Sundance: Day Five

Dave Calhoun waxes lyrical about documentary 'The Devil and Daniel Johnston'.

Jan 27 2005

Day five: Cult musician Daniel Johnston hits the big screen; and Time Out meets Jamie Bell, Thomas Vinterberg, Tilda Swinton and Mike Mills.

Sometimes, one event can make the entire trip to a far-flung film festival worthwhile. Monday night's screening at Sundance of Jeff Feuerzeig's music documentary 'The Devil and Daniel Johnston' achieved exactly that.

Daniel Johnston is a 43-year-old outsider singer-songwriter and manic depressive who has built a cult following since his early days in the mid-1980s performing in Austin, Texas while simultaneously holding down a day job at McDonald's.

Feuerzeig's compassionate film draws on Johnston's obsessive audio-taping of his life and work to tell us his extraordinary story, with interviews from his family and many who have known and worked with him over the past three decades.

The result is superb: a complex and balanced portrait that celebrates and reveals a character who has remained an enigma for years.

Johnston and his family, including his elderly parents, attended the film's premiere, watching Feuerzeig's documentary for the first time. They were clearly moved by the experience, remaining motionless in their seats as the rest of the audience filtered out.

Elsewhere at Sundance, Time Out caught up with some of the talent behind Thomas Vinterberg's 'Dear Wendy' and Mike Mills' 'Thumbsucker'.

Vinterberg, speaking with his star Jamie Bell ('Billy Elliot'), told Time Out of 'Dear Wendy' screenwriter Lars von Trier's influence on the film, which deals with issues of guns, violence and race.

'This film is all about the white man's feeling of inferiority when it comes to the black man. If you know Lars, you'll know that he's always going on about the size of our genitals and that kind of thing. Wait until you see his next film, 'Manderlay'. It deals strongly with issues of race.'

On the other side of town, director Mike Mills and star Tilda Swinton spoke about 'Thumbsucker', Mills' debut film as writer-director.

When Time Out commented on the pair's dapper look - Swinton eschewing snow gear and boots for a flowing skirt and high heels, and Mills wearing a trendy tie-and-jacket combo - Swinton couldn't agree more.

'Yes, we're the Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton of Sundance,' she laughed.

Elsewhere, there was a screening of 'Junebug', the debut film of director Phil Morrison and writer Angus MacLachlan, which is competing in the festival's American Dramatic section.

'Junebug' is a traditional and quiet film compared to some of the more flashy efforts screening at the festival. MacLachlan's mature play tells of a young man, George (Alessandro Nivola), who returns home to his religious family in rural Georgia with his new, distinctly urban wife, Madeleine (Embeth Davidtz).

The film intelligently explores conflicts between the city and the countryside, tradition and progress, family and work. It's a film to be admired for the quality of screenwriting alone.

Come back tomorrow for more reviews and news from Sundance. Also in tomorrow's report: why does every other American indie film that is screening here feature teenage sex and troubled youngsters?