the devil and daniel johnston – this may take awhile cos i have a lot to say that or i will pussy out and delete it all. the sony site for dadj.
anyway this kid is like an artistic genius so much so that it’s spooky and he’s growing up christian and the one kid in the family that’s shunning it. there’s something not right about him but over time people come to accept his weirdness as normal for him and that’s just the way it is. he makes little movies about his life and incessantly draws and records music. he documents EVERYTHING. he is not a good singer nor is he a bad one, his timing is off but somehow it sounds right the way he sings the stop start enunciations and the terrible guitar playing. but it’s the lyrics and words he comes up with that’s truly what he is all about and made possible by way of his manic depressive psychosis.
to which i also suffer.
well i’m not psychotic anymore but i was and so this film just tore me the fuck up in a nodding my head every three seconds way, covering my eyes and ears and i can’t even blink.
when you have an artistic genius for whom’s ego is stroked and they are severely depressed you have to treat them with kid gloves, you cannot allow their brilliance to take the better of them or you and unfortunately this is what everyone in daniel johnston camp did, let the unbalanced one behind the wheel cos they were just digging him so much and who can blame them?
he was on many different pills, and many of them didn’t work. i think he might be bipolar but obviously there was something else going on. it’s hard to pinpoint it when you’re watching him create masterpiece after masterpice in front of your eyes however if he hadn’t of had the previous body of work, the tapes and shit i doubt people would have considered the manic babblings and drawings to be art, to be anything other than complete nuts.
psychotic breakdowns typically are referential, meaning, when i lost my mind i was fixated upon the taliban and drug dealers and snipers, anything stressful that has happened to you previously all comes out in the wash of a nervous breakdown – daniel johnston’s fixation was the devil and god which came from his christian upbringing and is very common in breakdowns. you get the i am a messenger of christ complex and sometimes it never goes away and can be pretty scary.
you may know someone who has suffered a delusional psychosis or might in the future so i dunno, don’t be afraid just prepare yourself, somewhere inside they are still there, just recognize the signs as they come so you can get them the help they need.
see this film. just see it.
