[yasr_overall_rating]
A reimagining of the life and times of Blaze Foley, the unsung songwriting legend of the Texas Outlaw Music movement.
Infrequently do I stumble across a gem with little visible presence until last night. “Blaze” being the one movie I knew literally nothing about (other than Ethan Hawke directed it) proved a perfect surprise. Now, I’m not a master of country music. I know enough about the legends, the Greats, to respect their place in culture. Given my Texas roots, I have nothing but appreciation for the Outlaw Country greats: Willie Nelson, Merle Haggard, Townes Van Zandt, Kris Kristofferson, and some of the OG’s Johnny Cash or George Strait. As cosmopolitan as I am, I know plenty about these legends to respect their legacy. So, imagine my surprise when I watched this film about one of the hidden greats: Blaze Foley. Except, no mere biopic, this movie portrays both the mercurial and jovial sides to a poet whose self-destructive tendencies prevented him from joining the ranks of Outlaw Country.
Blaze Foley is a simple man. A former member of his traveling singing family, with aspirations to sing the blues for a living, we follow his journey from simple handyman to aspiring musician to recording artist and finally, to his fall. The story plays to use through three different narrative threads. In one thread, Townes Van Zandt and another bandmate of Blaze’s discuss his life, another shows us the true life Blaze Foley lived, and the last thread portrays his last day alive (where he recorded a live album at the Austin Outpost.) It is this careful weaving of all three threads (stitched together very intentionally with Foley’s music) that makes each piece so cohesive and emotionally resonant.
I listened to Ethan Hawke and Ben Dickey (the main actor) discuss the process in a live Q&A after the movie. Ethan explained, “I was interested in the idea of the way that the past, the present, and the future intersect with each other. [. . .] [Editing] was extremely long for the scale of the movie that we’re on. [. . . ] I started collecting more and more footage and so I had this thing, where I’m like, ‘well, I’ll probably cut that out. Cause that – One of these scenes won’t work and I’ll have to cut ‘em out and this editor, this amazing editor that I found just lost his marbles going down the rabbit hole. He was like ‘This scene is so good this HAS to be-be in the movie.’ I had to be the one to start going ‘Buddy we can’t put everything in the movie we have to figure this out.” From Hawke’s description, they did not set the script in stone (and he never hired a script supervisor) so what he ended with is a collection of beautiful moments that needed to be strung together. The tale we get presented with shows us the genius of the editor.
The entire movie rests on Ben Dickey’s large shoulders and he succeeds in profoundly moving us. I hope he continues to act because his talent is a gift. Perhaps he’s a little lucky in that his natural accent plays like a thinned out country accent or that he’s musically gifted so his performance never feels stilted and all the songs he plays in the movie are his covers of Blaze Foley songs. Hawke mentioned planning to always have powerful actors in scenes with the non-actors so they would have someone to cling to. Alia Shawkat deserves her own award for bringing Sybil Rosen to life in such an honest and realistic way. You know how they say acting is listening? Honest to God, Alia and Ben are listening to each other and impacting each other. Ben’s gentle giant gets more screen time than the angry drunk Blaze Foley also represented, but in the scenes where he’s mean, the camera never flinches from his duality. Ben Dickey’s ability to be sad, melancholic, humorous, blissful, wisened, disheartened, heartbroken, mean and drunk brings gravitas and raw emotion to this movie.
This movie feels less concerned with accuracy than it is with myth-making and that’s perfectly okay. As Townes Van Zandt eulogizes his best friend, we compare the legends he tells to the genuine recollections and we, as an audience, recognize Van Zandt’s recollections are fables. They may be dishonest, but Van Zandt is clearly trying to eulogize his friend as a caricature to make him the legend he always wanted to be. It’s an act of love, Van Zandt (played beautifully by Charlie Sexton) lying about Blaze’s intentions. This movie toes the line between legend and truth. Sybil’s account of their marriage, divorce, and subsequent friendship details the inner workings and darker aspects of Blaze Foley. His frequent bar fights, his utter drunkenness, and his poet’s spirit do not blend well together. We’re there to witness it all.
Plenty of movies, stories, tv shows, and more defy genius and its dark sacrifice. Often great geniuses (like Steve Jobs) get portrayed as sacrificial lambs, victims of their own genius. “Blaze” isn’t interested in that. In our third narrative strand, Blaze’s guilt and melancholy ring clearly in the Austin Outhouse. He burned out too quickly to truly shine, but by his own hand did he fall. What we’re left in the end is an honest portrayal of a human being possessed with greatness and trapped by his own demons.
A beautifully lensed film, sparse in its production design (intentionally so) every element of the movie sings none more so than its editing. Ethan Hawke found a great performer in Ben Dickey and a great story in Blaze Foley. With such honest emotions and strong impressions, the movie bounces from scene to scene, rebounding in emotional honesty. Novelty cameos like Sam Rockwell, Richard Linklater, and Kris Kristofferson abound (due in part to Hawke’s connections) enriching the film that much more. I heartily recommend as an antidote to overbudgeted, bloated films with too much story to tell. I highly recommend in theaters. I recommend at home. I recommend for adults (probably not for kids) for the craft of all involved. Congratulations Ethan Hawke! This one’s a good one!
In select theaters Friday, August 24th
