Acensbart Excellent but underrated film

Kien Navarro Exactly the movie you think it is, but not the movie you want it to be.

Deanna There are moments in this movie where the great movie it could've been peek out... They're fleeting, here, but they're worth savoring, and they happen often enough to make it worth your while.

Candida It is neither dumb nor smart enough to be fun, and spends way too much time with its boring human characters.

tieman64 "Well, many of my songs, they aren't sad, they're hopeless." - Townes Van Zandt."I don't envision a very long life for myself. I think my life will run out before my work does, you know? I've designed it that way." - Townes Van Zandt.An amazing talent, with a bent for self-destruction, Townes was a unique and singular voice. This film reuses much footage from "Heartworn Highways", an arty documentary made in the 70s. It conveys the pain and self destructiveness that plagued Van Zandt and reveals that he was a manic depressive and alcoholic, facts which would not surprise anyone who listened to his work.The film focuses on the period between the late 70s and late 80s when Townes went into hiding. After producing a record called "7 Come 11" he literally vanished, refusing to release his music until 20 years later.The film is peppered with interviews with producers and song writers, many touting him as one of the greatest singer/poets since Dylan, who sadly, because of his suicidal tendencies, never achieved the superstar status he deserved.Townes inexplicable failure to promote himself and his music baffled the industry and pretty soon he began a downward spiral, creatively and personally. He'd play Russian roulette with a .357 Magnum, often talk about suicide, inexplicably avoid his family, stay up nights drinking and spent years locked away in a log cabin, away from the world.It seems that these "lost years" contributed to Van Zandt's decline, although one gets the sense that Townes didn't know what he was looking for or what he really wanted to achieve. He was an intelligent man, but his pain was just too much to warrant living. When questioned in an interview about what his goals were, it seems Townes had never thought about it (or didn't have any), and he struggles with the question until answering with a smile, "I would like to write a song that no one understands, including myself." It's a playful comment, until you see the look in his eyes and realise what he means. He'd like no one to understand or identify with the pain of his music, because sadly, to understand is to suffer too. As the film nears its end, the shocking transformation of Van Zandt into a skeletal alcoholic is particularly disturbing. His cheek bones protrude like shards of broken pottery, his guitar skills deteriorating and his voice becoming torn and melancholy.Van Zandt's music has been called folk and country, but on its deepest level it relates most comfortably to the blues. Over the past two years there's been a tremendous revival of interest in roots music. People initially turned to this music as a kind of protest against the childishness and soullessness of commercial, popular music. Then, after September 11th, roots music came to be associated with "Americana". A kind of cultural patriotism.A couple years later and scepticism and anger raises it's ugly head. "Americana" was suddenly bad, and the old vanguard of roots music, those angry anti establishment folk guys like Dylan are suddenly popular again.Zandt never had a revival. Aside from the Coen brothers using his song in "Lebowski" and paying homages in "O brother where art thou?", he's still relatively unheralded and unheard of. Like Van Gogh, he seems a tortured artist doomed to slow appreciation. One of those masters who, though hugely influential, remains remembered by only those in the industry. But at his best, Van Zandt is songwriter who could rival anyone. There is nothing cute, celebratory or charmingly old-timey about him. Far from reassuring, his songs are as unsettling as they come. And as one producer says in this documentary, "if you're serious about American music, eventually you're going to have to enter this darkness." 8/10- Great artists are sensitive people, permanently attuned to the world. Townes Van Zandt lived a tortured life, his music reaching depths few writers are able to plunge. I'm not a huge fan of country music or blues, but even I found this documentary to be quietly adventurous, visually poetic and emotionally devastating. "Be here to love me" is a sad meditation on the darkness and beauty of Van Zandt's life and the collateral damage such a life can have on those who live it with you.

Stavros_the_Sheep There is some great coverage of Townes Van Zandt, both interviewed and in performance, but the film fails to get under the skin of the man. His obsessively egotistical approach to his life, work and play (at the expense of his wives and children) is simply accepted for what it was and there is very little speculation as to whether it was Townes' background or something intrinsic in the make up of great musicians that made him thus. It might have been interesting to compare him to other singer-songwriters from similar backgrounds who have followed the same path (Woody Guthrie immediately springs to mind). What we have is some nice archival commentary and some rather fulsome comments from his friends, but you come away not feeling you know Townes any better than you did before.The most touching comment comes from his younger son, who chokes as he tells us that tuned into his fathers music, immediately turned his back on rap and found a new perspective on both his father and his own musical understanding. I almost expected him to say "I have put away childish things".One more niggle, but it is a complaint I have about the filming of guitar players generally - why do the directors never focus on the fingers? You get at most a couple of bars and then they cut away to a facial expression or to a mid-shot of the band. More guitar-playing directors needed I think.

Chris Knipp The straightforward title signals a straightforward piece of work: Be There to Love Me is a documentary about singer-songwriter Townes van Zandt. He's the kind of guy who looks real cool at first, but when you learn about how he lived and what he went through and put other people through, he doesn't seem so cool.Be that as it may, Van Zandt wrote wonderful songs, poetic and sad, blues and country, and Kris Kristofferson called him "a songwriter's songwriter." His life was a strange mixture from the start. He was depressed and sniffed glue as a young teenager: the glue wrecked his teeth, aside from what it did to his brain. He was also an athlete, wrestling, baseball, football, and he was a handsome lean man who never got wide or lost his hair. His depression caused him to throw himself off a roof and his mother wanted to do something, so she had him sent to a hospital around Memphis where he got insulin shock treatments. This is something his mother regretted till her dying day. It took away all Townes's childhood memories and robbed him of a chunk of his personality. When he talks, you feel that something's missing. There's a distance, as if he's watching himself, as if he's not quite there. And he isn't.Van Zandt remained gloomy and wrote about death in his songs, He drank and did drugs, but also went on the road – an act of self destruction but also an act of self denial, paring down to be creative – to write songs and sing them. Eventually he became quite well known, traveled with a little crew, and famous singers did covers of his songs, including Willie Nelson and Emmylou Harris. He died of heart failure at 52. He had three wives and I think one daughter and two sons.This documentary uses a lot of old footage, even of Townes as a young child. His family was pretty well off – which he is said to have regretted, because his songs are of the poor, lonely, and hopeless. This documentary achieves a kind of truth even though there is little that is distinctive about it but the songs. As a good documentary should, it serves its subject humbly.

brendan_ocuin I went to see this film with a limit knowledge of the mans music and next to nothing on the life of the man. This film give a great look into a songwriter that has the ability to put into word, what many people will fail to feel in their lifetime. The mix of footage from the Townes own home footage to live performances and interviews with the people who know him make the whole experience a full one and as you leave you will understand how unique he was, his talent was and his effect on people. The film has been made is such a way that it provides a full spectrum into the life. You will both laugh and feel sorrow at the events that made up the life of Townes Van Zandt. A must see for music lovers.....