My Own Private Idaho in Rochester
This week, as part of the series “Not of an age, but for all time”: Shakespeare on Film, the George Eastman Museum in Rochester, New York, will screen Gus Van Sant’s 1991 road movie My Own Private Idaho. This groundbreaking work of New Queer Cinema follows the relationship between a narcoleptic (River Phoenix) haunted by feverish dreams of his past and the rebellious son of a mayor (Keanu Reeves). Taking his narrative cues from Shakespeare’s Henry IV and Henry V, Van Sant transplants the Bard to the dodgy streets of 1990s Portland and the vast landscapes of the Pacific Northwest, crafting a tragicomic portrait of friendship and unrequited love on the fringes of society. Those in Rochester can see the film tonight on 35 mm in the museum’s Dryden Theatre. In the meantime, read Amy Taubin’s liner notes for our release.
