TIFF Report: The Devil and Daniel Johnston Review

A few days ago I happened to catch Viggo Mortensen speaking, he wasn't talking to me or anything, I was just there. And he said (I'm paraphrasing) “Life is pain. Being born is painful, adolescence is weird and painful, and adult life is painful. Life is always painful.” At the time I thought it was such an odd thing to say, I mean, he's Viggo Mortensen! Who actually looks quite nice in real life (I've seen a bunch of red carpet shots etc. of him where he looks like some kind of wraith) so I was wondering what he was complaining about. But it doesn't really matter who you are, you're going to be in pain – emotional pain, physical pain, whatever. A lot. And watching a film like The Devil and Daniel Johnston, it's strangely comforting to know that you're not alone in pain. That we all feel it. But also it makes you feel bad. Because you know the pain you've felt, feel, is nothing compared to some.

Daniel Johnston is, in my opinion, the very definition of an 'outsider artist'. The Devil and Daniel Johnston however, ignores this definition out of hand, with one cursory mention of it (giving a general consensus that such a definition is limiting at least, negative at worst.) Trapped by mental illness since adolescence (long undiagnosed) Daniel Johnston has been a musician and artist for a comparable time. I think the outsider artist definition fits because you really can question if his music and art are actually good or not. Many people are utterly convinced (well, everyone in the film) that he is a genius, but to many, his low-fi scratchy recordings of songs with badly played instruments and strangely timed lyrics probably seem like the rantings of an insane man. Which, well, they are.

I'm a fairly recent arrival to Johnston's music, with a Christmas gift from my girlfriend of 'Discovered Covered: The Late, Great Daniel Johnston' (he's not actually dead) cluing me into his music which is, in my opinion, the naïve and beautiful music of an artist comparable to Brian Wilson (Another comparison disregarded by almost the entire film.) This film draws out Johnston's entire life from his beginnings as a weird little kid making super 8's and singing songs under the disapproving roof of a strictly religious family, through to an adult, where with arrests, stays in mental hospitals, experimentation with drugs, label bidding wars, and fans including (most famously) Kurt Cobain, Johnston's life sounds like a crazy story of excess along the lines of Motley Crue's. But when scenes of the film show Johnston in the grip of a messiah complex, ranting and raving on the streets of New York, with his friends unable to control him, it's a profoundly disturbing cinema experience.

The intense power of the film is in fact completely thanks to Johnston himself, with the masses of documentation Johnston took of his own life, including a giant library of super 8 films, diary and letter cassettes and photos offering concrete evidence of Johnston's life largely without hearsay. Jeff Feuerzeig has created an essentially flawless chronological documentary about Daniel Johnston's life, as the provided footage and audio almost entirely speaks for itself, with blanks being filled in by interviews, mostly with his family and close friends, but most oddly an interview with Butthole Surfers lead Gibby Haynes as he has his teeth drilled. Johnston as he is now is only really extensively interviewed at the very end of the film (the commentary he gives on his life, recorded on audio cassette as he lived it, is used) and the film ends with no uplifting message, happy ending or feel good factor. Though his medication works to whatever extent it does, Johnston remains obsessed with the devil tremendously overweight, and unable to function on his own. That he can now tour again and is producing a wide body of work is the most the film can give you. The Devil and Daniel Johnston is a powerful documentary with no easy answers. While fans of his music will enjoy it more than those who have never heard of him, anyone who has ever felt life was pain will find meaning in this movie.