Fallen Angel: Gram Parsons (2004)

Director:

Gandulf Hennig

Writers:

Sid Griffin (writer)
Gandulf Hennig (writer)

Genre:

Documentary | Music

Tagline:

Feature length documentary on the musician and million-dollar-heir Gram Parsons, his exceptional life, his bizarre death, and his deep impact on music history.

Plot:

On September 19, 1973, the musician and heir to a million-dollar fortune died under the influence of drugs and alcohol near his favourite place...

Cast

Peter Buck	...	Himself
Gretchen Parsons Carpenter	...	Herself
Elvis Costello	...	Himself
Pamela Des Barres	...	Herself
Emmylou Harris	...	Herself
Chris Hillman	...	Himself
Phil Kaufman	...	Himself
John Nuese	...	Himself
Diane Parsons	...	Herself
Becky Parsons Gottsegen	...	Herself
Gram Parsons	...	Himself (archive footage)
Keith Richards	...	Himself
Dwight Yoakam	...	Himself

Runtime:

90 min

Country:

Germany | UK

Language:

English

Color:

Color

Aspect Ratio:

1.78 : 1

Company:

BBC Music Entertainment

good documentary

A very worthwhile documentary about musician Gram Parsons of the Byrds and the Flying Burrito Brothers. Originally filmed for British and German television, the movie is a very detailed portrait of Parsons' life, albeit at arm's length—there would appear to be very little footage of Gram available, most of it performance clips, many of amateurish home movie quality. I don't recall even one shot of Gram on screen talking, although his voice is heard in a few sound snippets from an audio interview of indeterminate origin. The movie instead relies on extensive usage of still photographs and, most impressively, interviews with just about anyone still alive who was involved in Parson's life, including bandmates Chris Hillman and Emmylou Harris, Keith Richards, the surviving members of Gram's family, blustery former road manager Phil Kaufman who stole Gram's body at LAX and drunkenly drove it out to the desert and burned it, and even the girlfriend who checked into room number 8 at the Joshua Tree Inn with Parsons and watched him die of an overdose. The dynamics of Parsons' dysfunctional family and the impact it had on him are well documented, perhaps maybe a little too well documented, but the recollections of the musicians who played with him provide the most illuminating commentary on the allure and difficulties of Parsons' self-destructive talent. Overall, I had two main criticisms. One, the filmmakers' melodramatic animation of cartoon flames that rise from the bottom of the screen as Kaufman describes striking a match and throwing it into Parsons' gasoline soaked coffin—not to mention the aerial shot of a bonfire burning in the desert, obviously supposed to emblematic of Gram's burning corpse—is especially cheesy, and really tacky. But my larger complaint is that despite the effluent praise of Parsons' talent, the film never establishes a broader historical context for his musical accomplishments that would allow the casual viewer to understand why he was so important, which was that he almost single-handedly invented the genre of country-rock. Pamela Des Barres alludes to it somewhat when she describes Gram playing records by Lefty Frizzell and Willie and Waylon for her, turning her on to a rich, vibrant side of country music that most rock music fans were unaware of at the time. But with the Byrd's Sweetheart Of The Rodeo and his injection of flashy Nudie suit glam rock star attitude into his fairly traditional but definitely non-Nashville brand of country songwriting, he broke through to the rock crowd with an updated take on country music that paved the way for the Eagles and every country-rock outfit that followed. You maybe wouldn't quite understand how revolutionary that was from this film—some obscure family friends could've been replaced by a perceptive rock critic or two—but all in all it's a really good documentary.