QUICK TAKES: Blaze and Love, Gilda

Courtesy of Sundance Selects

Blaze
(Rated R for language throughout, some sexual content and drug use. Now playing at Midtown Art in Atlanta.)

Blaze Foley isn’t a household name, but he’s revered by musicians who are. The singer-songwriter honed his craft in obscurity for more than a decade (with brief stints in Whitesburg and Roopville), but his influence started to gain momentum after his tragic death in 1989 – shot while defending a friend.

In the years that followed, Foley’s friend Townes Van Zandt helped to bolster his rapidly growing legend. His most famous songs, “Clay Pigeons” and “If I Could Only Fly,” were covered by artists like Merle Haggard, Willie Nelson and The Avett Brothers. Other musicians, including Lucinda Williams and Kings of Leon wrote songs chronicling his story (“Drunken Angel” and “Reverend,” respectively).

Now, Foley is reaching a larger audience than ever thanks to Blaze, a new film from director Ethan Hawke. He also co-wrote the screenplay with Foley’s former love (and current Whitesburg resident) Sybil Rosen, based on her remarkable memoir Living in the Woods in a Tree: Remembering Blaze Foley.

Although not technically a biopic, Hawke plays with the genre’s conventions to portray a story about love, loss, creativity and addiction that somehow manages to avoid clichés that generally come with the territory. Blaze weaves together three different periods of time, reimagining key moments in the musician’s life.

One strand explores Foley’s (Ben Dickey, in a revelatory performance) love affair with Rosen (Alia Shawkat, delivering strong, beautiful work in deceptively quiet fashion). Another strand chronicles the last night of his life, when he performs a myth-making set and drunkenly stumbles toward his fate.

The final strand, set after Foley’s death, focuses on a radio interview with a clueless country music DJ (voiced by Hawke), Van Zandt (Charlie Sexton) and Blaze’s bandmate Zee (Josh Hamilton). Although the simplest segment of the film, it might just be the most wrenching. As they attempt to acknowledge the humanity of the late artist, they end up crafting the mythology that will ultimately win out over the man.

Hawke’s best decision is to keep Blaze grounded with an indie sensibility. Although the movie is packed with famous faces (including Kris Kristofferson as Foley’s dementia-stricken father and Sam Rockwell, Steve Zahn and Richard Linklater as a hilarious trio of oilmen-turned-producers), it’s in no way Hollywood-ized.

The story takes its time (at 129 minutes, some might argue too much time), allowing viewers to get to know Foley as an actual person. There are entire scenes devoted to him telling a long-winded joke (albeit with a killer punchline), as well as Foley and Rosen simply enjoying life in the woods. Viewers with short attention spans might complain that nothing happens in these moments, but Hawke and Rosen argue that’s when everything happens.

I love how Blaze doesn’t hold the audience’s hands and walk us through the fractured chronology like we’re children. Instead, the movie feels like a bunch of jigsaw puzzles pieces on a table. By the end, everything clicks into place; it just takes a little while to see the entire picture.

Furthermore, Hawke and Rosen are wise to avoid the usual biopic trope of glorifying addiction. The screenplay, as well as Dickey’s fearless performance, isn’t afraid to make Foley unlikable for long stretches of time, specifically because of his substance abuse.

The creative team also goes to great lengths to establish Foley isn’t a martyr. Although he dies standing up for a friend, Hawke doesn’t stage the scene as an epic tragedy, full of slow-mo shots and a swelling musical score.

Instead, it’s darkly lit, Foley’s so hammered you can barely understand his slurred speech and the pivotal moment happens offscreen. It comes off as the boneheaded, spur-of-the-moment accident it was, rather than the epic twist of fate his entire life was leading up to.

Still, the film isn’t all doom and misery. Shawkat is an absolute joy any time she’s onscreen, instilling the cinematic version of Rosen with an inherent goodness that radiates off the screen and makes a positive impact on Foley’s life and music. It’s the best performance of her career, hands down.

Blaze is also a gorgeous film. Steve Cosens’ cinematography makes every scene look like fall, with lush browns and oranges bursting off the scene in a natural way. The scenes with Foley and Rosen living in the woods look like a series of paintings.

Although the film probably isn’t for everyone, I absolutely adored it. I learned some music history, discovered an incredibly cool local connection to the material and found a treasure trove of albums to make my commute to and from work a little less painful. Blaze is one of my favorite movies of the year.

Grade: A-


Love, Gilda 

Courtesy of Magnolia

(Not rated, but contains language and adult themes. Now playing in limited release.)

2018 continues to be a stellar year for documentaries thanks to Love, Gilda, an informative and poignant look into the life of gifted comedienne Gilda Radner. Thanks to a collection of recently discovered audiotapes, much of the film’s narration comes directly from her – even though she succumbed to ovarian cancer in 1989.

The audiotapes alone provide compelling insight into Radner’s life, but they’re frequently combined with rare home movies and interviews with friends Martin Short, Laraine Newman, Paul Shaffer, Lorne Michaels and Chevy Chase. If those astonishing artifacts weren’t compelling enough, they’re interspersed with pages from Radner’s diaries, read by modern comedians like Amy Poehler, Bill Hader, Maya Rudolph and Melissa McCarthy, who cite Radner as a massive influence.

Woven together, these elements open a fascinating window into the soul of a beloved performer who sought to make people laugh even when battling immense personal turmoil.

Director Lisa D’Apolito utilizes creative editing and a wealth of visual flourishes to keep Love, Gilda from feeling like a standard “talking head” documentary. The interviews are terrific, moving past the standard biographical bullet points and delving into frank, frequently uncomfortable subject matter.

There’s a great deal of shockingly candid, heartbreaking footage of her battle with cancer. It’s tough to watch, but it demonstrates her strength, resilience and the genuine love she and husband Gene Wilder had for one another.

The interviews bookending the film (be sure to watch after the credits) might be the best part. It’s weirdly moving to see Poehler, Hader, Rudolph and McCarthy stare in awe at Radner’s diary entries – in her own handwriting! – knowing most of us would respond the exact same way. Hader even gets choked up a bit, which proves to be a contagious reaction.

Love, Gilda might not set the box office on fire like recent hits RBG and Won’t You Be My Neighbor?, but it’s just as compelling and inspiring. For almost 90 minutes, I had a giant smile on my face and tears in my eyes. Be sure to seek this one out – it’s powerful filmmaking.

Grade: B+