Moving this here from my other blog
I'm starting with the "and more (or less)" of my title
Was re-watching the Joker on Netflix sometime back which brought up a conversation on Joaquin Phoenix. I still remember the first I ever heard of him was as a kid. The article was not about him, but his brother River Phoenix. This was probably around the time he died from a drug overdose outside a night club at the age of 23. I remember reading about his death but what struck me the most was the fact that his 19 year old brother had to watch him die while he was desperately trying to call 911 to get assistance ( and his sister tried to resuscitate him- as I learnt later). The thought of that brother just stuck on. I couldn't imagine what he would have gone through and subsequently always viewed Joaquin through the filter of that incident, which perhaps he also did.
Back in the days information wasn't so easy to access. You would come across an article, see some show on TV and then obsess over how to learn more. Newspapers, TV, libraries these were some of the main source of information, or other people. I didn't know too many people who knew too much about River Phoenix, so I let the death settle down in some corner of my mind, without trying to learn more. Some facts I had picked up were that he was a musician and acted in films, none of which I had seen. So when this conversation came up, I did what I wasn't able to do all those million years ago - I googled him. I spent some good time looking at his interviews and some shots on him and it recast both him and Joaquin in a different light (though only slightly).
Theirs seemed to be a hippie family, a big one at that with River leading a merry band of children (as I heard someone say in one of the short clips I saw on him). Their parents were part of a cult called Children of God, which had some VERY questionable practices (also when it came to children). Luckily for them their parents realized the mess the cult was and got them out before it was too late. Subsequently they headed for life in show biz, performing at road sides to earn money. River did come across as the more charismatic sibling which probably helped him get cast in films (though painfully awkward and shy, which in some way seemed to add to the charisma). What I found most interesting though was an interview segment where he was asked about how his family is and he answered about how though they could all end up shouting at each other, they were always encouraged to speak up and discuss things. I think that's what is at the core of family ties - you can disagree, fight, shout at each other, but you all still have each others back, still love each other. Was watching another interview which had the whole family together more recently (minus River and their father) and you could see the bond between the three sisters, one brother and mother. I thought how River described his family summed up a "perfect" family for me. For all families have the skeletons in their cupboards, their fights, their idiosyncrasies but ultimately it's the ability to understand each other and discuss things that binds a family, however strange or dysfunctional it may appear to someone else. There is no formula for a perfect family.
As I was looking for stuff on River Phoenix I also started reading up about the other sensational death of that time - Kurt Cobain (which leads me to the Club 27 section of the post :D. Apologies for the constant explanations but I thought of the title first and then started writing this out so it's zipping back and forth on themes). He has gained such cult status that I never really made an effort to read up about the details of what happened to him. I remember the notice board of our college literary society had his suicide note occupying place of pride. I had read it several times, but it made no sense to me - a man who had a wife and a very young daughter, why would he do this to his family? One of my batchmates was a big fan and wore a t-shirt with his face and if I'm not mistaken the suicide note written all over it. Somehow I didn't enjoy the thought of someone's dying words being glorified so much. They just made me feel sad about the loss of a precious young life, a loss of immense potential and most keenly the impact on the young mother with a very young child.
So when I started reading up about Mr. Cobain, I was quite taken aback when I read about the conspiracy theories behind his death. I was stunned that his wife was suspected of having gotten him murdered. The circumstances leading up to his death were also murky - he was missing for days after having run away from a rehab facility before his dead body was found with a bullet shot and a suicide note in his own house, possibly 2 or 3 days after it happened. The person who accused his wife was the private detective she had hired to locate him and it was strange that they never thought to look for him in his own house. There was a big investigation and finally his death was ruled a suicide and Courtney Love given a clean chit, However the conspiracy theories persist.
I couldn't help draw parallels with a more recent suicide which got our country's media houses crossing all limits of decency. Not unsurprisingly there too the girl friend was suspected of foul play, of having driven him to a mental break down, drugging him and what not. I wonder why a grown up man cannot be held accountable for his own behavior ?
However getting back to Cobain, it was immensely tragic. No one will ever know what he went through in those last few days of his life ( beyond his suicide note - which as it turns out is accused of being a forgery by Courtney), he had so much to live for. Even if his relationship with his wife was falling apart, he had a very young daughter who never got to know him .
With River Phoenix while it was equally tragic, the fact that it was an accident casts his legacy in a different light. An early environment and animal rights activist, an older brother who was an inspiration to his siblings, a young boy whose experiment with drugs on a night out went terribly wrong
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