My Own Private Idaho - Criterion Collection

Starring:Chiara Caselli, Mickey Cottrell, Tom Cramer, Sally Curtice, Matthew Ebert, Wade Evans, Flea, Scott Patrick Green, Rodney Harvey, Udo Kier, Michael Parker, River Phoenix, Robert Lee Pitchlynn, Keanu Reeves, William Richert, James Russo, Jessie Thomas, Tom Troupe, Grace Zabriskie
Studio: Criterion
Product Type: DVD

Editorial Review:
Amazon.com
Mapping the spaces between fortune and degeneracy, Shakespeare and street cant, Europe and the Pacific Northwest, and gay and straight, My Own Private Idaho is the 1991 masterpiece by director Gus Van Sant. River Phoenix gave the most generous and memory-searing performance of his tragically shortened career as Mike Waters, a narcoleptic street hustler in search of his mother. His best friend, Scott, played by Keanu Reeves, is a son of privilege who fosters plans of rejoining the moneyed world of his father after gallivanting with assorted urchins and ne'er-do-wells. The beautifully symmetrical story that emerges between the two is one of friendship, yearning for lost time, and sexual identity conveyed with a poet's eye for landscape. The camera lingers on abandoned houses in golden fields and time-lapse clouds, providing what T.S. Eliot called "the objective correlative"--external representations of interior emotional states. We're treated to striking iconic sequences like a barn falling from the sky and still-life scenes of carnal entanglement. The supporting cast is a rogues' gallery that includes Flea of the Red Hot Chili Peppers, Udo Kier, director William Richert, and a variety of "nonactors" pulled literally off the street to provide documentary veracity to a film that gleefully careens into riffs on Henry IV. It's beautiful.

What's also beautiful is the Criterion Collection's treatment of the film's DVD debut. The director-approved transfer successfully conveys the warmth of the film's palette of oranges and browns, and preserves the whimsical atmospherics of the yodeling country music soundtrack. Many members of the original crew contribute their fond memories to the documentary features, which include a conversation between Phoenix's sister Rain and producer Laurie Parker. There are also two lengthy audio-only conversations--one between Van Sant and Velvet Goldmine director Todd Haynes, and another between author J.T. Leroy and filmmaker Jonathan Caouette about their experiences on the street. The deleted scenes mostly suggest alternate endings that Van Sant wisely left on the cutting room floor. A superb example of a beloved film on DVD. --Ryan Boudinot

Stills from My Own Private Idaho (click for larger image)

The Cast
River Phoenix
Keanu Reeves

Keanu and River
Udo Kier
Gus Van Sant

Amazon.com

Mapping the spaces between fortune and degeneracy, Shakespeare and street cant, Europe and the Pacific Northwest, and gay and straight, My Own Private Idaho is the 1991 masterpiece by director Gus Van Sant. River Phoenix gave the most generous and memory-searing performance of his tragically shortened career as Mike Waters, a narcoleptic street hustler in search of his mother. His best friend, Scott, played by Keanu Reeves, is a son of privilege who fosters plans of rejoining the moneyed world of his father after gallivanting with assorted urchins and ne'er-do-wells. The beautifully symmetrical story that emerges between the two is one of friendship, yearning for lost time, and sexual identity conveyed with a poet's eye for landscape. The camera lingers on abandoned houses in golden fields and time-lapse clouds, providing what T.S. Eliot called "the objective correlative"--external representations of interior emotional states. We're treated to striking iconic sequences like a barn falling from the sky and still-life scenes of carnal entanglement. The supporting cast is a rogues' gallery that includes Flea of the Red Hot Chili Peppers, Udo Kier, director William Richert, and a variety of "nonactors" pulled literally off the street to provide documentary veracity to a film that gleefully careens into riffs on Henry IV. It's beautiful.

What's also beautiful is the Criterion Collection's treatment of the film's DVD debut. The director-approved transfer successfully conveys the warmth of the film's palette of oranges and browns, and preserves the whimsical atmospherics of the yodeling country music soundtrack. Many members of the original crew contribute their fond memories to the documentary features, which include a conversation between Phoenix's sister Rain and producer Laurie Parker. There are also two lengthy audio-only conversations--one between Van Sant and Velvet Goldmine director Todd Haynes, and another between author J.T. Leroy and filmmaker Jonathan Caouette about their experiences on the street. The deleted scenes mostly suggest alternate endings that Van Sant wisely left on the cutting room floor. A superb example of a beloved film on DVD. --Ryan Boudinot

Stills from My Own Private Idaho (click for larger image)

The Cast
River Phoenix
Keanu Reeves

Keanu and River
Udo Kier
Gus Van Sant

Description

River Phoenix and Keanu Reeves star in director Gus Van Sant's haunting tale of two young street hustlers: Mike Waters, a sensitive narcoleptic who dreams of the mother who abandoned him, and Scott Favor, wayward son of the mayor of Portland and the object of Mike's desire. Navigating a volatile world of junkies, thieves, and johns, Mike takes Scott on a quest from the grungy streets to the open highways of the Pacific Northwest, in search of an elusive place called "home." Groundbreaking and visually dazzling, My Own Private Idaho is a stirring look at unrequited love and life at society's margins.

