Following up on Joaquin Phoenix's bizarre appearance on David Letterman last night, I thought you might like to read an article from Movie Maker magazine written by James Gray who directed Phoenix in three films, including Two Lovers, the film Phoenix was supposed to be plugging on Letterman. Gray's earnest appraisal of Phoenix and his unique talent rings true. He concludes:

I wrote Two Lovers knowing that if Joaquin didn’t want to do it it would never get made. The role was created for him: A tormented soul, struggling, lost, lonely and, finally, beautiful and heartbreaking. Who else could do it? Who else would?

Thankfully for me, he said yes, and the shoot was the happiest of the three. We developed a shorthand, but more often than not he was on his own—and he was liberated. The result is work that seems to my eyes eerily redolent of Montgomery Clift at his best.

Forgive me, but I have trouble accepting this retirement thing. I need Joaquin’s moments of authentic heartbreak, of unfiltered emotion, of poetic humanity. Joaquin shares my passion for exploring the melancholy movements of life, the sad awareness of time’s ruthless march; and he far surpasses me in emotional intellect, always ready to recognize genuine tenderness and reject all artifice. He has embraced an elegant, higher truth.

At the end of Two Lovers, Joaquin seemed simultaneously exhausted and bored. He’d left most of us in the dust long ago.

Perhaps that’s why he’s done with acting: When you can do it all yourself and your genius has outgrown the mediocrity of others, why bother?

Gray's full article here