The Devil and Daniel Johnston

For a crazy person, Daniel Johnston – a manic-depressive from West Virginia in his forties now an obese chain-smoker on heavy meds and in the care of his parents, has had a wonderful life and a very creative one as an artist, songwriter and performer who's become a cult figure admired and performed by the likes of Tom Waits, Sonic Youth, and Kurt Cobain. Jeff Feuerzeig, whose title refers to Daniel's constant mental battles with Satan, has provided a rich and sympathetic external portrait; and Johnson's own endless cassette tapes, songs, and drawings (which, used as important sources, can't help bringing to mind such influential recent documentaries as Andrew Jareaki's Capturing the Friedmans and Jonathan Caouette's Tarnation), provide as good a picture of what's going on inside Johnston's head as we're going to get.

Johnston has been celebrated by a long string of artists and become a cult figure to his fans for his purity, innocence, honesty, and raw pain. Like Caouette, he was unappreciated by his parents and particularly his mother, who thought he spent too much time writing songs and drawing pictures when he was young, and called him a "lazy bum" for not doing his chores around the house. His compulsive creativity was never really appreciated by his fundamentalist Christian family, though since thousands of admirers have applauded him at concerts, surely they begin to appreciate it now.

The many films and tapes of him show Daniel was a charming if unstable young man, buoyant, full of fun, uncooperative, laughing – in a teenage film he plays both himself and his abusive mom – and beginning to compose the songs that others have said sum up the Beatles, Bob Dylan, and other pop greats, though his voice is tuneless and whiny and his piano playing jangly and when he switched to guitar, that was worse. His parents took him out of college because he wasn't doing well, and put him to work. He didn't like that, so they farmed him out to siblings. Luck brought him to Austin in the early Eighties where he worked in a Macdonald's for a surprising length of time considering that he wasn't good at any of the jobs there (he cleared tables) and he was discovered by music writers, an editor, and a man who became his manager and almost his slave (Jeff Tartakov, the manager he fired, who still devotes his life to distributing copies of his tapes).

Johnston had repeated bouts in mental institutions and became increasingly delusional. A period of heavy LSD use clearly led to one of his worst crises: and yet he can recount all this himself, and his mind seems astonishingly lucid. (This is one of the saddest things about madness: that the mad know they're mad, but can do nothing about it.) For all his crises, the Austin public embraced Johnston and he got top awards for folk singing and song writing – an event that sat ill with some professional musicians at the time, but satisfied the lust for fame that motivated Johnston, who'd been on MTV, and knew how to grab the spotlight better than he knew how to play his guitar.

I can't see the virtue of Johnston's music and drawings, or rather I can, but I disagree with those in the film who insist he's not an outsider artist. He fits that category well; he's just come along at a time when plaintive whining, alienation, and musical primitivism are the rage, and he was taken up by some admirable champions. However, when he finally got a recording contract – drawn up initially when he was in a mental institution – his first album issued by Atlantic Records sold only a few thousand copies and he was dropped in two years, showing that despite stars' covers of his songs, he himself has no mainstream appeal, or ability to work in a professional format either as a musician or a visual artist. Nonetheless Johnston's open nature, his clarity, his sense of the redeeming artistic value of love, and his ceaseless artistic productivity are unmistakable and justify the attention that has been lavished upon him. This doesn't stop his story from being ultimately a sad one. For all his parents' caring in latter years, for all his championing by editors and managers, he cannot function on his own. Since his meds stifle his creativity, he has tended to give them up for two weeks before a public performance, and after one of the biggest ones, when his dad was flying the two of them home in his little plane, he overpowered him and took the controls and they crashed into some trees, barely surviving. Well, I guess all artists are a bit reckless, but it's just a matter of degree.

Making full use of films, tapes, and recent interviews, Jeff Feuerzeig has produced a wonderful film that is as good a document of a man as modern techniques allow. And the enduring popular notions of artistic life as train wreck and artistic genius as mental derangement remain unchallenged.

(Feted at fests in mid to late 2005, The Devil and Daniel Johnston went into limited US release March 31, 2006.)

Biodoc about Daniel Johnston, a multitalented man, a compulsively prolific cartoon artist, song writer and performer, whose bipolar disorder and drug abuse led to episodes of severe mental illness and destructive behaviors, beginning in his early 20s, in the 1980s, problems that stifled his career for many years, until consistent psychiatric care and kindly parental oversight effected a more stable course for him more recently. Now approaching age 45, Johnston has made a comeback of sorts, reaching a level of artistic self control and productivity that has swept him toward unprecedented recognition.

This film charts Johnston's life and family, ingeniously assimilating materials made by Johnston himself as a kid and young adult - super 8 and video footage; cassette audiotapes; still photos – as well as contemporary video interviews and stills. By mid-adolescence he was holed up in the basement of his family's home, staying up all hours, writing songs, drawing, making tapes almost nonstop. By his mid-20s he had run away to Austin, Texas, and made a splash on the pop music scene there. But within a year or two, abetted by lots of marijuana and LSD, he began a series of horrendous manic and depressive episodes that scuttled his career, even as he was beginning to receive recognition locally and on a national level.

For much of the next 15 years Johnston was hospitalized frequently after extremely dangerous manic episodes (he seriously injured one acquaintance with a lead pipe, and later interfered with control of his father's small aircraft, leading to a crash landing that, luckily, both survived), zoned out on medications, and vegetating at the family home in Waller, Texas. But in the past few years his course has stabilized.

