Hi -
Just posting a copy of my pending review, to be added to the film's reviews on IBDb's web site.
Great to see that the release date it set, and that Dan's family is actively promoting the film on this web site
Gina
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The Devil and Daniel Johnston (2005)
Simply Excellent, 3 September 2005
Simply Excellent, 3 September 2005
Author: ginareynolds164 from SF Bay Area, United States
Jeff Feurerzeig's direction will take you for a ride both inside and outside the life of an artist who is both simultaneously free and a true captive.
The film wonderfully depicts how Johnston has been leading a life in which, due to manic depressive illness, he has been incredibly free to use his artistic abilities to express his feelings. Yet, ironically, manic-depression has also been the true Devil in Daniel's life, holding him captive, unable to completely free himself from it's grip.
As heart-wrenching as it felt to fully take this reality in, it also felt incredibly freeing to me, the viewer, to be so easily able to access Daniel's reality. The film is a true gift to our own 'normal' psyches, which are sadly, yet necessarily, replete with a vast array of automatic defense mechanisms against our having a full awareness of our own 'crazy' inner worlds...worlds full of truth...truth that special people like Daniel are beautifully, yet hauntingly, receptive to, like innocent children. It will actually make one wonder who are the truly free among us?
The film will undoubtedly serve to help raise awareness about those afflicted with mental illness. We, the so-called mentally healthy, like to believe that 'they' are so different than we are, and that 'their' realities are not to be envied, ever. The Devil and Daniel Johnston leaves you questioning that assumption, ever so slightly, but questioning it none-the-less; and that, as Martha Stewart is known to say, is a very good thing.
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