演員、導演兼製片的James Franco最熟為人知的莫過於他在蜘蛛人裡頭的對頭角色,我還看過他演出的荒野求生電影"127小時",不過最近我對他多了一份認識:他是個River Phoenix迷弟XD


他在訪談說會利用原導演Gus Van Sant剩下沒用的膠捲剪輯出這部電影「My Own Private River」,是他與蓋導討論「如果是你,你會如何拍攝這幕場景?」沒有用在原電影「My Own Private Idaho」的膠卷很多,裡面也有很多River的鏡頭,於是被暱稱「腐藍藍」的James Franco把那些膠卷拿回去,重新剪輯出一個12小時長的影片「Endless Idaho」,還有以River演出的角色獨立出原本電影的剪輯版,被他命名為My Own Private River

(其實我想說藍藍你真的很懂....身為River粉絲能夠剪輯出更多River的影像,還弄出一部電影,最重要的是從「我私人的愛德華州」(My Own Private Idaho),變成「我私人的瑞凡(River)」.....幹得好!!!)

想想他不止剪了「My Own Private River」(主要是River飾演的Mike視角),還剪了一部12小時長的「Endless Idaho」,由此可見他對本片的熱愛(囧),簡直比誰都深切。這部12小時長的電影有不少蓋導教導River跟Keanu即興演出的花絮,還有其他蓋導不用的視角都被藍藍剪輯進去了。Endless Idaho影片介紹可參照這裡

藍藍提到他為何要剪輯這兩部電影,動機是:「你想看到他在這裡,你想他繼續走下去,你想看他能做什麼,你想發現他依舊鮮活、依舊存在陪伴於身邊。」(you want him to just be there, you want him to keep going, you want to see what he can do, and you want to find all that is still alive and is still around that exists of him)。River太早離開堪稱是電影界一大損失,若是他能夠拍更多作品,絕對影迷是最大的贏家。而藍藍去挖出這些膠卷,就某種層面上來說,等於River多留個一部作品給後世瞻仰。於是通過這整齣片,大大的滿足了影迷缺憾的這部分。

My Own Private River中最喜歡的莫過於這一幕,感覺River是活生生的,Alive。


這支珍貴的電影從頭到尾都是生命力旺盛的River,身為迷妹看到全片真的好感動呀~!無論是猖狂的笑、對鏡子扮鬼臉,或是他灑脫的去超市買菜。從頭到尾的River飾演的Mike都是神采奕奕,沒有絲毫的委靡Q▽Q。還有好幾場床戲呢~!就某種程度上來說,本片完全是個爽片~!從頭到尾River看到飽的盛宴無誤。

當然裡頭最讓我感到圓滿的莫過於這一幕了:Mike親了Scott!!!

Mike:I just feel homesick, you know? I’m not the only one though, I know that.


如果說當初看My Own Private Idaho有什麼遺憾,莫過於Mike跟Scott告白,兩人沙漠共度一夜,之後Scott就重回上流社會徹底離開了他的人生,真是又寫實又悲傷。但如今看到這幕Mike親了Scott的畫面,突然愛的那部分完滿充盈了起來。若是Scott不喜歡Mike自然不會讓他這樣親這樣摸啦。(不過我認為這一幕非常的River跟Keanu本人,完全本色出演~柏拉圖一樣的真愛~笑。)

這畫面沒有什麼淫慾方面的象徵,但是讓人感受到那股全心全意神聖的信賴與愛的美好。看的我都要淚崩了!等了20年的糖真是太甜太好吃了。(大口啃) 你無法想像我看到這一幕發呆的盯著它一面工作一邊盯了一整晚(好孩子別學)。什麼叫做願望達成沒有任何遺憾啦,這就是了!(藍藍我給你跪下了....迷弟果然很懂)

藍藍拍攝本片意在向River致敬,不過因為考慮他的家人Joaquin等人的感受,因此沒打算發DVD。幸好有好心人上傳才得以一瞻真面目。下面是完整電影線上看


結論:身為迷弟/迷妹,就應該做到像是藍藍這樣!!把男神的膠卷拿出來/救出來,重現世人的眼前。共勉之~!(ps.但是也要顧慮Pheonix家族的感受)

pps.突然想到River最後的遺作Dark Blood/黑血(2012)也是因為導演George Sluizer覺得自己時日無多,於是打算把他很喜歡的River呈現出來給後世....當初導演就屬意River是演電影裡Boy的唯一人選,至今還是很喜歡他很惦記他。看看至今還有這麼多人懷念著他,就覺得他的魅力真的非同一般。他至今仍會讓我聯想到「Pure」這個詞,就是太Pure了才不適合好萊塢的鎂光燈。販賣海洛英跟古柯鹼的都給我抓去關啦!!

James Franco: I’m obsessed with “My Own Private Idaho”

http://www.salon.com/2013/04/09/james_franco_im_obsessed_with_my_own_private_idaho/

I recently created a film called “My Own Private River,” which was shown at the Gagosian in Los Angeles alongside paintings done by Gus Van Sant, the director of the original “My Own Private Idaho.”

