Music docs give you rad backstage footage, fights, bellyhoo, and loads of concert footage, but no music film was as devastatingly candid as 2005's The Devil & Daniel Johnston, which not only framed a warts-and-all portrait of "outsider" music's most intriguing figure, but also exposed his music and prose to the film world. Cultivating an ever-growing fanbase after more than a quarter century output of honest, mind-bending folk and steadying his life for the better, Daniel Johnston emerges victorious over his storied demons, culminating with a new DVD that serves as the ying to the Devil's yang.
Despite Daniel's crippling stage fright and unusually short setlists, The Angel and Daniel Johnston presents an 81-minute, 21-song concert film shot at London's Union Chapel in the summer of 2007. Daniel invited friends James Yorkston, Adem, and early collaborator Brett Hartenbach to join him for a cross-catalog setlist. The DVD itself is getting all the high tech treatment you'd expect from a professional gig, including Dolby 5.1 opportunities, bonus rehearsal footage, interviews, and Daniel's own artwork adorning the jacket and inside booklet, created exclusively for the film.
I don't mean to come off as too much of a sales asshole in this story, but this film is a long time coming. There is nothing quite like the intimacy and ambiance of a Daniel Johnston performance, and although nothing will compare to seeing him live, his mark on music deserves proper documentation. The Devil exposed his troubled life; The Angel exalts his gorgeous music.
[Photo: Tim Broddin]