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Casey Affleck admits "I'm Still Here" is a hoax
By Lindsay CutlerSeptember 17th, 2010, 9:15 amComments (5)
Somehow, despite overwhelming evidence that Phoenix's behavior was a stunt, we wanted to believe. But in an article published in the New York Times yesterday, director Casey Affleck admits that I'm Still Here is "performance art." Like, all of it. Even the Super-8 home-video footage of Affleck's siblings as kids "was actually shot in Hawaii with actors, then run back and forth on top of an old videocassette recording of Paris, Texas to degrade the images."
Casey explains, "I never intended to trick anybody... The idea of a quote, hoax, unquote, never entered my mind."
This means that the Letterman appearance was a hoax, the marketing was a hoax, that every one of Phoenix's weird, drawling public appearances for over a year were were calculated efforts to drum up attention in the project, or as Casey Affleck would call it, art. Well, they tricked everyone — even Roger Ebert, which is no easy feat. Pretty impressive for the guys who made the Blair Witch of bored rich people in Hollywood.
Commentarium (5 Comments)
It begs the question, what was the point? I mean, why at this moment, when the film finally makes it to theaters, does he blink? Kinda takes away any desire to see the movie.
There was never any desire to see the movie. I don't think anyone ever wanted to. This might INCREASE people's desire. I thought the whole thing was a fake-out from the beginning, and STILL don't care.
Don't you love it when Hollywood types make it seem like they're in it for the art but then they're in it for the money?
I agree Hardy, why blink now? That was the beauty of Andy Kaufman's wrestler shtick; he never blinked. If you are going to do something of this scale at least stick it out until the end. Kaufman took it to his grave.
I don't think they were in it for just the money; it's clearly for the sake of performance art, but I wish they had kept it up until the movie came out. Honestly, I wish more people would do stuff like this...spices up the entertainment world, but with a purpose of observing human behavior.