In 1991, Gus Van Sant’s My Own Private Idaho and its central performance by River Phoenix had an enormous cultural impact, not least on a budding young actor named James Franco. Now Franco, following his celebrated performance in Van Sant’s Milk, returns the favour. As part of his ongoing visual-art practice, he has collaborated with Van Sant to create Memories of Idaho, a meditation on the seminal film in multiple parts. At the work’s core are two new films, projected sequentially, in a darkened, generic space meant to recall an AA meeting.

The first film, My Own Private River, is a feature-length chronological reassemblage of excised scenes and alternate takes from the original shoot, radically foregrounding Phoenix. The second film, Idaho, comes from one of three scripts Van Sant used to create the original film, its Super-8 texture meant to be a “ghost” of his original conception. Van Sant contributes ghosts of his own, large-format photographs of actual Portland street hustlers who appeared in, and provided inspiration and source material for, the film.

James Franco’s artistic endeavors are as varied as the roles he has taken on in films. He earned a Golden Globe Award for his role as James Dean in the biopic James Dean and an Academy Award nomination for best actor for his role in Danny Boyle’s film 127 Hours. Also a director, Franco has screened films at Sundance, Cannes and Berlin, where his short The Feast of Stephen won the Teddy Award. His art has been shown internationally in cities such as New York, Los Angeles and Berlin, and he recently scored the Venice Film Festival 2011 with his direction performance for the movie “Sal” on Sal Mineo’s life, and the Biennale d’Arte at Isola della Certosa Venice too) with a multiple video-installation named “Rebel” on Nicholas Ray’s art, from “Rebel Without a Cause” to that specific ideas about masculinity and rebellion.

Gus Van Sant was born in Louisville, Kentucky. His films include: Mala Noche (85); Drugstore Cowboy (89); My Own Private Idaho (91); Even Cowgirls Get the Blues (94); To Die For (95); Good Will Hunting (97); Psycho (98); Finding Forrester (00); Gerry (02); Elephant (03), which won the Palme d’Or at the Cannes Film Festival; Last Days (05); To Each His Own Cinema (segment, 07); Paranoid Park (07), which had its North American premiere at the Festival; Milk (08), winner of Academy Awards® for best actor and best original screenplay; and Restless (11).

by Ilaria Rebecchi

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