Entertainment

Cult Movie: Poetic doc about troubled musician

Heaven Adores You: A Film About the Life And Music Of Elliott Smith
Heaven Adores You: A Film About the Life And Music Of Elliott Smith Heaven Adores You: A Film About the Life And Music Of Elliott Smith

Heaven Adores You

THE classic rock documentary is going through something of a golden age right now.

Just a few weeks ago in this very column I was singing the praises of Amy, that heartbreaking glance at the doomed world of Amy Winehouse.

Last week I had the pleasure of hosting a Q&A at the QFT with Wes Orshoski, director of Don’t You Wish We Were Dead, a splendid new doc tracing the rough and ready world of The Damned, while over the past few months we’ve been treated to fine explorations of everyone from Kurt Cobain to Nina Simone.

Now the name of Elliott Smith can be added to the list or artists whose difficult lives have been reinterpreted via the documentary maker’s viewfinder. Heaven Adores You: A Film About the Life And Music Of Elliott Smith is, much like the troubled songwriter himself, a dark and moving exploration of a musical life less ordinary.

What director Nickolas Dylan Rossi delivers may not satisfy everyone who’s been touched by the oddly fragile music of Smith and it leaves many of the great questions about his all-too-brief life hanging defiantly at the end but it still retains the power to enlighten and enthral.

The dramatic arc of Smith’s story is well known. A self-absorbed, if beautifully melodic, songwriter with a troubled past is thrown into the upper levels of stardom thanks to his songs being used on the movie soundtrack to Good Will Hunting.

From there he finds he loathes everything to do with showbiz, unravels spectacularly before taking his own life at just 34. It’s a depressingly familiar rock and roll story but that's why the freshness on show in Heaven Adores You is doubly impressive.

Far from a straightforward telling of a great natural talent scrubbed away via lifelong battles with depression, addiction and aversion to the falsehoods of fame, this is a woozy, graceful and often touching film. Told with long rambling swathes of audio unwinding naturally as images of trains and tower blocks fill the screen, it’s as much a tone poem as a classic rock film and it’s all the better for that.

The images of the three significant areas in Smith’s life (Portland, New York and LA) tower bleakly over the words of the man himself and the cumulative effect is heartbreaking at times.

The archive moments of Smith making demos of his songs, performing on radio shows and talking quietly about his life are balanced out with an impressive array of interviewees. It’s effective if far from all inclusive. There isn’t much about the singer’s abusive father and even his suicide is rather brushed over without much analysis, while his issues with drug addiction aren’t dwelt upon either.

Some may find such omissions odd but, at its core, this film is from the heart and comes over as a lovingly crafted and deeply affecting portrait of a man incapable of living with the fame that his beautiful art brought to him.