SNP’s TIFF word of the Day: Fanart

You should know it because: James Franco‘s fanart ruled the day at Day Four (only four?!) of TIFF yesterday. Long before the actor-come-polymath starred in Gus Van Sant‘s Milk (2009), Franco was a superfan of My Own Private Idaho (1991), the seminal Van Sant movie starring River Phoenix (RIP). To pay homage to his greatest influence, he used deleted and alternate scenes from the film to create a whole “new” feature-length work. The accompanying piece, just called Idaho, is shorter and based on one of the three scripts Van Sant used to make the original. Both pieces are playing on loop, for free and in verrrry low resolution, at the TIFF Lightbox. Later last night, Bad Day Magazine feted the film at the Hoxton in similar style, with beautiful looking projections on the walls.

And it turns out there’s a somewhat meta twist to all this. As Franco—who seems to be permanently in an altered state of consciousness—was discussing this latest of his ephemeral art projects, he noticed 13-year-old superfan Macy Armstrong in the crowd. The girl was holding three pieces of fanart that included a yarn portrait of Franco’s face and a collage made from his press clippings. Apparently, he bought them. It’s like... whoa... art imitating the circle of life, or something.