FOR A LIMITED TIME ONLY
FOR RIVER'S BELOVED FANS, IN HONOR OF THE 25TH ANNIVERSARY OF HIS DEATH, WILLIAM RICHERT OFFERS A FREE VIEWING OF THE ORIGINAL AND TRUE MOVIE HE MADE WITH RIVER.
"JIMMY REARDON DIRECTOR'S CUT "IS NOT THE SAME FILM AS THE FOX VERSION, WHICH MR. RICHERT THINKS HAS THE SAME KIND OF TRUTH AS FOX NEWS IN COMPARISON TO THE ORIGINAL FILM.
RIVER'S ORIGINAL HAS A SCORE BY ACADEMY AWARD WINNING ELMER BERNSTEIN AND NARRATION BY WILLIAM RICHERT, WHO WAS CAST BY RIVER IN GUS VAN SANT'S MY OWN PRIVATE IDAHO.
THE DIRECTOR'S CUT ALSO ENDS WITH THE SONG RIVER WROTE FOR THE MOVIE BASED ON A LINE IN THE FILM, "THERE SEEMS TO BE A DIFFERENCE BETWEEN US NOW..."
(MESSAGE FROM THE NOVELIST AND FILMMAKER :
Please compare the opening and ending songs of the two "versions" of my film [however, there can really be only one true version] -- to realize for yourself how a studio like Fox can make a 'fake' mock-up of an independent movie, switching the work from a cautionary tale about a teenager to a sex exploitation film -- almost identical to the original but with a totally different motive and intention: to sell the picture to an inexperienced teen audience who -- ironically -- couldn't even buy tickets as the film was rated R.
First impressions, especially in the opening shot of any movie, create the mood and focus for the whole film; FOX starts out with "You got to shop around/because you're a young man now"
-- but WILLIAM RICHERT'S DIRECTOR'S CUT starts with "I'm not afraid to say goodbye...to one night stands that disappear at dawn/Too many pleasures come and go/ in this old ever-changing world/How many last..."?
ALSO CHECK OUT FOX'S CYNICALLY LYING ENDING: "I used to smoke/ I used to drink/I used to smoke/drink/dance the hoothie coo/...I used to cuss and cuss and boogie all night long...I used to lie/I used to cheat...I used to LIE I used to CHEAT and STEP ON/PEOPLE'S
FEET ...but now I'm SAVED etc."
Contrast that FOX song with the song that River himself wrote for the movie when he was just sixteen, acting a character who was a whole year older:
EXCERPTS FROM RIVER'S SONG FOR JIMMY REARDON DIRECTOR'S CUT:
"But you’re so far from me/I hardly see you any more/ Then you ask me for/The words of truthI send you/If I send it all in fear/If the end is growing near/The End is something you can’t tell/Until it falls upon you/I couldn’t be your loverI couldn’t catch your fallDidn’t write you notes
I do insist you’re what I Miss/I should have calledI’m holding on to our
Last Kiss
The difference is kind of breathtaking. Almost as if River were predicting his future. I was hoping for years some college film class would look at the contrasting films as a way of revealing the importance of a film score. As a glaring example from a totally different kind of movie: what would STAR WARS have been like with a score of Fox hits from the Sixties?
River loved our original film, unlike what his 'family' said, who did all they could to keep the movie from being show at all, they way Joaquin also tried to block any showings of River's last film DARK BLOOD.
River worked on the editing, too. The young actor, in his first leading role, worked with Suzanne Fenn in the editing room whenever he wasn't shooting. It was his 'family' who hated our movie -- his mother told the young actor he looked 'ridiculous' -- embarrassing River and shaming him --and thus for years nobody has seen this true version. Even so, River's truth in a great performance still exists in this film, about a young man who finds himself in his father when he least expects it, a powerful way to grow even if unusual -- and the truth about our film was distorted in the same way the truth about River's death was distorted by his mother Arlyn and his brother Joaquin (a Joker for real) and his ex actress-girlfriend Samantha, all of whom have exploited River and his death with blatant lies that will not be forgiven nor forgotten.
You may judge for yourself whether this Director's Cut was "unreleasable" and "not worth showing."
