My first exposure to country music was at three years old, I believe. The Dukes of Hazzard became the preferred television programming of my brother, then two, and myself. There were bar fights, pretty girls, and of course flying cars; one orange ’69 Dodge Charger in particular caught our attention, it had it’s own horn song when the tires left the planet. Upon viewing the show for the first time, we knew this was our kind of entertainment, that this was what our lives were meant to replicate, and that the indomitable spirit of The Dukes was in us as well. Every week, as The Dukes of Hazzard started up, a rather notable Balladeer would sing to our young and open hearts, and we’d sit—bursting with the excitement—absorbing the power, wisdom and inherent mischief in his words:
Just the good ol’ boys,
Never meaning no harm,
Beats all you never saw,
Been in trouble with the law
Since the day they were born.
Straightening the curves,
Flattening the hills,
Someday the mountain may get ‘em
But the law never will.
Making their way
The only way they know how,
That’s just a little bit more
Than the law will allow.
--Waylon Jennings
My exposure to Country Music has grown considerably since those young and innocent days, I’ve followed my calling to many a bar fight, courted more than a few pretty ladies, and spent much of my youth driving cars ferocious distances, in place of jumping cars ferocious distances. But believe me, I will jump a car. Most likely I’ll have a stunt driver do it and I’ll be filming it, but there will be a Producers cut with a certain familiar car horn once the vehicles’ tires have left the ground.
That’s the impact one Country and Western song had on me. Just one. And there are millions out there, and plenty of good ones at that. So who are the men that write these songs? Where do they come from, what inspires them, and what becomes of them when the mountain does get them? Crazy Heart will show you.
Bad Blake, played by Jeff Bridges, is shit out of luck. He’s had his day, written his great songs, and been left at the bowling alley to rot. He drinks tremendous amounts of whiskey, sleeps with down n’ out grandmothers, eats from Styrofoam containers, chain smokes, drives hundreds of miles for low rent gigs, and swaggers drunk through it all. He’s 57 with ten dollars in his pocket. He’s done.
Jeff Bridges plays this beautifully. A charismatic, feisty, aged country star, with all his failures on his back, it’s a good study of talent and whiskey. Bridges sings and plays guitar in this movie, and his guitar playing and picking lend the movie some of its most brilliant shots. There’s no faking here. Bridges embraced the role. When Bad drinks too much, you believe it. When he comes to in the mornings, liver-heart-lungs shot to hell, you see the hangover in his eyes. And when he falls in love with Jean Craddock, you fall with him. Ms. Maggie Gyllenhaal is so good in this film, so good. Her happiness and sadness are absolutely tangible.
After seeing the epic and fantastic Avatar and the lousy Sherlock Holmes recently, it was nice to get back to basics. To see a small movie with real story, with real humanity, with real hope. And the music. Man. That alone is reason enough to see it. Music makes the world turn. Anyone who tells you different never listened close enough. And that’s what this movie is all about. Listening.
