"You're
going to act again and you'll be better known than me", River Phoenix told
his brother Joaquin shortly before he died.
"He
did not ask me, he told me. And I am indebted to him because acting has given
me an incredible life", said an excited Joaquin Phoenix, 44, last
September 10, accepting an International Film Festival award from Toronto
(Canada) for his starring role in "Joker".
The
actor said his older brother helped him rediscover his love for cinema and
overcome his first frustrations as an actor child "by making him see"
the Martin Scorsese film Raging Bull ("Wild Bull"), and encouraging
him not to give up.
With the
success of "Joker" - for many, the best role of Joaquin Phoenix in
his entire career - River's prediction seems to have been fulfilled, although
we will never know what would have happened if the brother's life had not ended
abruptly when he was only 23 years.
River
Phoenix died on the sidewalk of The Viper Room, a nightclub in West Hollywood
(Los Angeles, USA) then owned by Johnny Depp, in the arms of Joaquin and Rain,
another of his sisters, who tried to revive him With mouth-to-mouth breathing
His
girlfriend, actress Samantha Mathis, was also present, as well as several
musicians (the actor played in a band).
"I
know he was placed, but the heroine that killed him did not appear until we
entered The Viper Room. I have my suspicions about what happened, but I did not
see anything", Mathis told the British newspaper The Guardian last year, the
first Once he spoke publicly on the subject.
The
young actor collapsed due to an overdose of heroin and cocaine. Several books mention
his flirting with drugs.
But
before that fateful October 31, 1993, already stood out as one of the great
promises of the cinema of his generation.
A
successful career
Let's
start with the successes.
River
had his first television role in the 1982 series Seven Brides for Seven
Brothers ("Seven Brides for Seven Brothers") to prove his talent. And
he was only 12 years old.
Joaquin,
then 8 years old, acted on that occasion with his brother.
Then the
jump of River to the world of cinema would arrive with the co-starring of several
films and very good reviews.
Perhaps
one of his most recognized roles was that of Stand by Me ("Count on
me"), a dramatic comedy that premiered in 1986 based on the novel
"The Body" by Stephen King and that some say inspired the Netflix
series Stranger Things.
In 1986
he appeared in The Mosquito Coast ("The Mosquito Coast") with another the leading role, although one of his most acclaimed works came shortly after in
Running on Empty, 1988, which earned him nominations for Oscar and the
Golden Globe.
He was
also awarded for his role as Mike Waters, a young homosexual with narcolepsy,
in My Own Private Idaho ("Idaho: The Way of My Dreams"), 1991,
alongside Keanu Reeves.
As for
his last film, Dark Blood ("Dark Blood"), of 1993, he was posthumous
to the actor.
In fact,
there were problems to launch it and it was not released until almost two
decades later, in 2012.
Its
director, the Dutchman George Sluizer, said he saw River about four hours
before he died. "I was staying in the same hotel, in the next room. I was
driving back to the hotel and at that time he was going out with his friends.
He told me 'see you tomorrow' and that was it", Sluizer told the BBC when
the tape was released.
The film
tells the story of a loner who lives in the desert of the United States waiting
for the end of the world and whose existence is disrupted when he tries to
rescue a couple who suffers a car accident.
Two
weeks of filming had been scheduled in Los Angeles, but only one day had passed
when the main actor collapsed outside that nightclub, so many scenes were left
unrecorded.
Sluizer
said of Phoenix that he was "a slightly fragile person" because of
his troubled adolescence and drug use.
"But
in my opinion it was not self-destructive." "I think that that night
was an accident, a mixture of things [heroin and cocaine] that should not be
combined".
SOURCE: BBC
