Review of The Devil and Daniel Johnston (2006) by Christopher S — 04 Mar 2010

That was clearly one of the best music documentaries I have ever seen (and I've seen a few). What makes this one different is that it's not really about the history of a musician. This is the story of manic depressive schizophrenic dude who pulls his shit together long enough to make some great music. It's about his disease as much as anything.

Also, it totally helps that we're not watching an old Daniel looking back on his life. Or a panel of hipster scholars looking back on the genius of yore. We don't have to look back like that because Daniel had the foresight of recording pretty much everything he ever did. Cassette journals, video movies, etc. The audience gets to walk through time with Daniel as his sickness becomes clearer.

His story gets more interesting as the time goes on and I now know about a musician that I had little exposure to before. Ty doesn't always make bad decisions.