JIMMY REARDON was a fearless rebellious 17 year old , a poor kid in a wealthy town, who only wanted to go to college with his girlfriend, a kid who exaggerated poetically but who never hurt or cheated anybody. He did like girls, though. In the course of a single night but he saw in the end how many of his friends were fake, and who was true -- he loved his friends like Suzie Middleburg -- I was furious that the pivotal scene we shot in downtown Chicago, with a great jazz saxophonist playing with the London Philharmonic under the direction of Elmer Bernstein, a scene in my novel which New York critics compared to James Joyce's NIGHT-TOWN; critics who hailed the novel -- the raw 6 minute scene was omitted in the Fox 'cut' where River looks for his lost fortune only to discover that he really loves Suzie more than the money he worked so hard to get; so he gives it all up when he thinks she is frightened -- this key scene of character revelation of the kind so crucial to any work of art -- was removed by Fox, so they could make Jimmy Reardon into "A Night in the Life of Jimmy Reardon" -- some kind of Fox phony lightweight throwaway with Fox selling points and "hit" songs, at the expense of my book and screenplay and direction and River's powerful acting and the great Elmer Bernstein score featuring jazz greats from Chicago -- not counting the amazing cast like Ann Magnuson and Matthew Perry and Meredith Salenger and even introducing Johnny Galecki etc. -- all of whom worked on the film for so long and who were deprived of ever seeing their work as it was meant to be, until now.
If River were alive I have no doubt he would tell his family and all those who lied about how he died at the Viper Room "I have come back from a pit of pimps and whores/and naught there is to say my friends/save fuck you all, you all" -- so I will do it for him.
Our movie, like my original novel, was made for those certain adults who might look back on youth for what it really was. River was not given a long life; he was killed by a jealous guitar player and betrayed by his brother, who was worried about being arrested for his own drugged drunkenness; maybe River forsook this life for immortality, and to reveal his hitherto hidden messages for the sake of all mankind. -- William Richert)
FOR RIVER'S BELOVED FANS, IN HONOR OF THE 25TH ANNIVERSARY OF HIS DEATH, WILLIAM RICHERT OFFERS A FREE VIEWING OF THE ORIGINAL AND TRUE MOVIE HE MADE WITH RIVER.
"JIMMY REARDON DIRECTOR'S CUT "IS NOT THE SAME FILM AS THE FOX VERSION, WHICH MR. RICHERT THINKS HAS THE SAME KIND OF TRUTH AS FOX NEWS IN COMPARISON TO THE ORIGINAL FILM.
RIVER'S ORIGINAL HAS A SCORE BY ACADEMY AWARD WINNING ELMER BERNSTEIN AND NARRATION BY WILLIAM RICHERT, WHO WAS CAST BY RIVER IN GUS VAN SANT'S MY OWN PRIVATE IDAHO.
THE DIRECTOR'S CUT ALSO ENDS WITH THE SONG RIVER WROTE FOR THE MOVIE BASED ON A LINE IN THE FILM, "THERE SEEMS TO BE A DIFFERENCE BETWEEN US NOW..."
(MESSAGE FROM THE NOVELIST AND FILMMAKER :
Please compare the opening and ending songs of the two "versions" of my film [however, there can really be only one true version] -- to realize for yourself how a studio like Fox can make a 'fake' mock-up of an independent movie, switching the work from a cautionary tale about a teenager to a sex exploitation film -- almost identical to the original but with a totally different motive and intention: to sell the picture to an inexperienced teen audience who -- ironically -- couldn't even buy tickets as the film was rated R.
First impressions, especially in the opening shot of any movie, create the mood and focus for the whole film; FOX starts out with "You got to shop around/because you're a young man now"
-- but WILLIAM RICHERT'S DIRECTOR'S CUT starts with "I'm not afraid to say goodbye...to one night stands that disappear at dawn/Too many pleasures come and go/ in this old ever-changing world/How many last..."?
ALSO CHECK OUT FOX'S CYNICALLY LYING ENDING: "I used to smoke/ I used to drink/I used to smoke/drink/dance the hoothie coo/...I used to cuss and cuss and boogie all night long...I used to lie/I used to cheat...I used to LIE I used to CHEAT and STEP ON/PEOPLE'S
FEET ...but now I'm SAVED etc."
Contrast that FOX song with the song that River himself wrote for the movie when he was just sixteen, acting a character who was a whole year older:
EXCERPTS FROM RIVER'S SONG FOR JIMMY REARDON DIRECTOR'S CUT:
"But you’re so far from me/I hardly see you any more/ Then you ask me for/The words of truthI send you/If I send it all in fear/If the end is growing near/The End is something you can’t tell/Until it falls upon you/I couldn’t be your loverI couldn’t catch your fallDidn’t write you notes
I do insist you’re what I Miss/I should have calledI’m holding on to our
Last Kiss
The difference is kind of breathtaking. Almost as if River were predicting his future. I was hoping for years some college film class would look at the contrasting films as a way of revealing the importance of a film score. As a glaring example from a totally different kind of movie: what would STAR WARS have been like with a score of Fox hits from the Sixties?
