Wow! Such a good movie.

Plenty to Like, Plenty to Dislike

It’s not bad or unwatchable but despite the amplitude of the spectacle, the end result is underwhelming.

The tone of this movie is interesting -- the stakes are both dramatic and high, but it's balanced with a lot of fun, tongue and cheek dialogue.

In 1950, Hank's wife got pregnant. Unbeknown to him, she had an abortion at home, and ended up in the hospital. As he tried to express his concern and love for her, she scornfully threw him out. In response to his hurt, he proceeded to write a song. That song was "Cold, Cold Heart".In the film's second half, in B&W archival footage, he sings two full verses. It's the best segment in a fine documentary about the short life of country-western singer-songwriter Hank Williams, a life that had more than its fair share of grief and heartache.The film starts out with his funeral in 1953, followed by standard bio coverage, including his Southern roots and childhood poverty, his initial success on the Louisiana Hayride radio program, and his stormy relations with The Grand Old Opry in Nashville. Perhaps most fascinating is his even stormier marriage and attendant romantic entanglements. The film contains lots of interviews. And it's clear that his turbulent personal relations exacerbated his heavy, binge drinking that undeniably contributed to his early death. Archival footage shows an adult Hank, only 29 years old, looking more like he's 49.As I was watching this documentary, it occurred to me that I don't think I have ever seen a picture of Hank Williams without a hat on. In this bio, there is at least one photo of him, hatless. Looks very different. Certainly, with that cowboy hat, and strumming his guitar, this lanky, gawky guy created an identifiable mystique, and proved to be a talent who not only could write heartfelt songs but could sing them too. What a voice!"Legends don't look like legends when they're being made", comments friend and fellow performer Danny Dill. But in his short life Hank Williams touched an emotional cord during a period in America when common, down-home folks had not yet fully recovered from the Great Depression. His heartfelt songs expressed what they were feeling inwardly.I could have wished for more uninterrupted Hank Williams stage performances. But nevertheless, this is a fine bio, one that will appeal to viewers, like me, who like country-western music, and to viewers who like learning about the lives of famous people.

Mid way through this bio on the greatest C&W singer songwriter of the 20th Century one of the Driftin' Cowboys (band members) mentions that "Legends in the making don't seem like legends". Hank Williams meteoric rise and fall at age 29 working outside the maximum exposure arenas of Hollywood and New York left a scant amount of material and archival footage for the makers of this documentary to assemble; but they have done an admirable job in putting together the most credible visual bio on this legendary superstar whose music 55 years later is still covered by major recording artists.The self destructive Williams may not have gotten past high school, read War and Peace or Shakespeare but the songs he wrote and warbled with that vulnerable voice (a combination of Acuff and Tubbs) spoke to a vast audience, not only down South but throughout the world. Not bad for a simple country boy. Williams like Presley was heavily influenced by black blues singers, hooking up in the segregated south with a black street musician who also tutored him. First making it big at the Hayloft Jamboree in Shreveport, Louisiana and then onto the Grand Old Opry in Nashville. Hank had his demons however and he wore out his welcome at both venues before he himself wore out and died on New Year's day in 53.Writer/Director Morgan Neville working with grainy home movies, rare stills and TV footage of Williams performing interspersed with anecdotes of a multitude of Driftin' Cowboys, friends, fellow performers and a very frank widow does a fine job of fleshing out the legend. It's a tragic tale that Neville deftly avoids from becoming overbearingly morose by playing good chunks of Williams tunes and balancing the difficult times with the carefree. Watching Hank perform Hey Good Lookin' on stage is nothing else if not life re-affirming.

It is very disappointing to see promising and intriguing material wasted with bad structure, a poor script, and amateurish production. Documentarians have to work with a wide range of materials, both in quantity and quality. The filmmakers have used poor contemporary footage over and over in an attempt to somehow disguise the fact that their cleverness and imagination failed them.Hank Williams was an extremely interesting personality. His influence on country music alone, makes the potential for a great story. However, the documentary's structure is unclear -- gaps in public knowledge left gaping holes in the film. A skillful filmmaker would have been able to overcome this and tell a complete story.All in all, a potentially fine subject squandered on poor production.

The positives about this piece are that the film makers have produced a document of interviews with surviving relatives and band members of an important artist, dead now for over 50 years.For anyone with an interest in Hank Williams there are plenty of interesting insights and a picture of a complex and unknowable figure emerges.On the downside much of the contemporary footage is sufficiently low resolution, certainly on the projection at the London Film Festival, that it doesn't stand up to the blow up from TV to cinema and looks blocky and blurred.The film makers struggle manfully with a difficult subject with only partial success. The director indicated at the screening that the subject had perhaps not already been tackled due to the dearth of footage of Williams and this is possibly the greatest problem.The film is structured around William's career through tracing his movements around a map and this serves to accentuate the impression of the movie as charting the steps towards his eventual demise, age 29, in the back of a car on his way to a concert.In conclusion the film is strangely sterile - the lasting impression is of a vital and fascinating figure lost to us, remembered only in shreds of memory and scraps of film and paper. These bits and pieces do not remain in sufficient quantity for an engaging piece of film to be woven from them in the manner that this documentary attempts.This noted the film is competently made and for anyone interested in Williams it is worth a look.