A Documentary in Review: The Devil and Daniel Johnston

Intro and Overall Idea:
The Devil and Daniel Johnston is a biographical documentary about the singer, songwriter and artist Daniel Johnston. While Daniel Johnston was never a pop-music icon he collected quite a fan base of individuals with his strange, scattered, and often brilliant albums and mix-tapes. Daniel's best asset was his ability to be raw, real, and poetic. Within the documentary, his mother spoke of his talent to self-educate himself with musical instruments, and his highschool friend talked about how impressed and jealous he was that Daniel seemed to just innately be an artist. He was able to draw intricately and "Daniel started out good, and just seemed to get better," his friend said fondly about Daniel's artistic side.

This film progresses chronologically, with little to no effects used during the film. The content of the documentary itself is interesting, Daniel Johnston is one of those artists that seem to live in his or her own head, like Andy Warhol or Sylvia Plath. The film focused on anecdotes told by the different people that had encountered and at one time befriended Daniel Johnston. Although I wasn't a huge fan of his music at the beginning, by the end of this film I enjoyed Daniel's music and find him incredibly interesting.


Shooting Style and Effects:
The footage of The Devil and Daniel Johnston is a combination of Daniel's own raw footage, shots of places the people in the film are talking about and footage of Daniel's work. Homemade movies were a large part of Daniel's childhood, as he experimented with artistic mediums outside of music. I found this footage to be a great addition to the film, especially when his own mother was speaking how she felt about some of the movies. Although I found this footage interesting, it was only at the beginning of the film because it progressed chronologically and Daniel had filmed less as he got older.

Within the film, there are hardly any effects used. There were no fancy transitions or treatments used on the footage. The only effect I can think of is some of Daniel's drawings being animated during on of his songs. I thought this was interesting, but the animated segment with the music over-top was too long for me. I can understand however that they were showcasing Daniel's music as well as art, and it did work in part as a transition to the next segment.

The film moved in segments, chronologically following Daniel's life. It began with his childhood, moved on to his first love, told the story of his flirtation with fame and finally ends with modern-day Daniel. I found one of the most interesting parts of the film the relation between Kurt Cobain and Daniel Johnston.

Interview Style:

The interviews were taken at various locations, most seemed impromptu with little to no professional lighting. The filmmakers seemed to be limited in the number of cameras and resources they had, so they relied more on what the subjects had to say and provided cuts to b-roll instead of different angles of shots. Occasionally shots would be more close-up or from a different angle, but I think that there was only one camera shooting the documentary.

What is most interesting is that the filmmakers chose not to put in any commentary from present-day Daniel Johnston. The film began with footage of one of Daniel's concerts, the circle completing at the end with Daniel finishing the performance and speaking to some friends backstage. I thought the end of the movie was interesting, the footage was of Daniel dancing. While it was weird, it was endearing and raw, and that combination can pretty much sum up the entire documentary and Daniel himself.

Audio and Music:

The transitions between the stages of Daniel's life are filled with his recorded music from that point in his life. While I wasn't a huge fan of the music at first, it eventually grew on me, I was especially taken by the lyrics. Daniel wrote his own song lyrics and I found a lot of them to be really poetic, he always seemed to tell a story. Almost all of the music in the film is Daniel's, it's easy to see that he recorded a lot. This subject is touched on when Daniel recorded tape after tape, album after album, in his cousin's garage. I found it interesting the willpower and determination that Daniel had to make it as an artist.

The audio of the film is okay. While there is no narration, audio from many of the interviews is taken and dubbed over b-roll footage. I found this to be effective, it allowed for a story to be told by several different people. A lot of the sound on some of Daniel's early recordings is poor because he recorded it onto a tape in an extremely amateur style recording studio.

Subject Matter:
I found the subject matter to be portrayed in an extremely interesting manner. Although I had never heard of Daniel Johnston before, he is now fascinating and interesting to me. I am not sure if I would listen to his music but his story is definitely one worth telling. He's definitely a little bit more than offbeat, a little bit more than a misunderstood artist, but that's part of the intrigue. He was a little Warhol-esque in that some people in the film seemed to allude that Daniel made himself into the artist that he was, he wanted to feel heartbreak and to be weird, that was his goal.

Another thing that I found interesting was that Daniel had an obsession with drawing eyes. He would draw scenes with eyes as the characters, this reminded me of the recently popular film Superbad. It definitely crossed my mind that Daniel Johnston may have been the inspiration for the character's obsession with drawing only one part of the body.

Resolution:
The ending of the film was of course predictable in a chronological biographical documentary; to show Daniel Johnston modern day. This footage I found a little unsettling. Daniel appeared as if he hadn't progressed past his teenage years, this might have been part of the decision of the filmmakers not to include any footage or audio from Daniel. I felt that the end completed the film really well, showing Daniel at his most raw and vulnerable form. This film is one that you have to be in the mood to watch, but if you are, it's interesting. I personally enjoy learning about people who aren't the norm, I'm not a huge fan of the Cinderella story. This is the kind of story that I enjoy much more. Although it's not as riveting or educational as some documentaries, I would recommend this film as a great example of a biographical documentary.