River loved our original film, unlike what his 'family' said, who did all they could to keep the movie from being show at all, they way Joaquin also tried to block any showings of River's last film DARK BLOOD.
River worked on the editing, too. The young actor, in his first leading role, worked with Suzanne Fenn in the editing room whenever he wasn't shooting. It was his 'family' who hated our movie -- his mother told the young actor he looked 'ridiculous' -- embarrassing River and shaming him --and thus for years nobody has seen this true version. Even so, River's truth in a great performance still exists in this film, about a young man who finds himself in his father when he least expects it, a powerful way to grow even if unusual -- and the truth about our film was distorted in the same way the truth about River's death was distorted by his mother Arlyn and his brother Joaquin (a Joker for real) and his ex actress-girlfriend Samantha, all of whom have exploited River and his death with blatant lies that will not be forgiven nor forgotten.
You may judge for yourself whether this Director's Cut was "unreleasable" and "not worth showing."
JIMMY REARDON was a fearless rebellious 17 year old , a poor kid in a wealthy town, who only wanted to go to college with his girlfriend, a kid who exaggerated poetically but who never hurt or cheated anybody. He did like girls, though. In the course of a single night but he saw in the end how many of his friends were fake, and who was true -- he loved his friends like Suzie Middleburg -- I was furious that the pivotal scene we shot in downtown Chicago, with a great jazz saxophonist playing with the London Philharmonic under the direction of Elmer Bernstein, a scene in my novel which New York critics compared to James Joyce's NIGHT-TOWN; critics who hailed the novel -- the raw 6 minute scene was omitted in the Fox 'cut' where River looks for his lost fortune only to discover that he really loves Suzie more than the money he worked so hard to get; so he gives it all up when he thinks she is frightened -- this key scene of character revelation of the kind so crucial to any work of art -- was removed by Fox, so they could make Jimmy Reardon into "A Night in the Life of Jimmy Reardon" -- some kind of Fox phony lightweight throwaway with Fox selling points and "hit" songs, at the expense of my book and screenplay and direction and River's powerful acting and the great Elmer Bernstein score featuring jazz greats from Chicago -- not counting the amazing cast like Ann Magnuson and Matthew Perry and Meredith Salenger and even introducing Johnny Galecki etc. -- all of whom worked on the film for so long and who were deprived of ever seeing their work as it was meant to be, until now.
If River were alive I have no doubt he would tell his family and all those who lied about how he died at the Viper Room "I have come back from a pit of pimps and whores/and naught there is to say my friends/save fuck you all, you all" -- so I will do it for him.
Our movie, like my original novel, was made for those certain adults who might look back on youth for what it really was. River was not given a long life; he was killed by a jealous guitar player and betrayed by his brother, who was worried about being arrested for his own drugged drunkenness; maybe River forsook this life for immortality, and to reveal his hitherto hidden messages for the sake of all mankind. -- William Richert)
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River Phoenix, Flea, William Richert, Keanu Reeves
FOREIGN ROYALTY NEWS: SAG GIVES ITS MEMBERS THE FINGER, TAKES MILLIONS OF FOREIGN ROYALTIES FROM ACTORS STARTING BACK IN 2002, THEN ALLOWS JUDGE WEST TO SEAL THE RECORDS, WHILE NEVILLE JOHNSON REFUSES TO 'UNSEAL' SAG ROYALTY COLLECTIONS FOR ACTORS PRIOR TO 2010…THAT'S WHEN THE MONEY WAS MADE
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New Hollywood Maverick: Wild Bill Richert
January 21-22
FILM SOCIETY OF LINCOLN CENTER
WELCOMES WILLIAM RICHERT
"A bold, brash uncompromising figure in the tradition of Orson Welles and John Cassavetes, William Richert burst on to the Hollywood scene near the end of the storied 1970s, first as a screenwriter and then as director of the dazzling conspiracy opus Winter Kills. A critical triumph abandoned by its studio, the movie set the tone for Richert’s career to come—a quartet of highly original, idiosyncratic American features that have maintained an almost clandestine existence, subject to poor distribution and myriad unauthorized versions. "
