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(More customer reviews)I saw this film early last spring and have been perplexed why it never showed up on Amazon's list of movies that were appearing in theaters. I found this frustrating because this is one of my favorite movies of 2006 so far and one of my favorite documentaries concerning a musical figure.
Daniel Johnston is widely known as one of the great untutored songwriters in America, extremely raw and unsophisticated while compelling and original at the same time. He is also known as an artist who has had to struggle for most of his adult life with severe mental illness. No documentary ever made allows such access to a person's psyche as this one does. Why? Beginning as a young teen Johnston began recording his own life on video and tape. There are literally thousands of cassettes that provide an unprecedented portrait of Johnston. He not only recorded his own thoughts, but would secretly tape conversations with others. It is entirely possible that we have a larger record of Johnston's life than any other public person. Drawing on these vast materials and given complete access to them by Johnston and his parents, director Jeff Feuerzeig has assembled a comprehensive, compassionate, yet disturbing portrait of a fascinating individual. The opening credits display these disturbing words by Johnston: "There is a devil, and he knows my name."
The film tells Johnston's story from his early teens to his move to Austin, Texas in his early twenties where he suffered his first mental breakdown, on to adulthood and his ongoing struggle with severe mental illness. Although he quotes his own conditions from an earlier edition of the DSM, Johnston seems to struggle with a number of psychological problems, including severe bipolarity, narcissism, and schizophrenia. He was raised in a strongly religious fundamentalist household, but while the strong religiosity found there helped shape the nature of his future mental problems (he constantly frames the world in demonic terms, as a struggle between God and the devil), they do not seem to be the direct cause. Whatever propensities he had as a teen were brought to the surface by heavy drug use while in Austin, Texas. He has never really been healthy since that first breakdown, though he has often been able to record and perform.
Throughout the narrative of his life are snippets from various cassettes. He truly has provided the soundtrack of his own life. For instance, in an ill-fated trip to New York to record with the aide of members of Sonic Youth he was arrested for defacing the Statue of Liberty with religious symbols. He was secretly taping this as well as arguments he had with people while walking on sidewalks in New York. There is a "You are there" feeling with this film quite unlike anything else I've ever seen. The film recounts many harrowing incidents in his life, none scarier than the time after appearing at the South by Southwest festival in Austin when he seized the controls of his father's plane and sent it into an uncontrolled dive. His father was able to regain control of the plane only at the last second to enable a controlled crash landing in a forest. Miraculously, they escaped with only minor injuries.
The film details Johnston's emergence as an alternative rock icon, helped in large part by Kurt Cobain's constant wearing of a Johnston T-shirt over the last few years of his life. People have continued to discover his music, though it must be confessed that it is very much an acquired taste. Johnston is at best amateurish in both his guitar playing and keyboard work, and his singing is raw and unpolished. The songs themselves are primitive and sometimes feel unfinished. Nonetheless, there is an undeniable appeal in many of the songs, and emotional honesty that is bereft of artifice. Many will prefer the raw recordings by Johnston himself, though some might like more the versions of his songs recorded by his friend (and very briefly girlfriend) Kathy McCarty, DEAD DOG'S EYEBALL: THE SONGS OF DANIEL JOHNSTON. She appears prominently in the documentary and remains a part of his life, having married his oldest friend.
Overall the tone of the film is somewhat despondent tempered with hope. Johnston, though irredeemably self-obsessed, is oddly likable. And all in all, one can't help but think that given the severity of his problems, his life has turned out better than perhaps anyone else in his condition. His parents, though he criticized them for their religious obsessions early in his life, are unquestionably profoundly caring. Instead of having Daniel in an institution, they have cared for him themselves, forcing him to take his meds and enabling him to have a rich if demanding life. Unfortunately, they are both around eighty and there is great concern for what will happen to Johnston as they age. Although Johnston is best known as a musician, he has never made much money through his music. He has, however, established quite a reputation as an untutored artist, and his drawings now fetch substantial amounts of money. His parents have been putting the money into a trust fund for him. Their goal has been to provide him with a house and sufficient funds to pay for nursing care for the remainder of his life. As long as he takes his very large number of meds he is semi-functional. Thanks to his art, it now appears that there will be enough money to take care of his needs.
Although I saw this in the theater I am very much looking forward to getting the DVD. Many of Johnston's songs deal with love and heartbreak, and most of these concern a woman he met in college and fell hopelessly in love with. This was, however, an unrequited love, but it nevertheless provided the impetus for his songwriting. In an interview with the director following the preview, Feuerzeig revealed that after one of Johnston's concerts he saw her for the first time in over twenty years. They caught this on tape and it will appear as an extra on the DVD.
I give this disc my strongest possible recommendation. You will never see a documentary that delves so deeply into one person's life as does this one. As sad and disturbing as most of it is, it nonetheless ends as happily as it is possible for someone with the world of troubles afflicting Johnston.
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