that movie

[Steven Koteff]

It occurred to me the Phoene might be slightly too old, though in reading
the book I found that whenever I was reminded of Doc's youth (29 is
right--it's mentioned at some point that he's going to turn 30 'any minute
now' though I don't have the book in front of me/can't cite the page) I had
to sort of revise/refresh my understanding of him to accommodate that fact.
Which need to revise, for me, is actually maybe essential to how to
understand him: kind of world-weary, older in spirit than body, maybe in a
way that relates to what I feel is an innate goodness, if I can reduce in
that way. Doc has seen more human evil than probably someone his age has
any right to (maybe small in scale but high in frequency, at least in his
life that exists pre-page 1), and while he's picked up some skills of
deduction and some necessary skepticism along the way, he is still in some
way disappointed to find/unveil evil in the world--surprised not in the
sense that he is ignorant to it but that it violates some hope he had not
totally abandoned, at least in some deeply internal place. Kind of latent.
Like a seed in a seed bank or something.

Maybe the clearest example I can recall of this comes about 75% of the way
through the book. Again, don't have it in front of me, but it precipitates
what is really the first/only real fight he and Bigfoot have--the one they
both apologize to one another for. This is the only time Doc displays any
real vitriol toward Bigfoot (or anyone, for that matter) that I can recall,
despite being Bigfoot's bureaucratic and occasionally literal punching bag,
it seems. And it happens because he held, in some place in his heart, the
belief that Bigfoot was, in some place in his (Bigfoot's, now) heart, a
good dude. Which belief he is then temporarily forced to reconsider.

[Halting this train of thought for the time being]

I think Phoenix does a good job of conveying(/channeling?/evoking?) that
innate goodness and hope--which is necessary to the function of the story
as a whole, as it relates to the 60s coming to an end, etc etc. Also he's a
good actor and fun to watch on screen. And he has the unteachable and
unreproducible quality of leading man screen presence--I can realistically
buy him going undetected in the reality of the movie and yet when he is on
screen he commands the viewer's attention, if nobody else's. Which
combination is tough to reproduce.

Yes maybe old relative to Doc in the book but for the sake of my own
enjoyment I tried very much to approach the movie as a separate entity and
asked of it nothing other than just strangeness and fun--asking it to in
any way reproduce or approximate the real virtues of the book is unfair to
the movie and director and form in general, I think.

On Mon, Jan 12, 2015 at 12:27 PM, Dave Monroe <against.the.dave at gmail.com>
wrote:

> I didn't realize Joaquin  Phoenix was 40 'til I looked it up just now
> (I still remember him in To Die For [1995]).  Doc is, as I recall, 29
> in the book. But I didn't register JP as all that much older, so ...
>
> Also, I (almost) never (unlike virtually every review published on the
> subject) never found JP "mumbly" @ all, + I have ePete Townshend
> hearing, so ...
>
> ... then again, Robt. Downey, Jr., ca. nine years older, was initially
> cast (and admitted he was too old, so ...).  But JS?  You've got the
> world's biggest Rushmore (1998) fan (a movie, and, esp., a soundtrack,
> that might as well been made for me), but DEFINITELY NOT JS ....
>
> Do see, however, by the director of IMPOLEX (2009),
>
> http://www.imdb.com/title/tt3093546/
>
> http://www.filmcomment.com/article/review-listen-up-philip-alex-ross-perry
>
> On Mon, Jan 12, 2015 at 6:48 AM, Mark Wright <washoepete at gmail.com> wrote:
> > Although Josh Brolin and Katherine Waterston were wonderful, I've
> concluded
> > that J Phoenix was miscast. Too old, playing the part too old, and
> > fundamentally just not enough gum in the ol' shoe. The job description
> > "gumshoe" refers to crepe soles, which are good for sneaky-pete-ing but
> not
> > much better than leather at the beach. Anyway. As Coy Harlingen Owen
> Wilson
> > worked beautifully. But for Sportello Anderson should have used the
> younger
> > -- and congenitally more bewildered-seeming -- Jason Schwartzman. But
> then,
> > wait, no... Then? Paul Thomas Anderson would have been Wes
> > Anderson?...(thoughtful, he takes another drag)
> -
> Pynchon-l / http://www.waste.org/mail/?list=pynchon-l
>
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