors’…if you go too near to the plant it will eat you. The best performance… but from now on he didn’t care enough about himself to look after himself. What about those he left behind? Nobody did anything to help him when he was alive… guilt… and lasting sadness.

Have a nice day!