INTERVIEW: Sybil Rosen, Co-Writer of Blaze

Sybil Rosen

Many music fans have never heard the name Blaze Foley, although they’d certainly recognize his famous friends and the countless artists he went on to influence after his tragic death in 1989. Before that, however, he honed his craft in obscurity – first with the stage name Depty Dawg and ultimately adopting the Foley moniker. 

In the early days of his career, he spent time in West Georgia – both Whitesburg and Roopville – with Sybil Rosen, an aspiring actress and writer. They met in 1975 and soon “jumped the broom” in an unofficial marriage ceremony, then set off together to support his music career. The pair ended up in Austin, Texas, but the road and Foley’s substance abuse took a toll on their relationship and it eventually ended.

Years later, after Foley was shot to death while trying to protect a friend, the musician rose from obscurity to become something of a folk hero to musicians around the country. His songs – including his most widely known, “Clay Pigeons” and “If I Could Only Fly” – have been covered by Willie Nelson, Merle Haggard, Lyle Lovett, John Prine, and the Avett Brothers. Other artists, including Lucinda Williams and Kings of Leon, have recorded songs about him.

Thom Jurek, in his review of The Dawg Years album, said that Foley’s incorporation of different styles of music including folk, country, blues, gospel and others prove that he was an Americana artist before the term was coined.

Now, almost 30 years after Foley’s death, his life gets the big screen treatment with Blaze, directed by Ethan Hawke. (It's currently playing at Landmark Midtown Art in Atlanta.) He based the film on Living in the Woods in a Tree: Remembering Blaze Foley, Rosen’s memoir about their time together and her firsthand account of witnessing Foley’s transformation from a hippie musician to the enigmatic singer/songwriter who became a part of the Austin music scene.

Hawke and Rosen co-wrote the screenplay together and she served as script supervisor on

Rosen and Foley living in a tree in the woods.
(Courtesy of Michael Boyle)

set, in addition to playing her own mother for a brief scene.

Before she headed off on a month-long stint to promote Blaze in Texas and New York, Rosen sat down for a conversation at Waller, the cabin in Whitesburg where she and Foley lived in the early days and she once again calls home. Over the course of a lengthy chat, she discussed her time with Foley; her working relationship with Hawke; the jarring sensation of reliving key moments in her life during the creative process; and her plan to raise money for local libraries using theater.

There are countless horror stories from writers going through the adaptation process; Hollywood hasn’t always had a friendly working relationship with books. Comparatively, however, Rosen hit the jackpot. In the afterward to her memoir, she mentions that Hawke and the producers said all the right things – mainly that they wanted to focus on Foley’s music and avoid mythologizing him – and everything clicked into place relatively quickly.

“First of all, it’s an independent film, so there are a lot less hoops to jump through,” Rosen explained. “Also, it’s Ethan, so it’s not just his artistic reputation but his personal appeal. People really wanted to work on the film. So boom, boom, boom – it just started happening.”

She went on to describe the awareness of that momentum starting to take over. “Even though it was disorienting, at the same time it felt natural.”

Part of that was what she calls “the element of Blaze.” As she chronicles in her compelling

Blaze Foley
(Courtesy of C.P. Vaughn)

memoir, ever since his memory returned to her, she’s had similarly fated moments.

“There’s just a synchronicity in the air and everyone feels it, where everything lines up in a particular way to everyone’s surprise.”

Rosen credits Hawke for maintaining a collaborative environment on set that allowed those moments to evolve naturally.

“It was very clear to me how I hoped to be able to participate. At each step that just kept opening up. Ethan was so generous to allow me to be on the set for the whole thing. I asked him if I could be, and he said yes. And he didn’t hesitate. I could’ve been a nightmare,” she laughed. “He didn’t know for sure.”

Alia Shawkat, best known for playing Maeby Funke on Arrested Development, portrays Rosen in the film, and more than a few people observed an uncanny resemblance. That’s especially true when looking at photos of Rosen and Foley together in their early days.

So, when Rosen decided to ask Hawke about the idea of playing her own mother in a brief-but-memorable scene, he demonstrated that same lack of hesitation.

Ben Dickey and Alia Shawkat,
playing the big screen versions of Foley and Rosen
(Courtesy of Bonnie Marquette)

“He loved the idea,” she recalled. “He had no idea how that would work out, but it made a certain amount of sense. He cast Alia because she’s so brilliant, but also because we look alike. So why not play my mother if we look so much alike?”

Rosen is also finding herself reliving key moments of her past in new ways, from different perspectives. She experienced the real version of falling in love with Foley and being a part of his musical journey. She relived it once she learned about Foley’s folk hero status and wrote her memoir. And now, as Blaze hits theaters across the country, she’s living through these moments a third time via their cinematic interpretations.

“It’s the echoing of something, certainly,” Rosen said. “But it’s also something new – its own version. I do wonder why I’m being asked to live this again and again.”

This wasn’t a journey she had planned out from the beginning, especially considering her split from Foley was fairly definitive.

“I feel like my disconnect from Blaze was pretty profound,” Rosen explained. “I wasn’t carrying his memory actively. I was writing about him, but it wasn’t ‘him’ – it was sanitized, mythologized, etc. With the memoir, it was like I was being asked to re-stitch his memory into me. And I guess I didn’t do that good a job, because I’m being asked to do it again.”

She quick to point out, however, that she is just one point in the overall journey of pop culture’s rediscovery of Foley. Other points include the musician’s friends making tribute albums and Kevin Triplett making the well-received 2011 documentary “Blaze Foley: Duct Tape Messiah.

“I’m part of a wave that started after he died,” Rosen said. “Then I get swept up in it and 10 years later here’s this movie. So, it isn’t just me. But, at the same time, I do feel like there’s this way in which we’re taking care of each other. Because it’s such an amazing opportunity for me artistically…and I’m so grateful for it. At the same time, I do feel like I’m helping to move his legacy along and bring it into the world.”

Lately, a big part of furthering that legacy is traveling across the country with Hawke and actor/musician Ben Dickey – who plays Foley in the film – to promote their work.

“For those guys, promoting the movie is a constant thing,” Rosen said. “But every once in a while, I get to step in and be a part of it.”

It’s not an undertaking that comes naturally for her, but she’s learning to enjoy it.

“I have a friend who calls me a reluctant exhibitionist,” Rosen said. “So the anticipation of

things like introducing the movie, or doing a Q&A, or even interviews like this, there’s a certain amount of dread. But then I get into the moment and it’s totally different. It’s so exciting.”

So how is Rosen spending her nonexistent free time in the middle of this promotional whirlwind? She recently performed an abridged version of The Belle of Amhurst, in which she played Emily Dickinson, to raise money for the Whitesburg Public Library. She's prepping for a repeat performance soon.

“It’s grounding in the middle of promoting the film,” Rosen said. “It’s a very local endeavor. It’s a good balance and it’s very humbling. For about an hour, I get to be a genius. It’s so great.”

What’s more, she believes it’s a natural transition.

“There is a very real resemblance between Blaze Foley and Emily Dickinson,” Rosen explains. “Is Blaze a genius the way Emily was? I don’t know. But I think that Emily is one of the architects of modern English poetry and what she was doing was so experimental. They were both obscure in their lifetimes, and they both created very narrow existences so they could go completely into their art.”