Linkshoch Wonderful Movie

UnowPriceless hyped garbage

Teringer An Exercise In Nonsense

KnotStronger This is a must-see and one of the best documentaries - and films - of this year.

MartinHafer The first section of the film has to do with the early life of Daniel Johnston as well as his being discovered by the musical world in the 1980s. Most of this didn't interest me at all--especially because I hated his music. When the film tried to convince me of his genius, it completely lost me, as he sounded just awful and hurt my ears (though I do acknowledge that he does have a small cult following who see him as a great genius). He definitely is not nor ever has been "mainstream" and this section of the film was poor compared to the last 3/4 of the film. It just didn't do much to compel the average viewer.However, when it talked about his descent into madness, then the film came to life and became much more compelling. This section of the film was much longer and seemed to be the most important point of this documentary. The impact on Daniel, his family and those around him was profound and very sad to watch.Because of my background, I have additional insight into the psychiatric state of Daniel Johnston during the film. As I watched, I noticed that although the film mentions that Daniel had "Manic-Depressive Disorder" (i.e., Bipolar Disorder), there was compelling evidence that a more correct diagnosis might have been a Schizoaffective Disorder. In essence, this is Bipolar Disorder along with Schizophrenia, as Daniel's behaviors and thinking always have a bizarreness that isn't classic "mania"--where you'd typically see bizarreness mostly during manic stages. He was so disorganized, occasionally hostile and had such bizarre thinking that this seems like the correct diagnosis instead of Bipolar Disorder. His talking about demons and obsession with his own self-styled religion is just plain weird. Additionally, the hospital prescribing Haldol is indicative of a more severe thought disorder. Normally, with a Bipolar Disorder, they would prescribe antidepressants or Lithium--not a severe mind-altering drug like Haldol. Haldol is practically an elephant tranquilizer and patients on it often are somewhat zombie-like--and it's often given to violent and severely psychotic patients in emergency rooms.Late in the film, there was an emphasis on Daniel's artwork--not just his music. Despite many declaring it to be great, I found it fascinating because it gave great insight into Daniel's twisted vision of the world--with drawings of devils, monsters and a man whose head is cut in half (a representation of himself). Did I think it was "great"? No--far from it, but the insight it gave was incredible. And, at times, the claims others made about his greatness seemed a bit like hyperbole (saying he was the equal to Brian Wilson for example).A fascinating film that was well-constructed--using audio tapes, video, interviews and a few scenes of Daniel today. Well made and worth a look.

david-greene5 If, by some chance, you are not familiar with the old Hans Christian Anderson tale, "The Emperor's New Clothes", find a copy and read it before, during or after you view this film. As documentary film-making, I have no question that you have great effort, talent and craftsmanship here. The problem is that the infantile, artless work of the film's subject matter is unbelievably appalling and worthless. The real wonder of the show is the immense volume of praise and adulation that is heaped on the stuff by a great crowd of individuals of all imaginable types. This film strikes me as the most astounding portrait of some sort of mass psychosis ever made. How could all these people be so deluded. Perhaps poor Daniel Johnston would have fared better in life if his inartistic efforts had not been encouraged over the decades.

vincent-27 I don't know how to feel about this movie. A friend of mine recommended it and described as "life changing". She happens to a great musician and has similar challenges with life, as do I. I think there is a tendency to romanticize the mentally unbalanced artist. I couldn't help thinking of Kurt Cobain throughout this movie, even before I knew that Daniel influenced his music. Every decade is a reaction to the decade the preceded (or century, day, millennium, whatever) and the 90's was a reaction to the sickeningly sweet optimism and perkiness of the shiny 80's. The 90's was about angst and pain and suffering and ugliness. It seems Daniel was the poster child for these moping musicians.Now don't get me wrong, I've done my share of moping, and I am a musician but I fight it every single day, it is a useless state to be in, and yet people like Daniel and Kurt wallow in it every single day, they practically bathe in it. It's not healthy, as demonstrated by the death of Kurt and of Daniels many breakdowns. The people that glorify this pain are doing more harm than good. I think the ones that do have a romantic notion of emotional pain, they must not know it, truly know it, because unrequited love might make for good songs, but it's a shitty thing to happen, I can't actually think of anything worse emotionally. At least Daniel turned these feelings into somewhat happy music (which might be where the bittersweetness comes from, the sad lyrics over major chords).I guess beauty is in the eye of the beholder (perhaps that is where the eye obsession comes from) and I agree that a lot of his lyrics are quite brilliant "following my broken dreams" is one hell of a line. I have to say though that his art work I don't understand, I suppose it's supposed to match the lo-fi music, but I don't think it's very good.I guess if you are a fan of Daniel, this movie must be like a wet dream, similar to the Dogtown and Z-boys doc, which had buckets of archival footage, this movie has more archival footage and audio tapes than you could possibly hope for. It's almost as if Daniel was anticipating a film being made about him and was documenting his life in preparation. I feel as though these filmmakers are also probably big Cobain fans and probably secretly hoped that had such a treasure trove of his life. After seeing this movie I suddenly feel bad that I don't have similar archival material of my early days, in fact I recently through out a whole bunch of my early tapes I used to mail to my friend who lived in another city. Then again, I saved the good stuff, most of it wasn't any good.Is Daniel Johnston a genius? Well the filmmakers and his fans obviously think so. I can only think of all the brilliant musicians I know that are 100 times better who are playing in bars or in their basement and never get to Scandanavia or have music execs battle over them and give them dream recording contracts. It seems that the myth of Daniel is stronger than the actual person, who actually seems quite sad really, much like Kurt was. I am happy that he was able to move out of parents basement though (as revealed in the commentary) and able to buy a house. And he is still playing music, which is important.Oh well, i've run out of things to say. Pain is pain.

chrissyresides I watched this knowing that I am not a big fan of the music of Daniel Johnston, but found it ceaselessly moving and fascinating. No just because of Daniel's unstoppable creativity and heartbreaking slump into ever increasing circles of mental illness, but because of the honesty of people around him. Saying that they were scared, that they just wanted him to go to hospital and get better, the truth... I really thought this film would be a bog standard "worship the romantic tortured genius" thing, but it actually gave you a really authentic feeling of how terrifying and uncontrollable mental illness truly is. Also, let's see more Daniel Johnston cartoons, the bit with the eye ball flying out of the head on the stack of comic books was absolute genius.