Customer Reviews:

"I just want to hold you.".......2007-06-15

This is one of the most beautifully poignant movies I have seen. For me, the movie is about longing for love, for connection with family, and a search for self love. It transcends gender and convention. The cinematography is beautiful, the script is smart, and Mike's (River Phoenix) portrayal of a young and narcoleptic street hustler is, well, riveting.

Thank you, Mr. Van Sant. Thank you for favoring people like me with a glimpse of the world through a poet's eyes, and a bard's voice.

A gripping sense of vulnerability.......2007-06-10

Early into this movie, you see a dilapidated house floating downward from the sky, ultimately crashing into pieces on a country road. Initially this image seems out of place, but you soon realize how perfectly fitting it really is.
This journey recklessly pulls you through the life of a young junkie named Mike (River Phoenix). He suffers from narcolepsy, and during these episodes you get a haunting glimpse into his childhood. I wondered if these awful moments are possibly repressed memories. They seem to have cast a dark shadow over his current position, and Phoenix portrays this predicament all too well.
Keanu Reeves plays his best friend Scott, whom Mike begins to feel a prevalent romantic attraction for. I got the impression that Mike wasn't really gay, he just was in dire need for some sort of physical love and affection from somebody. They both make money as prostitutes, often performing for men with strange fettishes. The strangest thing is that Scott is the son of the wealthy mayor, and this is his way of rebelling I guess.
Scott's character is based on Prince Hal, son of the king in Shakespeare's play Henry IV. I thought it was cool how Van Sant intertwined his own story with this classic literature.
I think this was one of River's last films, if not his last one. I wonder if he got too wrapped up with method acting for this role. His presence does seem to cry out with a sad desperation in nearly every scene here. Overall, the remarkable emotional depth generated from this movie will really stick with you long after it's over.

Van Sant's best film, a true masterpiece..........2007-03-05

This is my favorite Gus Van Sant film. It's an amazingly beautiful work. It annoys me that many critics and some reviewers identify this as a "gay" film, simply because the 2 main protagonists are male hustlers, and Van Sant is gay. This film is beautiful enough for all to get something out of it. The poetry and beautiful simplicity of this film makes it one of the greatest films of the 1990's. Some of the scenes are incredibly lyrical and quite touching. Most films in the 1990's had that smug, "ironic" thing going, but this is a grand exception. Generally, I don't like Van Sant's work. I think a lot of it is overrated, and some of it downright awful (Gerry being his worst film). But I deeply admire this film. It's a sad, painful, haunting, and beautiful film. Its subject matter can be off putting for some, but you need to forget about that. It will prevent you from enjoying a masterpiece....

Please Allow Me To Ramble For A Moment, Would You?.......2007-02-13

I know this review gets a little self-indulgent, but if you'll allow me to get autobiographical for just a second, you'll see why I do.

When River Phoenix breathed his last in front of Johnny Depp's Viper Room on Halloween morning in 1993, I think I was just the right age to feel a certain frisson in his passing that wouldn't have been there a year or two either way. My friend and I came home from a snowy night among trick or treaters to graphic news accounts of Phoenix's passing, and for reasons that made perfect sense to us then, we went out and got this movie on video. Ultimately we ended up buying it and watching it shall we say A LOT till about the end of the year, when new misfortunes came along, eventually in the next spring taking the form of Kurt Cobain's suicide, which trumped all previous newsworthy events in our young lives.

Well, recently I got My Own Private Idaho on DVD, motivated more about nostalgia for ninth-grade and a weirdly River Phoenix obsessed fall than out of remaining affection for the movie itself, but you know, after watching it from my perspective of today, this is a lot better film than for all my sentimentality I'd remembered it being. From its re-telling of Shakespeare with a modern boldness unseen by anything else until Claire Danes and Leonardo DiCaprio's Romeo+Juliet a few years later, to its in-your-face trip into the living hell of junky male prostitutes living homeless in circa 1990 Portland and Seattle, Gus Van Sant's quirky film seems even more an achievement now than it ever did back in the day. In viewing My Own Private Idaho, you get to hear tales of life on the streets as told by real-life hustlers, and you get to see a pre-A-list Keanu Reeves act in his own unique and inimitable style. But above all, to be honest, the ghost of River Phoenix still haunts this movie, and always will. To view it from an all-knowing hindsight and understand that according to so many THIS was the project that introduced the one-time clean living son of hippies to the quick thrill of hard drugs...that hasn't ceased to deliver a punch, even in a more jaded decade such as this one.

If you haven't seen My Own Private Idaho, see it; it's destined to be a classic one day. If it's been a while, see it again. It holds up well and it should tell you something about how much you've changed with time.

Thanks for reading!

Gus Van Sant's finest film.......2007-01-23

Wow I was blown away when I first saw this movie I thought River and Keanu were amazing and I loved the visuals Gus Van Sant did a great job and I highly recommend this film.

DVD:

DVD

DVD

DVD

Zatoichi the Blind Swordsman, Vol. 19 - Samaritan Zatoichi

Roughnecks: Starship Troopers Chronicles - The Pluto

Blacktop (REGION 1) (NTSC)

DVD: Street Fighter/Return of the S

La Belle Noiseuse

The Cast	River Phoenix	Keanu Reeves
Keanu and River	Udo Kier	Gus Van Sant