‘Pink’: why Gus Van Sant wrote a flipbook about River Phoenix in 1997
There’s an argument to be made that River Phoenix is the single greatest “what if” in Hollywood history.
Before he died at the tragically young age of 23, Phoenix was one of the most exciting young actors of his generation. One who was quickly dropping the “young” part of that as he moved from young adulthood into adulthood. He had everything. The looks, the charisma, the chops, the family ties. If he had the time to continue on the trajectory that he seemed to be on, a figure as legendary as Joaquin Phoenix might have just been “River’s brother”.
There are rumours abound regarding the kind of projects that Phoenix was working on at the time of his death. That James Cameron was pursuing him for the lead role in a movie he was making about the sinking of the Titanic. That a series of Young Indiana Jones movies was about to be greenlit off the back of his appearing as a young version of the titular archaeologist in the prologue of Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade – we know for a fact that he was cast as Daniel Molloy, the interviewer in Interview with the Vampire, and was due to start work on the picture two weeks before his death.
However, the man who had seemingly the most invested in River Phoenix was Gus Van Sant, which makes sense as Phoenix’s most celebrated role was (and always will be) his turn as narcoleptic street hustler Mikey Waters in Van Sant’s 1991 masterpiece My Own Private Idaho.
The director seemingly viewed Phoenix as something of a muse, having the young actor in mind for the next ten years of films. Some of which came to pass without him, like Van Sant’s vision of him playing Cleve Jones in a film about the life of Harvey Milk.
Some of which did not, like a film about the life of Andy Warhol with Phoenix taking the role of the titular artist. Suffice to say that Van Sant was deeply affected by the loss of the young actor and processed his loss in a number of different ways. Mostly through film (of course), through some pieces of visual art, but most directly through the publication of a novel called Pink. It’s not hard to see what part of Van Sant’s lived experiences informed this work.
This is a novel about a struggling infomercial director called Spunky Davis (yes), who loses his boyfriend before forming a bond with the burnout, drug addicted actor who stars in his infomercials, Felix Arroyo, who also happens to look exactly like his departed boyfriend. Arroyo is Spanish for brook, a small form of a river. From then on, everything goes pretty mental. There are interdimensional parallel universes, a rock star couple that are Kurt Cobain and Courtney Love in all but name, and a Werner Herzog expy called Todd Truelove.
It might not entirely make sense, but it is bursting with ideas to the extent that it becomes a queer version of House of Leaves. Stories within stories told as a prose novel, a script for a sci-fi movie, an illustrated comic. Not only that, but in the bottom right-hand corner of the book, there’s a set of illustrations that become a flipbook when flicked through as fast as possible – clearly, this is the work of someone who needed to express himself fully at a time of great grief.
Hopefully, we can all get the opportunity to work through our woes by making art.