I Love Country Music
Movie:
Crazy Heart
Date Posted:
Feb 06, 2010
Critic Rating:
10/10
Director:
Scott Cooper
Release Date:
Dec 16, 2009
Review:
CRAZY HEART
Written and Directed by Scott Cooper
Produced by Scott Cooper, T-Bone Burnett, Judy Cairo, Rob Carliner, and Robert Duvall
Based on the novel, “Crazy Heart” by Thomas Cobb
Director of Photography – Barry Markowitz
Music – Stephen Bruton and T-Bone Burnett
Distributed by Fox Searchlight Pictures
Starring:
Jeff Bridges
Maggie Gyllenhaal
Also starring:
Colin Farrell
Robert Duvall
Paul Herman
Ryan Bingham and the Dead Horses
I Love Country Music
… And I’m not being sarcastic. A long time ago, when I was attending Los Angeles City College, I took a drama class. One of our assignments was to write down different things about ourselves; what we liked, didn’t like, our favorite pastime, etc, etc. One of my dislikes was extreme avant garde movies and country music. Being the well-rounded person I purported to be, this dislike was most uncharacteristic.
I can only attribute my distain for country music to my lack of knowledge of the music genre. Fast forward about 4 years later and not much has changed except for my broadening artistic landscape. Now, that landscape includes country music. I have not gone out to buy a Hank Williams album just to look musically important. And I did not buy Johnny Cash when he was all the rage a few years ago. Oh, and when everyone was buying the soundtrack to O’ Brother Where Art Thou, I chose not to because I did not want to get on the Bluegrass bandwagon. To me only a true country enthusiast loves the music; everyone else can appreciate the music.
Crazy Heart is the story of country music has-been Bad Blake, seamlessly played by Jeff Bridges, who is battling alcohol addiction, chain smoking, and all around bad health. Mere minutes into the movie Blake has already smoked about 5 cigarettes and downed a bottle of bourbon.
Blake is an overweight, grouchy, shell of a man with his best years far behind him. But, he is a musician and no matter how far he must travel in his atrocious 1978 SUV down the sullen sun-baked highways of the southwest; no matter how many dives he has to play in small irreverent towns, Bad Blake will play his gig. He will play his gig completely sauced, sick, and on less than a couple hours of sleep, to a small room full of hicks just as much past their prime as he is.
If he were in any other profession he would be dead. Forgotten - an ant on a mole-hill undistinguishable from the rest. Somehow, though, the music keeps him alive and keeps him living another day.
Though his career is on the skids there are people who love and respect him. He gets special treatment from a store clerk and sexual advances from woo-be-gone women. This is because despite his deficiencies he is the real deal. A lone performer still capable of eliciting passion and emotion blessed with the ability to convey his pain through song.
In his slumber he meets Jean Craddock, (Maggie Gyllenhaal) a writer from a Santa Fe newspaper, who wants to do a story about him. He is immediately struck by her youth and beauty – a throwback to what he once was – and the two fall in love.
Blake’s agent Jack Greene, played by Paul Herman, scores a big gig, in Phoenix, with Blake’s old protégé, and nemesis, Tommy Sweet, played by a now sober and fine Colin Farrell. Tommy Sweet is younger and hotter he represents the new more commercialized country music industry. Sweet’s performances are cardboard – he is a facsimile of the real thing. But he has a tremendous amount of respect for Blake. And this respect gets Blake an opportunity to jump start his moribund career.
With new prospects Blake seems to be on the right track. He is in a healthy relationship and his agent is returning his calls. But, of course, Blake finds a way to screw it up. And he does.
One of the things I like about this film is that Blake does not become a victim of his affliction. Crazy Heart is not the typical story of the great musician who is all consumed by the demons of childhood and a debilitating drug problem. This film is about a man who falls down, picks himself up, dusts himself off and keeps going. No, he does not get what he wants but that’s okay.
Even though the film does not go into detail about the events that led Blake to his current state, it doesn’t have to. The film is about Blake in the present. As a groupie said to him, “I think you are better now than you were then.”
Crazy Heart isn’t just the story of one man with a guitar trying to get his proverbial “grove back”; it’s more about the talented men and women who fell by the wayside. It is the story of talented people who are always one song away from greatness people whose musical voices have been stymied for one reason or another.
This film actually reminds me of my Dad, a musician, blessed with the gift of song no matter how screwed up. Life happens, bad decisions are made and through time years of resentment, abandonment and regret start to pile up. The one saving grace is the music just as pure and unspoiled as a newborn baby.
Jeff Bridges embodies Bad Blake so much so that it is as if he isn’t even acting. Maggie Gyllenhaal is excellent as a single mother struggling to raise her son and find love. Robert Duvall is good as well, playing a father figure to Blake. And if that is not enough the audience is delighted with a wonderful country music score by Stephen Bruton and T-Bone Burnett and a touching theme song written by Ryan Bingham.
First time writer-director Scott Cooper does a good job of constructing and delivering a simple tale of being down but never out. His direction is precise yet natural and fluid. Cooper works with some great actors who made his job just a bit easier. And the actors respond well to their director never veering into musical cliché territory.
Ah, yes. How I love movies. God bless country music.
Quote of the Day
"If one is not enjoying one's present, there isn't a great deal to suggest that the future should be any better." -George
A Single Man