Jandek on Corwood (2003)

User Rating:

7.7/10   

Director:

Chad Freidrichs

Release Date:

February 2003 (USA)

Genre:

Documentary

Plot Keywords:

Houston Texas | Recluse | Musician | Outsider | Reclusive Musician

Awards:

1 win

Cast

Byron Coley
Calvin Johnson
Barry Hansen
John Foster
Richie Unterberger
rest of cast listed alphabetically:
Jake Austen
Nils Bernstein
Ben Edmonds
Gary 'Pig' Gold
Toni Holm
Amy Kelley
Brooks Martin
Phil Milstein
David Rauh
Angela Sawyer
Dana Squires
John Trubee
Katy Vine
Douglas Wolk

Runtime:

88 min

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Color:

Color

Company:

Unicorn Stencil

attempted meaningfulness

Well here's an interesting subject for a documentary - a reclusive musician who puts out his own music under a shroud of secrecy, and the search for his true identity. Sort of an indie-rock "Who Is Bozo Texino?" Only this one is inelegant, overextended, and strained in its attempted meaningfulnesses. There's a lot of stupid cutaways - but a different kind of stupid cutaway than the last rockdoc I disliked, I'm Your Man: where the latter breaks things up with shots of birds or Leonard Cohen's soulful countenance in slow motion, this one gets all literal (A FULL MINUTE of pouring beer footage accompanies somebody saying "we went out for a beer"). Way too many interviews with smart ass white boy rock types - including an old fave, John Trubee, who donates the ultra-rare tape-of-Jandek-interview that the whole film builds up to, in fact it tells us most of the content before we get there, sigh. It's none too revealing. Around here I got the feeling that these guys were copping serious style from Errol Morris, and botching it. And well before that it occurred to me that the major 'mystery' that they try to hook us on is: "Is this dude 'crazy'???" It's the wrong question to ask, and they never make me care about the answer. I get the impression that no one in the movie likes the music, either.