Maxime
Fauconnier

Confession Scene (River), 2022

Color photographs and typewritten screenplay pages on A4 paper, framed.

In a pivotal scene in My Own Private Idaho (1991) directed by Gus Van Sant, Mike Waters, played by River Phoenix, confesses his love for his best friend Scott Favor, played by Keanu Reeves. The two friends sit beside a campfire off the road in the desert of Idaho. Mike’s longing at this moment is existential. The world presses in on and crushes him—as it does us all—and he utterly lacks the armour of self support, the sword of self love, with which to defend himself. Here, revealing his fragility to Scott, it is a yearning to be held, to be seen and to be accepted*.

The scene (the last one to be shot for the feature film, per Phoenix’s request) with its fragile yet powerful dialogue, depicts an inability to belong in a way that feels adequate. It resonates with my experience of having to navigate a queer identity that has been sometimes at odds with my environment, education and peers. These extinguished campfires that I’ve documented over the years specifically symbolize one's perceived late arrival in life; the feeling of sacrificing one’s identity by fear of taking someone's more legitimate place in the world.

Each photograph of the series is framed alongside a typewritten dialogue transcript of three A4 pages.

*On the Unflinching Sadness of My Own Private Idaho, Rob Parker, 2020.