shrinkboy
Addicted Member
you guys in the know, and even those who aren't, need to go see the Townes Van Zant bio-doc, Be Here to Love Me.
you WILL be moved
i was given "The Late Great Townes Van Zant" by a pot smoking buddy in 1972, because he didn't care for it. it became one of the defining LP's of that era for me, i just couldn't hear it enough. when in grad school in Pittsburgh Pa and lonely for Texas a few years later, i caught him in a club he was playing, and chatted some with him at the break. later still, i saw him play here in Big D a few times, always bombed, but neveretheless riveting.
a favorite writer of mine, psychologist James Hillman, contends that people are not geniuses, they are the bearers of, or hosts to, genius. that genius is something else that inhabits the person, and uses them as a vessel. i cannot think of a better way to imagine Townes. completely in the grip of his 'genius', he sought relief in drugs, alcohol, self destruction, even while it separated him from all that he longed for and loved.
the film provides no pat answers or easy solutions, or reasons why someone so gifted would so cavalierly destroy themselves. in one interview segment, Townes, somewhere in his late 40's, is asked why his songs all seem so sad. and a look of part masked incredulity crossed his face as he asked back, You don't think that life is sad?
plenty of Townes on the soundtrack, plenty of looking life's grandeur and tragedy in the face. i will be thinking about this film a long time.
don't miss it
you WILL be moved
i was given "The Late Great Townes Van Zant" by a pot smoking buddy in 1972, because he didn't care for it. it became one of the defining LP's of that era for me, i just couldn't hear it enough. when in grad school in Pittsburgh Pa and lonely for Texas a few years later, i caught him in a club he was playing, and chatted some with him at the break. later still, i saw him play here in Big D a few times, always bombed, but neveretheless riveting.
a favorite writer of mine, psychologist James Hillman, contends that people are not geniuses, they are the bearers of, or hosts to, genius. that genius is something else that inhabits the person, and uses them as a vessel. i cannot think of a better way to imagine Townes. completely in the grip of his 'genius', he sought relief in drugs, alcohol, self destruction, even while it separated him from all that he longed for and loved.
the film provides no pat answers or easy solutions, or reasons why someone so gifted would so cavalierly destroy themselves. in one interview segment, Townes, somewhere in his late 40's, is asked why his songs all seem so sad. and a look of part masked incredulity crossed his face as he asked back, You don't think that life is sad?
plenty of Townes on the soundtrack, plenty of looking life's grandeur and tragedy in the face. i will be thinking about this film a long time.
don't miss it