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How a 20-Year-Old River Phoenix Stood Up to Warner Bros. and Saved ‘Dogfight’

As Nancy Savoca’s 'Dogfight' enters the Criterion Collection, the director recalls the night she was prepared to remove her name from the film.

The internal conflict Phoenix carried into this machismo soldier role, which he didn’t fully understand, captured what appealed to Savoca about Comfort’s original script, the screenwriter haunted by his own dogfight experiences as a young man serving in the military. Savoca said the discoveries she was able to capture with her camera as two young actors wandered the empty streets of San Francisco (most of the shoot was actually in Seattle, which had to sub in for the Bay City) was one of the biggest thrills she’s had as a director. The director recalled the painful last few days aimlessly tinkering away on the film with editor John Tintori, knowing the studio was in the process of revamping her movie, but being out of the loop of those plans.

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