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 ocumentaries
should always be approached with a grain of salt
already in hand. While they always purport to tell
'the truth' about their subjects, they invariably
choose a side and rely on generous helpings of
embellishment to make their point. The crazy
genius has always been an easy target for such
films, as a quick sampling a biopics show, since
mental problems serve as a convenient maudlin
device to melt the heart of the audience with
minimal effort. The latest such film is "The
Devil and Daniel Johnston."
The movie opens with the
titular figure being introduced at a concert in
Sliced Bread,
USA
(aka
Austin
,
Texas
) as "the greatest singer-songwriter alive
today." One has to regard such a claim with a
bit of bemusement, especially since Daniel
Johnston is a relative unknown outside the
underground/indie rock scene.
Johnston
is a songwriter and artist who came into brief
notoriety in the late 80's and early '90s for his
handmade underground folk-rock music and obtuse
artwork, and became legendary for his struggles
with manic depression and other mental problems.
The film chronicles
Johnston
's life through his own home movies and tapes as
well as interviews with friends and music industry
figures who dealt with him. A wildly creative
child, Johnston grew up in a strictly Catholic
household in
West Virginia
. He spent most of his formative years in his
parent's basement with an electronic organ,
cassette recorder and a video camera churning out
reams of disturbing drawings and off the cuff
songs. Unfortunately, his seemingly never ending
stream of creativity manifested itself as manic
depression about the time he started college.
Unable to function on his own, he bounced around
between his parents and siblings till an
extraordinary set of circumstances involving a
carnival and a port-a-potty led him to
Austin
.
Based in this boomtown of
folk rock, garage bands and self-styled musicians,
Johnston managed to get his music distributed
(often re-recording entire albums overnight due to
a lack of tape dubbing facilities), get on MTV and
become friends with the likes of Pearl Jam,
Nirvana, Sonic Youth and Half Japanese, all while
working at the local McDonalds. His artwork even
got a boost when Kurt Cobain wore a T-shirt
featuring one of his drawings for several months
non-stop. In fact,
Johnston
's music is still being distributed on the web by
his ex-manager, whom
Johnston
fired by clubbing on the head three times with a
lead pipe.
Johnston's exploits are
almost too amazing to be real, but this is
tempered by the fact that Johnston himself is so
disturbed that he's hardly aware of what he's
accomplished and who he's rubbed elbows with over
the years. The effect that this gradual mental
collapse had on Johnston and the people around him
is sad to watch. He became violently obsessed with
the devil and was constantly on and off his meds.
This behavior led to his siblings running him off,
an old lady throwing herself out of a window and,
after a concert in NYC where he had not been
taking his medication, he crashed his father's
plane, nearly killing them both.
The film's treatment of this
part of
Johnston
's life is fairly leading. The film portrays
Johnston
's parents as 'fundamentalists' who tried to curb
his creativity and even suggests that they may
have contributed to his mental collapse. The
problem with this is that his parents are the only
ones who actually cared for Daniel Johnston, the
man, rather than Daniel Johnston, the musician and
artist.
"The Devil and Daniel
Johnston" shows us an extraordinary life of
inspired creativity and passion caged by mental
problems and drugs (both prescription and
illicit). The problem is, unless you are a fan of
this type of 'out there' music (it's not quite
coherent enough to qualify as avant garde), you
don't really connect with the subject.
This brings us back to the
point I made at the beginning regarding
documentaries. The film spends its running time
trying to garner sympathy for
Johnston
by portraying him as a cruelly curtailed
cornerstone of the music industry, but unless
you're part of his pre-existing fanbase, there's
little to get excited about. I personally don't
see the appeal of
Johnston
's music and the fact that a two-bit drug-addled
hack like Kurt Cobain proclaims him the
"greatest living songwriter" further
devalues his stock. In the end, what we have is an
engaging portrait of an embattled soul who
obliviously affected the lives of a great number
of people, but the film never elevates Johnston
above a mere curiosity that will soon drift back
into obscurity with the closing credits.
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