在鎂光燈追逐之下，
在電影螢幕上成長，
被攝影鏡頭所喜愛，
一個有天份，
若不幸又有高度自覺的，
年輕演員的，
掙扎與壓力.......
As part of my pressbook interviews, I asked everyone about River. ”River Phoenix was born to it, born to movies,” said Mosquito director Peter Weir. Harrison Ford agreed. ”What he has is some manner of natural talent,” he said. ”There are a lot of people who have that, but River is also very serious about his work-very workmanlike and professional, far beyond what you’d expect from a fifteen-year-old boy. ...I don’t like to talk to other actors about acting. I think it’s a real mistake. But River asks a lot of questions that require answers--none of which I can really supply, but they’re interesting questions.”
River was uncomfortable with the idea that he had been born with some kind of innate gift. He felt he had to work hard at what he achieved. Likewise, he was obsessed with trying to find a way to live with integrity, and terrified that all the praise over his acting was going to affect his identity. He told me he had to get up every morning and fight to remain himself.
(ELLE FEB. 1994 REMEMBERING RIVER : BY REID ROSEFELT)
(二)演繹
在
filmcomment，1991.sep.-oct.中
有很棒的一段評論(關於River在Idaho中的表演)：
.....
River Phoenix.I’m ashamed to have gotten this far without explicit tribute to self-abandoning daring of his sublime performance. It’s not that he dares to play a hustler--lots of actors would be up for such a ”stretch”--but that he dives so deep into,specifically,Mike. He not only never signals any superiority to the kid’s sweet stupidity(I fear Reeves is often signaling just such a superiority to Scott),but he seems to swim in the dim silliness. And yet it is not DeNiro/LaMotta either, for Phoenix makes visible the grace that intermitently jolts this jerk. If James Dean did anything really new, above all in ”East of Eden”, he used a looseness of limb, a fidgety floppiness, to signal sensitivity.Sliding onto various horizontals, balling himself into armadillo crouches, shivering hunched on streetcorners, Phoenix takes Dean’s arithmetic into a dimension of calculus.
(三)揣摩
Hustler Mike, he says, was easy to play. ’Like breathing. All the best stuff is like that.’ (The few acting classes he had when he started in the business at nine were to cure him of audition-shyness. They didn’t work.) He even dreams in character. Last night he got a ’flavour’ of a role that Sam Shepard asked him to play in the soon-to-be-filmed Silent Tongue. ’It’s intense; this guy’s wife dies and he won’t let her go.’ Excitement ripples like static over Phoenix’s beautiful, still-boyish face.
摘自：《ELLE 》(UK) April 1992〈RIVER DEEP〉--BY ELISSA VAN POZNAK
(四)愛達荷短鏡頭
(1)
William Richert ：
We were shooting from, like, 6 in the morning till 11 at night because there was no money. I can’t imagine he could have been doing very much and playing that part; I just can’t understand how physically one could do that.
-- Premiere, March 1994
PS：William Richert為《A Night in the Life of Jimmy Reardon》的導演及idaho中的演員
(2)
Q：How did you prepare for the role of a hustler?
A：I did a lot of observing in areas where this would go on. I stood off in the distance, watching very closely.
Q：Did you talk to anybody?
A：Yeah, mostly with reformed street people -they had done it when they were like 14, and now they were my age.
Q：What kind of questions did you ask?
A：When I interview someone, I don’t want to talk about themselves. I find that doesn’t give me anything. To talk about someone’s ”self” makes their guard go up, so we just talked about things that we liked, that we had in common. There’s no need to get right up in someone’s face and say, ”What did you do on this day?”
--《US》1991.sep. INTERVIEW：River Phoenix
(3)
導演Gus Van Sant 談到River的創造力：
“River was totally different,”Van Sant continues.“He has this kind of Mozart quality of just burying himself completely in research.He does it trough a sort of osmosis；everything you give him feeds into this plant that’s growing out of the information he’s got.He tape-records things, and talks to people；he has his own sources.It’s more tactile ：River will create something out of mixed media─film,writing,records,people talking,this whole wild thing. With Keanu, you give him a book, he’ll read the book. River might read part of the book, and if he’s interested he’ll read the whole book. ....”
--ELLE / OCT.1991(4)
Michael Parker, inspiration for Phoenix’s character in Idaho:
We went to a park here in Portland that overlooks the entire city. We sat there on the grass talking. Then we went down to where the bars are, the corners where the kids hang out. We talked the entire day. I grabbed a piece of my gut and gave it to him. One of the reasons I opened up to him is that I felt he did understand and felt how I did--not the same way, but the pain.
--〈A brief life 〉Premiere/March 1994
(5)
Gus Van Sant:
River made the character gay. The character wasn’t really gay in the first place. Because he was a hustler, he didn’t really have a sexual identity. He added all the stuff where he was in love with Keanu Reeves’s character. He didn’t discuss it, he was just sort of doing it. He was using two really close friends of his as models to forge the character.
--〈A brief life〉Premiere/ March 1994
(6)
在充滿異國情色的音樂聲中
一個身穿牛仔服飾的男人走進書店裡
鏡頭推進
緩緩帶到陳列在書架上的男色書刊
雜誌封面上的男孩突然動了起來
彼此開始互相聊天
Idaho中的一段神來之筆。
典型的葛斯范桑式的冷調幽默
簡潔、突兀、突如其來的奇異趣味。
真是愛死葛斯范桑的新鮮創意。
(7)
Eric Alan Edwards, director of photography, My Own Private Idaho:
He looked like a street kid. In a very raw way he wore that role. I’ve never seen anybody so intent on living his role.
--A brief life /Premiere/ March 1994
(8)
scene writer.
River寫了關鍵的一幕戲─《營火前的告白》，贏得影評及觀眾的一致讚賞。
有一段評論寫得很好：
...Mike does profess his craving for Scott in one of the most beautiful nuanced depictions of naked desire ever captured on film.
The scene transpires around a campfire as Scott and Mike move from benign conversation to the charged terrain of what they mean to one another.
The give and take is hushed,poetic,almost unbearably raw, culminating in Mike’s murmured plea,“I really want to kiss you, man.”
Their ensuing hug,a fumbling lurch, is nothing short of hearbreaking.
--Elizabeth Pincus (http://www.planeout.com)
(9)Eric Alan Edwards ,director of photography, My Own Private Idaho :
I think he always looked up to Gus. It’s odd to have him looking up to Gus.[Laughs] I grew up with Gus. He was sort of humble in Gus’s presence, or at least he was looking to him for some approval.
--Premiere, March 1994
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相關閱讀：
http://epaper.ctfa2.org.tw/epaper80912we/2.htm
很重要的影評！
葛斯范桑的由「小」而「大」/聞天祥1998
(所以 他寫時 《Milk》根本還沒拍喔)
關於其中那段↓
“畢竟多一個《心靈捕手》的導演，似乎比少一個《男人的一半還是男人》的導演，要來得損失嚴重。因為在體制外，葛斯范桑是朵奇葩；進入體制，他頂多是個稱職的說書人。” /聞天祥1998
我是深有同感……
http://blog.sina.com.cn/s/blog_4a4c1434010008gl.html
電影頻道《世界电影之旅》：心靈的遠行─葛斯范桑猜想(雖然是簡體文)
但其中 談到很多關於River Phoenix(很多喔！ )
『但范"桑說過：瑞佛費尼克斯是無法替代的。』
最後一段：
我們的談話在對費尼克斯的懷念中有些傷感地戛然而止。也許費尼克斯是最能體現范"桑神韻的演員，失去這樣一位好友是范"桑特永遠的遺憾。
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