It was a very unusual project. I’d loved “My Own Private Idaho” when I was growing up. Before I even started acting, I used to watch it repeatedly: there was something about the emotion of it, its aesthetic, and the makeshift family that the characters create which spoke to my teenage self. There is Bob Pigeon, played by William Richert, who can be traced back to Shakespeare’s Falstaff; Scott Favor, played by Keanu Reeves, who can be traced back to Prince Hal; and Mike Waters, played by River Phoenix, who can be traced back to the character of Poins. They find each other on the margins of society, and help each other through that time in their lives with an intricate combination of humor, aggression, and understanding.

When I had the chance to work with Gus Van Sant years later on “Milk,” we did premieres in New York, San Francisco and Los Angeles. Then Gus wanted to do a premiere in his hometown, Portland, and none of the other actors wanted to go. He knew I was obsessed with the film and he said “James, if you come to Portland I will give you a tour of all of the ‘My Own Private Idaho’ shooting locations” — as, curiously enough, none of the film was actually shot in Idaho. It was a dream come true, and so together we spent an entire day in Portland driving to the various sites, and along the way he told me stories about that filming experience. “You know,” he confided, “I kept all the old editor’s film reels from the movie.” It had been filmed in 1990-91, so they had cut it on actual film, which meant that Gus had hundreds of rolls of film in storage. “Are we gonna watch it?” I asked. “No,” he replied.

But several months later we spent two days watching as much of the twenty-five hours’ worth of material as we could. It was a project just to watch it — and it was incredible. Gus hadn’t watched it since he had made the movie, and his style of making movies had changed in the intervening two decades. He had made a huge change in his aesthetic mid-career, having been influenced by minimalistic films, and his later films were characterized by minimal dialogue, fewer cuts, and very long takes. So, when we were watching those Idaho rushes again after those two decades, the question became, “What if you had cut this movie now?” For instance, there is a scene early on where it is just Keanu Reeves and River Phoenix walking down the street, and we found ourselves wondering, “What if you just held on that shot, and you stay on River’s head, and then you continue with him for much longer? What would that give to our sense of his character?”

They were intriguing questions, and after we got the reels digitized and I had my own copy of the material, I asked Gus if I could play around with it myself. When I suddenly had that uncut film that had been such a huge part of my teenage years right in front of me, it was poignant and exhilarating: we mark our memories by the cultural artifacts that we were engaged with when we were younger. I’ve done similar work before, using somebody else’s material that was formerly a part of one project, and then used it for a completely different project—but this was special because I felt like the material was incredibly valuable because of the film’s place in cinema history, and in River’s life. For those reasons, I didn’t want to go in there in a disruptive way: I wanted to go in there in a respectful way. To me the archive had an inherent value, for every take was one I could just watch. It was difficult to cut any of it out, and in the end I did two films. From the original twenty-five hours, I cut one film that was twelve hours long and another that was 102 minutes. In the twelve-hour version, there are multiple takes of the same shot, which was a way for me to deliver the material in a way that made it feel like it was an archive and yet also a portrait of the film-making process. In the 102-minute cut I found a way to work so that it wasn’t me trying to impose myself on it, but rather playing Gus, as though he were making the movie now.

When Gus wrote this script it was a compilation of three previous scripts. One was a movie that was about street kids in Portland; one was a movie about two Hispanic kids looking for their parents who eventually go to Europe; and then one was mostly Shakespearean dialogue in a contemporary setting. This last was based on Orson Welles’s Chimes at Midnight, which was a compilation of all the Falstaff sections of the Henry IV plays.

The other thing that Gus did, and which I pushed to the extreme, is that he focused on the Poins character, in this case Mike Waters, played by River Phoenix. Ned Poins is one of Prince Hal’s sidekicks: he masterminds the double robbery of Falstaff in the comic Gad’s Hill scene, but other than that plot function his purpose in the play is to bring the detail of character into that seedy but exuberant underworld. Shakespeare created 1,222 characters, and none of them are incidental: all are fully individuated. It is very moving to think about a side character, one out of all of these Shakespearean characters, then being given the spotlight. This attention is made even more poignant by Phoenix’s incandescent performance. Whether he was revealing himself through the role or not is made moot by the fact that it is arguably his best performance and that he was dead two years later. The performance caught on film is now infinitely more valuable because it captured the best actor of his generation at the peak of his powers. By cutting together outtakes of the unused material of the film, I was able to give more emphasis to the essential beauty of Phoenix and his work. Phoenix in my remix film, “My Own Private River,” is singled out from all other actors and film performances for that matter—because it is presented in such an unflinching way—just as Van Sant singled out Poins in his original film.

Now the significance of “Idaho” has changed because River is gone, but you want him to just be there, you want him to keep going, you want to see what he can do, and you want to find all that is still alive and is still around that exists of him. Consequently, those moments that would immediately pull you out of a normal film, pull you into this film—at least they pulled me in—because River is walking around, he is alive again. What I mean is that you just want anything you can have of him. That sense of wanting time to stop goes back to the original, too: Henry IV is, among other things, a coming-of-age story. Prince Hal’s growing up is at once necessary and deeply poignant, and in many ways we want him to be able to remain a fun-loving, irresponsible kid with Falstaff forever. In a way, the length of the footage of the film I was able to cut, especially the longer version, serves to extend that moment indefinitely — since in an awful way River did grow up, and in another way he’s still in that happy hour before the end. Since I didn’t have all the economic burdens of the initial film, I was able to make a film with a much looser narrative. So whereas the original was driven by the need to tell a certain story, the film I made was driven just by River’s presence.
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