Paul Schrader Doesn’t “Get” Joaquin Phoenix

Joaquin Phoenix is an actor who, over the years, has cemented his status as one of the great performers of the 21st century. Phoenix’s performances have been A-caliber, in films as wide-ranging as “The Master,” “Her,” “Joker,” “Two Lovers,” “Inherent Vice,” and “Beau is Afraid.”

One person who isn’t on the Phoenix bandwagon is Paul Schrader, who recently went on his Facebook to post this totally honest gem of a take:

Everyone has actors they just don’t “get.” First on my list Joaquin Phoenix

Phoenix is certainly the mumbliest actor. Some of his detractors will point out that he doesn’t speak his lines clearly, there’s no proper enunciation, and they wouldn’t be wrong, but they’d also be missing the point of his overtly stylized and purposely uncalibrated acting.

Is Phoenix the best actor of the 21st century? It’s certainly a conversation worth having. His eccentrically unpredictable style has matched the era’s mood quite perfectly.

Phoenix was once, in his early days of acting, a down-to-earth and “normal” actor, but something inside him snapped, around 2008 — that’s when the strange behavior, and acting, began, including a memorably weird appearance on the David Letterman show in 2009.

The vulnerability and unpredictable nature of this new Joaquin ended up, surprisingly, transforming him into a better actor. Filmmakers who have worked with him keep pointing to his intense preparations, deeply immersing himself in the characters, often blurring the lines between fiction and reality.

We can speculate all we want about what happened in 2008 and the following years since, some believe it was a mental breakdown, but Phoenix’s art blossomed with some of the most surreal and intense acting I have ever seen on-screen.

The most primal of examples would be Phoenix’s ticking time bomb of a performance as Freddie Quell in Paul Thomas Anderson’s “The Master.” No words can prepare anyone for what Phoenix does on screen in this movie. Painting his character with shades of 21st-century non-conformist anxieties, Phoenix is funny, sad, scary and ultimately bewildering in Anderson’s film. It’s the best performance of his career and the perfect example of this actor’s unusual brand of brilliance.