Fallen Angel: Gram Parsons

2004
7.2| 1h30m| en
Details

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 - the Joshua Tree National Monument in the Californian desert. As the founder of the Flying Burrito Brothers, a member of the hit-making, legendary Byrds, an important influence on the Rolling Stones and the man who catapulted Emmylou Harris to fame, Gram Parsons made music history in only a few years. Friends, contemporaries and devotees of Gram Parsons talk about the importance of his work and the bizarre circumstances of his early death. Rare footage of his performances shows why Gram Parsons has become a legend. Interviewees include Gram's wife Gretchen, his sister and his daughter, Keith Richards, Emmylou Harris, Chris Hillman and "Road Manager" Phil Kaufman.

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Reviews

TrueJoshNight Truly Dreadful Film
Jeanskynebu the audience applauded
RyothChatty ridiculous rating
Merolliv I really wanted to like this movie. I feel terribly cynical trashing it, and that's why I'm giving it a middling 5. Actually, I'm giving it a 5 because there were some superb performances.
Twins65 ...and our green mohair suits (all the ex-Burritos and Fallen Angels, many who are not credited on the IMDb main details page for some reason), so please show your I.D. at the doorJust became aware of this great doc, and watched the whole thing online. I guess that makes this my first review on IMDb to come from a movie watched entirely on the internet. Wow, I really am slow to catch the trends.The producers really went deep to find people who knew Gram, especially from his formative years as a kid and as a Harvard "student". The interviewees from the LA years were also insightful. I learned a lot about the man, and knew he lived large because of his privileged background, but a $65,000/yr. trust fund in the late 60's would be quite a fund to stoke a party. Unfortunately, moderation never seemed to be a concept he grasped.Anyway, since we're now down to just one "Original Burrito" (Chris Hillman), I thought I'd bang out a little tribute to the group here, giving them a (very) belated thumbs up for some fine, under-appreciated work.P.S.-I was a little disappointed the two women featured on the cover of "The Gilded Palace of Sin" were not identified, only that they were models. Can anyone out there identify them for me, as I've been admiring them for years.
catchick I too wish there had been a little more depth in this movie. However, when my sister saw it at the screening at the Belcourt Theatre in Nashville, along with many of Gram's close friends and colleagues, she never heard anyone voice some of the complaints registered here.I think calling Gram "obnoxious" is too simplistic. He obviously had his obnoxious moments, but most highly creative people do. It's part of that artistic temperament you've heard tell of. However, I don't think most people could have registered the emotion they showed had Parsons merely been a gifted jerk. This is where the movie shines. The directors show some of the people who genuinely cared about Parsons as a person, and how his untimely death affected them.I understand the attempt to show Parsons as more than the very pretty face and voice idolized so often. I think the filmmakers wanted audiences to understand Ingram Parsons as a human being, a guy who had a lot of breaks in his life, but who also had a legion of demons chasing him. I actually found myself liking this man a lot by the end of the movie. Parsons was a basically nice, decent guy who had a lot of bad wiring, not the least of which included an inborn tendency to addiction. I felt incredible pity for him.I hope this movie spurs viewers to listen to Parsons' music and to appreciate the influence he had on popular music. If it does that, it has done its work well.
bailliemarti I already wrote a comment saying how i loved the movie Fallen Angel.I wrote what a drip Gretchen seemed compared to Emmylou. Gram had already left Gretchen, i have know doubt he would have ended up with Emmylou, they were meant for each other.The fact that Gretchen doesn't GET why Gram's body was taken out to the Joshua tree reinfects how little she knew the man. I do think that it could all have been handled better, the cremation should have been completed, but Gram's resting place will always be at the Joshua Tree, no matter what people like Gretchen and family members think.I don't understand why you didn't print my last comment. Not only does "Love Hurt", but i guess "Truth Hurts" too.Gretchen tried to make it seem that Gram had gone off to dry out, right, that's why he had drugs and a chick with him. He has already left Gretchen. If anything she drove him out rather than dried him out. Print the facts.
rustin-2 This is a slipshod documentary that is about as original and involving as an episode of VH1's Behind the Music. The production values are very poor, with much of the video footage shot erratically out the window of a moving car, and the editing is a clumsy, uninspired pastiche of quick pans and tilts across black and white still photos jarringly inter-cut with a relentless onslaught of meaningless talking heads (do we really need to hear from the girlfriend of Parson's manager or the best friend of Parson's dead stepfather?). We hear very little of Parson's music, most of which plays in the background under the interviews, and no one except Emmylou Harris manages to truly elucidate Parson's gifts as a singer and songwriter. Technically, the film is embarrassing, but it is even worse in its shameful final minutes, when it juxtaposes the bizarre circumstances of Parson's burial with the heartfelt grief of those who loved Parsons, and manipulates the audience into laughter when what we should be feeling is sadness. Fallen Angel is disrespectful of Gram Parsons' groundbreaking music, banal in its storytelling, and grotesquely insensitive to the people who knew and loved him.

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