He's obese, the result of his mood stabilizing medications and inactivity no doubt, and he's no longer the flamboyant, zany free spirit that titillated and frightened so many of his followers in the past. But the film shows us that he is now in better control of his drawing and singing performances than he ever was years earlier. He has been helped immensely by his parents, Bill and Mabel, now in their early 80s, his agent and owner of a small recording company, Jeff Tartakov, and an Austin music journalist, Louis Black, all of whom have worked hard to help sustain and enhance Johnston's reputation as a creative artist.

Their loyal efforts have been well rewarded. The film demonstrates the success of a show of Johnston's more recent drawings at Gallery Zero One in Los Angeles, where over 90% of the works were sold to a single collector before the exhibition even opened. In 2003 Johnston sang before an audience in Sweden that obviously worshiped him. Cartoonist Matt Groening is a fan of Johnston's. Tom Waits and Beck, among many others, have covered his songs. And just a few weeks ago (subsequent to the film) the Whitney Museum in Manhattan announced that Johnston's works would be included in the 2006 Whitney Biennial.

From a psychiatric perspective, a good case can be made that Johnston does suffer from bipolar disorder. But he was compulsively creating art years before his first episode of mood disorder. Like Vincent Van Gogh and some other compulsive artists, Johnston may also have Asperger's Syndrome.

This film is very well crafted until near the end. Actually it seems as if the filmmakers really didn't know how or when to end it. There are a half dozen moments in the last 20 minutes when they could have done so. See more, including examples of Johnston's art work, at these websites: www.museumoflove.com and www.rejectedunknown.com/feature.htm. My grade: B+ 8/10.

This film take you on a journey into a creative genius' struggle with life. Daniel Johnston recorded his entire life on cassette tape and his early life on film. Later he appeared on MTV, and in venues in Austin, TX on film and video. These provide the film-maker with a wide array of media for telling this story.

Jeff Feuerzeig weaves this material seamlessly into what is one of the most emotionally wrenching films I've seen in the last year and one of my favorite documentaries ever. It is hard to compare this film with documentaries like those of Michael Moore which are comedic and topical, or those of Errol Morris, which tend to focus on issues and facts. This documentary brings emotional threads and creativity into play in a way that dissolves the usual harsh contrast between a story and it's telling. You forget you are watching a documentary film, and become immersed in Daniel's life. Daniel's effect on those around him is interwoven with his own recordings. His family and friend are there to add to his story to show how his life is reflected upon them. Feuerzeig use of Daniel's parents narrative is simply masterful - it provides important information, and at the same time illustrates the the emotional turmoil his illness causes in the lives of those that love him. Daniel's family is portrayed from the early period of his illness when they have no idea what mental illness really means, to the present time when they become his supporters and advocates. Eventually, family and friend's are shown coming to terms with Daniel's mental illness, and experience their own emotional growth as well.

It deservedly won the Directors Award at Sundance 2005, and I think it would have won the audience award if it had a different play schedule.

The first section of the film has to do with the early life of Daniel Johnston as well as his being discovered by the musical world in the 1980s. Most of this didn't interest me at all--especially because I hated his music. When the film tried to convince me of his genius, it completely lost me, as he sounded just awful and hurt my ears (though I do acknowledge that he does have a small cult following who see him as a great genius). He definitely is not nor ever has been "mainstream" and this section of the film was poor compared to the last 3/4 of the film. It just didn't do much to compel the average viewer.

However, when it talked about his descent into madness, then the film came to life and became much more compelling. This section of the film was much longer and seemed to be the most important point of this documentary. The impact on Daniel, his family and those around him was profound and very sad to watch.

Because of my background, I have additional insight into the psychiatric state of Daniel Johnston during the film. As I watched, I noticed that although the film mentions that Daniel had "Manic-Depressive Disorder" (i.e., Bipolar Disorder), there was compelling evidence that a more correct diagnosis might have been a Schizoaffective Disorder. In essence, this is Bipolar Disorder along with Schizophrenia, as Daniel's behaviors and thinking always have a bizarreness that isn't classic "mania"--where you'd typically see bizarreness mostly during manic stages. He was so disorganized, occasionally hostile and had such bizarre thinking that this seems like the correct diagnosis instead of Bipolar Disorder. His talking about demons and obsession with his own self-styled religion is just plain weird. Additionally, the hospital prescribing Haldol is indicative of a more severe thought disorder. Normally, with a Bipolar Disorder, they would prescribe antidepressants or Lithium--not a severe mind-altering drug like Haldol. Haldol is practically an elephant tranquilizer and patients on it often are somewhat zombie-like--and it's often given to violent and severely psychotic patients in emergency rooms.

Late in the film, there was an emphasis on Daniel's artwork--not just his music. Despite many declaring it to be great, I found it fascinating because it gave great insight into Daniel's twisted vision of the world--with drawings of devils, monsters and a man whose head is cut in half (a representation of himself). Did I think it was "great"? No--far from it, but the insight it gave was incredible. And, at times, the claims others made about his greatness seemed a bit like hyperbole (saying he was the equal to Brian Wilson for example).

A fascinating film that was well-constructed--using audio tapes, video, interviews and a few scenes of Daniel today. Well made and worth a look.

I watched this knowing that I am not a big fan of the music of Daniel Johnston, but found it ceaselessly moving and fascinating. No just because of Daniel's unstoppable creativity and heartbreaking slump into ever increasing circles of mental illness, but because of the honesty of people around him. Saying that they were scared, that they just wanted him to go to hospital and get better, the truth... I really thought this film would be a bog standard "worship the romantic tortured genius" thing, but it actually gave you a really authentic feeling of how terrifying and uncontrollable mental illness truly is. Also, let's see more Daniel Johnston cartoons, the bit with the eye ball flying out of the head on the stack of comic books was absolute genius.