"Biography" Eclipsed by Death: The Life of River Phoenix (2002)

User Rating:

6.0/10   

Director:

John Griffin

Writer:

John Griffin (writer)

TV Series:

"Biography" (1987)

Original Air Date:

12 March 2002

Genre:

Documentary | Biography | History

Plot:

Plot Keywords:

Actor's Life | Character Name In Title | Anthology | Reenactment

Cast

River Phoenix	...	Himself
Wil Wheaton	...	Narrator (voice)

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Company:

Peter Jones Productions

Trivia:

The only A&E Biography to have a "reversed title". Most titles have the subjects name first such as "Judy Garland: Beyond the Rainbow". Here, the syntax of "Eclipsed by Death: The Life of River Phoenix" is, itself, a comment on the subject.

Pretty good!

I liked it, it had a kind of atmosphere to it. Haunting. The part that got me was the footage of River during an interview with MOPI talking about how he believes a photo can take your soul and how it scared the s**t out of him. I wonder if this suddenly flashed through his mind as they lay there dying with the photographer standing over him. The docu is a really well paced piece, it is well informed and touching. I found Richert's comments a little bizarre (when he said RP's family need to speak out, that River can't be abandoned now as he was abandoned on the street - I'm assuming he means the place where RP died) but I suppose he is very protective about River's legacy. It does leave you with a sense of something unfinished but even more incandescent now that the man himself is gone from this world. When you finish watching, you suddenly realize that here was a true artist, not a performer that was taken from us. River Phoenix was someone that was finally taking roles that challenged him and maybe compromised him on an emotional level (Mike Waters, Talbot Roe, James Wright, the Boy). Here was an actor who had no form of training, who ripped into roles like an hungry animal and went with instinct. It worked for us, but maybe at the cost of River himself. I don't really think its beneficial for Phoenix being aligned constantly with James Dean, i think people shouldn't look at him in such clichéd terms - he's his own very special human being who like Dean deserves his iconic status and legions of devoted fans.

I think the docu's a tribute to a great great actor and a marvelous selfless person who deserves to go down in history as one of the film world's most naturally gifted young artists and not as one of its most notorious early deaths. See the documentary and pass your own judgments.