Daniel Johnston has resided on the fringes of the music scene for two decades, where his sad, surreal DIY ballads of unrequited love have formed a siren’s call for celebrity acolytes such as Matt Groening and Kurt Cobain. Mr. Cobain’s patronage in particular would bring record executives buzzing around Daniel’s door throughout the great post-Nevermind indie gold rush. During the early 90s, Elecktra offered him the most ludicrously artist-friendly terms ever negotiated, but Johnston refused, believing that would-be label mates Metallica were the instruments of the Dark Lord.
This singular artist’s career has been blighted and thwarted by similar delusions. Famously, he once seized the keys from the ignition of his father’s private plane mid-flight, believing momentarily that he was Casper, The Friendly Ghost<. He miraculously survived the freefall. A manic-depressive, he has spent many sojourns in psychiatric institutes and at 45, he’s still cared for by his elderly parents at their Texas home.
Jeff Feuerzeig’s tremendous award-winning documentary has obvious antecedents in Crumb and Tarnation, but this haunting portrayal of Johnston’s extraordinary life is unique in several respects. As a demonstration of the filmmaker’s remarkable sensitivity to what could have played out as a terrifying freak show, neither the protagonist (nor indeed the imaginary antagonist) is interviewed for the purposes of the film. The necessary distance creates a slightly eerie aura around its subject, who remains, appropriately, a spectre in his own life. Mind you, Feuerzeig has plenty of resources at this disposal. Home movies, audio-cassettes and a lifetime ofdoodles provide an auto-therapeutic window to the lost soul.
Tracing Daniel’s transformation from eccentric outsider teen to prolific lo-fi popsmith and acclaimed visual artist, The Devil And Daniel Johnson frames a bizarre backstory in the wider context of bipolarity and creativity. Eroding such semantically unsatisfactory concepts as ‘outsider art’, Feuerzeig places Daniel in a lineage that includes Sylvia Plath and Lord Byron. Somewhere in the struggle between Daniel and his demons is where the art happens.
Mostly though, this is a love story. For all his erratic, violent outbursts, Daniel’s God-fearing parents, Mabel and Bill hover gently over their charge. The film is as much a testament to their selflessness as a celebration of his weirdly wonderful work. Heartbreaking.