"Be Here to Love Me": Townes Van Zandt remains an enigma
Both frustrating and touching, "Be Here to Love Me: A Film About Townes Van Zandt" is an overly impressionistic documentary portrait of the Texas singer-songwriter whose cult following and respect from other artists has increased since his sad death in 1997.
Filmmaker Margaret Brown takes a jigsaw-puzzle approach to piecing together a view of the man from the personal experiences and perspectives of others, including Van Zandt's children and composer-singers Steve Earle, Kris Kristofferson and Willie Nelson.
But unlike most documentaries about elusive musicians and their lives and times, Brown's movie doesn't offer essential conclusions about what drove Van Zandt's work, his periodic depressions or his specific and lasting influence on music culture.
In fact, those omissions in "Be Here to Love Me" seem deliberate, as if Brown dubiously decided it was more fitting to let Van Zandt's legacy speak, for better or worse, through evidence of the joy and pain he left others. And, yes, it speaks through his music as well, though that could be more generously and critically represented here for viewers unfamiliar with Van Zandt's often beautiful songs.
Born in 1944 to an affluent family in Fort Worth, Texas, Van Zandt had a problematic childhood, including glue-sniffing and a shocking stunt in which he intentionally dropped from a four-story window. (The lanky, cowboy-ish Van Zandt personally describes the event, and much else, through archival interviews.)
Subjected to insulin shock therapy, Van Zandt's memory was wiped clean by the sessions, and he had to reacquaint himself with the details of his life. That was one of several times Van Zandt's very existence was reinvented in a wholesale way. Later, inspired by the likes of Lightnin' Hopkins and Bob Dylan, he dropped out of ordinary living to pursue the rough path of an American troubadour.
Van Zandt's recording output was prodigious, though he never had a hit. Still, others — including Nelson, Emmylou Harris and Norah Jones — have kept his reputation alive, even if the toll of the road and tragic personal burdens weakened his own hold on the world.
As easy as it is to appreciate the effort of "Be Here to Love Me," it would have been nice to come away with a clear idea of what made Van Zandt tick.
Tom Keogh: tomwkeogh@yahoo.com
"Be Here to Love Me: A Film About Townes Van Zandt," a documentary with Townes Van Zandt, Willie Nelson, Steve Earle, Kris Kristofferson, Emmylou Harris. Directed by Margaret Brown. 99 minutes. Not rated; for mature audiences (contains drug references and adult themes). Northwest Film Forum.