Overlooked Classics: The Devil and Daniel Johnston

This beautiful documentary by Jeff Feuerzeig focuses on the much missed cult singer songwriter and artist Daniel Johnston, a sensitive and thoughtful portrait of a troubled, gifted soul.

Although the director takes a linear, somewhat conventional approach to Johnston’s life, he was absolutely unique, whether drawing comics and painting, or creating his beautiful, brittle music. The thin line between creativity and mental illness is probed, but never in an exploitative manner. That much of the archive gathered here belongs to Johnston himself makes for an intimate film.

That isn’t to say it’s not at times distressing or uncomfortable to watch, though. The root of Johnston’s problems it seems, lie with his God – fearing parents, who took a fire and brimstone approach to raising their kids. Little is spared, from his mother screaming at him that the devil had got into him, to his various breakdowns over the years, sending him into a torpor that alienated him from friends like Sonic Youth ‘s Steve Shelley or Half Japanese frontman Jad Fair.

The affection for Johnston’s glorious work is palpable though. Some scenes of the film shows the young Johnston, working at McDonald’s and handing out his DIY tapes of now legendary songs like ‘Casper The Friendly Ghost’, Walking The Cow’ and of course ‘Speeding Motorcycle ‘, to a largely indifferent and bemused group of people in his nearby city of Austin, Texas. “This is my new album” , he beams.

Then there’s the matter of his long time muse, Laurie Allen. She’s filmed in close-up and endlessly obsessed over by the singer. Sadly, the affection was never reciprocated.He never, it seems, got over her.

His charming, childlike naivete only darkened through drugs and paranoia, which only serves to make the earlier scenes all the more poignant and heart -breaking. But Feuerzeig presents it all without judgment, using a fanzine style cut ‘n’ paste approach reminiscent of those early, battered out bedroom tunes. Johnston, often dismissed in some places as “an outsider artist” was the real deal, in an industry where musicians are groomed for soundbite culture, and primed for the glare of the throwaway celebrity spotlight. That just wasn’t Daniel Johnston. He did it all on his own terms, but sadly, it came at a cost.