River Phoenix's final film, 'Dark Blood,' finally comes to screen

By Oliver Gettell

Feb. 14, 2013 12 AM PT

Nearly 20 years after the death of River Phoenix, the actor’s final film, “Dark Blood,” screened before an international audience last week at the Berlin International Film Festival. Perhaps the only thing more surprising than the film’s tumultuous two-decade journey to completion is the fact that Dutch director George Sluizer, now 80, was able to finish it at all.

“Dark Blood,” which began production in 1993, survived not only the loss of its leading actor, who died of an accidental drug overdose at age 23 outside a West Hollywood nightclub, but also the near-destruction of the original footage and a life-threatening ailment that struck its director.

The film hasn’t come out completely unscathed — Sluizer had to restructure the story and add narration to account for missing scenes — and the precise ownership status of the original footage remains murky. But Sluizer has succeeded in giving “Dark Blood” form.

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“I did my best to keep all the creative work which everybody had done, cast and crew,” the filmmaker said by phone from Amsterdam, where his company, Sluizer Films, is based. (His official residence is in France.) “The only thing I was doing was to save it the best I could and put it together so that at least it was something watchable.”

A psychological thriller set in the Utah desert, “Dark Blood” tells the story of a Hollywood couple, played by Jonathan Pryce and Judy Davis, whose second honeymoon goes awry when their car breaks down in the middle of nowhere, forcing them to seek refuge at the shack of a disaffected young widower (Phoenix).

At the time of filming, Sluizer was coming off “The Vanishing,” a modest hit, and Phoenix was a rising talent in Hollywood, having starred in such films as “Running on Empty,” for which he earned an Academy Award nomination in 1989, and “My Own Private Idaho.” He was Sluizer’s first choice for the role of Boy in “Dark Blood,” and the director enjoyed working with him.

“It’s an old word, the word ‘polite,’ but he was a polite young man and had respect for people who were older than he was,” Sluizer said.

“I was aware that [Phoenix] used drugs or had used drugs,” Sluizer added. “He could have a joint or something when he came to see me,” the director recalled, but it didn’t affect production during six weeks of shooting in Utah.

British executive producer Nik Powell was also on location in Utah. “The chemistry between the cast members was very good,” he said by phone from Berlin, though he added that Sluizer and Davis’ personalities clashed at times. Phoenix, Powell said, was “a very sort of healing, inclusive person.”

The cast and crew moved on for two weeks of filming in Los Angeles, a place Phoenix called “the bad, bad town,” Sluizer said. “I would say that he feared [Los Angeles] in a way, because he knew that would mean nightclubs, drugs, friends.”

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At the time of Phoenix’s death on Oct. 31, 1993, the production had completed one day of shooting in Los Angeles.

“It was a real shock,” Sluizer said. “Obviously you have to go on, but I felt like I’m not sure I care about making films anymore, with actors dying under me. I was obviously very sad, and to a certain extent underneath the terrible sadness of losing … a young, kind of a son-friend … I also was, in a way, angry that we lost the movie.”

Production was shut down with about 75% of the film in the can. Alternatives such as recasting Phoenix’s role or salvaging the film with special effects were deemed unfeasible. The insurance company backing the film, CNA International Reinsurance, paid out $5.7 million under its policy. “When the insurers paid out the insurance money,” Powell said, “they took over the rights and the materials to the film.”

The footage ended up in storage in Los Angeles, and CNA sued Phoenix’s estate for breach of contract. Sluizer said he contacted the claims adjuster, Graham Hill International, about acquiring the footage, but the lawsuit precluded the possibility. The case was dismissed in 1997, and in 1999 Sluizer learned the footage was to be destroyed.

Before that could happen, Sluizer had the film removed from the storage facility, he said, with the cooperation of the claims adjuster. (Sluizer said the adjuster initially offered him a key to the facility, but when it couldn’t be located, Sluizer and his associates had to break a lock open. The undertaking was otherwise without incident, he said.)

“I call it saving, not stealing,” Sluizer said. “Morally, I was saving important material. If you go to the Guggenheim and it’s on fire and you save a painting, you’re not stealing a painting — you’re saving it.”

Sluizer added that he was never contacted by the studio (New Line Cinema, now part of Warner Bros.), the insurers (since acquired by Tawa PLC, a specialized investor in the insurance industry) or the authorities after obtaining the footage.

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The footage lay untouched until 2008, when Sluizer suffered an aortic dissection, a potentially fatal tear in the wall of the aorta. Sluizer’s brush with death motivated him to finally finish “Dark Blood.”

“It’s in fact quite simple,” he said. “But it is very precious if you can finish something decently which you started with so many people.”

With a contribution from the Netherlands Film Fund, his own personal investment and donations obtained via the Dutch crowd-funding website Cinecrowd, Sluizer rewrote the film and cut it with editor Michiel Reichwein beginning in January 2012. (The original script is by Jim Barton.) To fill in gaps left by unfilmed scenes and misplaced footage, Sluizer himself provided narration over still photographs taken during production.

The director said he has contacted Phoenix’s mother, Arlyn, who made it “very clear” that the Phoenix family is not interested in being involved with the film.

“Dark Blood” premiered at the Netherlands Film Festival in Utrecht in September, to a standing ovation. In a review for Variety, Boyd van Hoeij called the film “a surprisingly coherent vision of a decidedly oddball story” and added, “Phoenix exerts a suitably charismatic and commanding air in his final role, making Boy a complex, fully mature character.”

Powell also attended the screening. “I had known for many years that George had this mad idea, frankly, to try and complete the film, and God bless him,” he said. Despite his initial skepticism, Powell came away impressed.

“I think [Sluizer] achieved a successful film, a successful storytelling piece,” Powell said. “And of course it was nice. The film was wonderfully shot and had some really wonderful performances in it.”

Berlin International Film Festival Director Dieter Kosslick said he was interested in programming “Dark Blood” because it’s “a western with suggestive power which mainly arises from the attendance of the main character, who was himself on the verge of death.” He added that it was “a pretty strange experience to see River Phoenix after so many years on the big screen.”

The film will have its U.S. premiere at the Miami International Film Festival on March 6.

Jaie Laplante, the director of the Miami festival, called the movie “something that’s worth seeing beyond a curiosity factor” and described Sluizer as “an artist with things to say.”

Beyond the festival circuit, Sluizer said he hopes to negotiate the rights to the original materials and is exploring the possibility of theatrical distribution.

“The film, if people think that it is worthwhile, then it should be seen by whoever wants to see it,” he said. “That’s why things are made — to be seen.”

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Special correspondent Susan Stone in Berlin contributed to this report.