Daniel Johnston recorded songs on cheap cassettes, drew strange comic-book creatures, and gave it to anyone who would take it. Then Kurt Cobain started wearing one of his T-shirts.
Thanks to Daphne Gomez from Jay Clouse’s The Lab for pointing this one out.
Trailer for “The Devil And Daniel Johnston”
You Can’t Make This Sh!t Up
- In 1990, Daniel pulled the key out of a small plane his father was flying and threw it out the window. Daniel believed he was Casper the Friendly Ghost. His dad managed to crash-land the plane in trees. Somehow, both survived.
- Daniel was offered a major record deal by Elektra Records. He turned it down because Metallica was on Elektra and Daniel believed the band was working with Satan.
- Daniel was arrested after drawing hundreds of Christian fish inside the Statue of Liberty. Years later, his drawings would hang in major galleries and be collected as serious art.
Watch “The Devil And Daniel Johnston”
You can stream “The Devil And Daniel Johnston” on Prime Video and Apple TV.
Ratings:
- My Rating: 90/100
- IMDB Rating: 7.9/10
- Rotten Tomatoes Ratings: 91/100 (Users); 88/100 (Critics)
Director’s Note: Jeff Feuerzeig directed this 110-minute documentary. He built the doc from Daniel’s huge personal archive. It won the Documentary Directing Award at Sundance.
Release Date: January 2005 (Sundance Film Festival); March 31, 2006 (U.S. theatrical release)
Other Unique Stuff
- He would give copies of his tapes to people around Austin. If he ran out, he sometimes re-recorded the whole album rather than simply duplicating the original cassette.
- Daniel’s songs sound simple at first. Then you hear the lyrics. Love, rejection, death, God, Satan and his own fears keep coming back.
- A huge part of Daniel’s songwriting revolves around Laurie Allen, a woman he fell deeply in love with. His obsession with Laurie continued long after their relationship had ended.
- Daniel’s mental illness became more severe as his fame grew. Religious images that had always appeared in his work turned into terrifying beliefs about Satan and demons.
Wrap Up:
“The Devil And Daniel Johnston” is one of those docs where the stories keep getting darker, stranger and more fascinating. It’s a great music doc, but it’s really about what happens when extreme creativity and severe mental illness live inside the same person.
Thanks for reading!
Heather Fenty, Guest Writer, Daily Doc