Shocking 'I'm Still Here' Revelation: It's All a Hoax

Director Casey Affleck let slip last week that at least parts of his documentary I'm Still Here were faked. I don't think anybody's really been fooled all along, and now that the movie has been released (to generally poor reviews), he's giving up the ghost altogether.

Affleck today admitted to the New York Times that the whole film is, in fact, staged. He gives a fairly decent reason: "he wanted audiences to experience the film’s narrative," reports the Times, "about the disintegration of celebrity, without the clutter of preconceived notions." Fair enough. Except that it was so transparently all staged that the ruse never really worked.

With Joaquin Phoenix set to return to David Letterman's couch—the setting where he debuted his rapper alternate-persona character to a national audience—Affleck has given in to admitting that the whole film was staged. Well, not quite: in another instance of a poor attempt at word play, Affleck says, "I never intended to trick anybody. The idea of a quote, hoax, unquote, never entered my mind."

Yeah, that's nice and all Casey, except that intending to trick people is exactly what this was. And it's a textbook example of "hoax".

No reason to get upset over it, though. The transformation of Joaquin Phoenix was so extreme, so over-the-top, that very few (if any) actually bought it. Had the character he portrays been more subtle, the trick would've been easier to pull off, but probably at the expense of the movie Affleck and Phoenix were endeavoring to make. So no harm, no foul. I just wish Casey would stop lying about it.

Comments

[J.Bradley]

Well if nothing else, it shows the "one-camera" movie is evloving and at least some people are taking chances and doing something other than horror movies. There'll be lesser efforts like this and better regarded ones like "Catfish" to be sure. I'd rather see more taking chances and failing at this point than formula rehashes like "The Last Exorcism".

[Emo]

I gotta say...I've been ignoring this whole thing mostly. I just now watched the clip where he's talking to Diddy and Diddy is griping at him...asking him how much much he has...etc. And when Diddy starts talking about how much it costs to make an album...and one of the items he throws in to make his point is "speakers"....I actually laughed. I'm beginning to wonder if now, the the "cat officially out of the bag" on the hoax thing... I might actually think it's funny. Who knows...