Today was the sold-out premiere of My Own Private River, James Franco’s edition of Gus Van Sant’s 1991 My Own Private Idaho. Confused? Let me break it down. Van Sant’s film came out when Franco was a ripe young teenager filled with angst and desire to belong (“I was always looking for people who could understand me,” in Franco’s words), instantly making it one of his favorite films. Years later, after becoming all fancy pants famous and being chosen to be in Van Sant’s Milk, Franco confessed his love for Idaho and asked Van Sant if he could make a more artsy film from the movie’s discarded outtakes, focusing heavily on the film’s star, the late River Phoenix. With Van Sant’s nod of approval, Franco crafted My Own Private River.
Let me set the scene: The Hollywood Theater is packed with a combination of giddy gals prepared to sweep Franco off his feet and tweed-adorned film admirers (read: snooty old men) chatting about their mutual pal “Gus”. Franco and Van Sant sleepily amble on stage. Franco has some unidentified white stain on his jeans and has a hard time getting his ideas into words. “It’s just, like, me trying to play Gus,” he said of his work. “Yeah.” Regardless, any slight smirk or dazed joke led to the audience’s murmur of approval. At the end of the day, James Franco is a babe.
Van Sant — better worded than Franco — called Franco’s idea “kind of scary” at first, but ultimately was impressed by the project. “This is really James’ show,” he said. “It’s impressive what he’s done with the original, I had no idea what it would turn out to be.”
Alright. So I’m no film critic/connoisseur, but I’ll lay it out for you as best I can. For an artsy unconventional movie My Own Private River kept me involved and interested for the hour and a half long duration. Franco harked back to Van Sant’s earlier work with his long uncut shots — like 2003’s Elephant — that somehow kept my eyes glued to the screen, despite my subconscious shouting “cut already!”. It made the film both peaceful and introspective in a way, giving the viewer a lot of time to soak in each scene. The film loosely follows the timeline of the original movie, jumping from Portland to Idaho to Italy, but zooming in on the atmospheric and emotional aspects the rather than the plot. Kind of like the soul of the original film. Deep, right? A lot of beautiful landscape shots and face close-ups. Franco wove humor in between despair and scumminess — oh, to be young and hustlin’ — adding necessary balance to the film. Who knew taking the outtakes and scene rejects from an already well done piece of work could create such a captivating feature-length follow. Made me consider the rejected gold from other classic movies.
Here’s a snippet of the film:
I have some old 8mm home movies that Franco can have. Well, I’ll need them back, my mom may ask about them.
Remember than time he took off his coat?
I hope they release Michael Stipe’s music in this film. I especially loved the track played as Mike and Scott are riding the bike at dusk/sunrise to Idaho. Can anyone name that song? I know Stipe re-worked tracks from REM’s latest album.
I thought Franco’s edit brought about a much more internal/exposed relatability to Mike. So happy I went to the screening. So what if Franco is a hottie too…
No one asked if either the River version or the new film will ever be released, possibly in an anniversary edition with directors commentary ,etc.. Also, why didn’t they wait until after the screening to have the Q&A? It has been awhile since I’ve seen the original version, but I thought the new version was great. Who doesn’t want to see more footage of River Phoenix in Portland? Note to James: Work on your audio mastering. Note to theater: remove the mic stands before the show starts and you don’t need to crank the audio so much that a glass a table being knocked into sounds like a car crash.
@Renniz: I agree, I had far more questions after seeing it than I would have before. I hope it does get some sort of official release, though.
Oh God, I’ll probably get labeled for this one…Not long after I returned to Portland last month, I had watched “The Thing Called Love”. I decided to comment on Gus Van Sant’s MySpace page asking why no one had filmed a documentary about River Phoenix. I even suggested Michael Stipe do the soundtrack since they were good friends. I had no idea James Franco was putting together this film since I was in IL most of this year. I would’ve remembered something like that. When I read last week’s PM, they announced the premiere. Premonition? I was unable to attend, but I’m glad this film was made!