The Devil and Daniel Johnston.

"As its title suggests, the picture is something of a ballad, an ode to an elusive character who's both quintessentially human and so outlandish he almost seems unreal," writes Stephanie Zacharek in Salon.

"Jeff Feuerzeig's tremendous documentary runs on the motive force of intelligent fandom and radiates an ineffable grace," writes Jessica Winter in the Voice, where Ken Switzer offers a brief take on the double CD, The Late, Great Daniel Johnston: Discovered Covered.

"Then, if you're lucky, one dry run of the song. It's done, and then he's onto the next song," Feuerzeig tells Steven Chen in a Los Angeles Alternative cover story. "I've heard all the outtakes - we're talking thousands of songs - and I've understood how his process is. And I've seen the notebooks. It goes right down, verse for verse, line for line. He doesn't edit and change lines. I've seen this, okay? That's how I know he's a genius, whether you like the music or not. Pages and pages, stacks of notebooks, and they go down, And very rarely do you see a little cross-out of a line or a word."

Updated through 4/3.

Greg Burk in the LA Weekly: "You'll be glad to know that primitive-savant songwriter and visual artist Johnston, admired by such cultural godheads as Kurt Cobain, Sonic Youth and Matt Groening, is more troubled than most. More important, his story opens a window on the nature of art and the power of myth."

"And make no mistake," adds The Reeler, "Director Jeff Feuerzeig's exquisite portrait of Johnston absolutely addresses a great mind."

"Like its subject, The Devil and Daniel Johnston never says or does quite what you expect," writes Matt Zoller Seitz in the New York Press. "What makes the documentary so striking - what elevates it above most biographies of artists, sane or not - is its willingness to engage with Johnston head-on; it tries to visualize the world through Johnston's consciousness."

Kenneth Turan in the Los Angeles Times: "Devil turns out to be too indulgent and worshipful a film to justify its length."

But in the New York Times, Dana Stevens calls it "a moving portrait of the artist as his own ghost."

Reminder: Sara Schieron in Slant.

Update, 4/2: Sean O'Hagan in the Observer: "Somewhere... during Feuerzeig's exhaustive film, it becomes hard to hear those songs, so overwhelming is the life from which they spring."

Updates, 4/3:: Sorina Diaconescu talks with Jeff Feuerzeig for the Los Angeles Times.

Lawrence Levi at Stop Smiling: "I went to a Johnston concert in 1999 and saw a bloated, confused-looking man racing through songs, seemingly unaware of the audience or his own backup band. Like this movie, it was heartbreaking."

Michael Fox interviews Feuerzeig and producer Henry Rosenthal for SF360.

Posted by dwhudson at March 31, 2006 6:42 AM