Watch Fallen Angel: Gram Parsons For Free

Surprisingly incoherent and boring

It's a good bad... and worth a popcorn matinée. While it's easy to lament what could have been...

Blistering performances.

The movie really just wants to entertain people.

...and our green mohair suits (all the ex-Burritos and Fallen Angels, many who are not credited on the IMDb main details page for some reason), so please show your I.D. at the doorJust became aware of this great doc, and watched the whole thing online. I guess that makes this my first review on IMDb to come from a movie watched entirely on the internet. Wow, I really am slow to catch the trends.The producers really went deep to find people who knew Gram, especially from his formative years as a kid and as a Harvard "student". The interviewees from the LA years were also insightful. I learned a lot about the man, and knew he lived large because of his privileged background, but a $65,000/yr. trust fund in the late 60's would be quite a fund to stoke a party. Unfortunately, moderation never seemed to be a concept he grasped.Anyway, since we're now down to just one "Original Burrito" (Chris Hillman), I thought I'd bang out a little tribute to the group here, giving them a (very) belated thumbs up for some fine, under-appreciated work.P.S.-I was a little disappointed the two women featured on the cover of "The Gilded Palace of Sin" were not identified, only that they were models. Can anyone out there identify them for me, as I've been admiring them for years.

This film is a very special treasure to those who love Gram Parsons and his music. The director did a wonderful job with very old film and the lack of any on film interviews with the subject. The clips of performances that are seen are not up to modern standards but they are what is available and it was wonderful to see Gram performing even if they are not very clear or complete. The interviews with his wife Gretchen, daughter Polly, step-sister, and sister are all very moving. No one is denying that the marriage was in trouble but is is very clear from her obvious distress and tears (facelfts do not destroy the tear ducts) that she loved him very much. I also found the comments of Bob Parsons's friend very painful but very enlightening. We have the director to thank for the kind of research it took to obtain these first time interviews with the people in his life. Margaret Fisher was very courageous and heartbreaking to watch as she was interviewed about the last day of his life It was very clear that she to loved this young man who had been her friend from their teen years in Florida. On the musical side it was wonderful to hear from Keith, Emmylou, James Burton, and Chris Ethridge. Chris Hillman was also interviewed and gave his usual conflicted view of his feelings about Gram. The one fault with the film and it is huge is Phil Kaufman making a joke out of the tragic death and horrendous desecration of Gram's remains. It is heartbreaking to think of Gram(dead or alive)in this awful man's realm. The film is a tribute to this beautiful, self-destructive genius who did so much to give the world Cosmic American Music. If he had not left us way to soon one can only imagine what might have been.

A very worthwhile documentary about musician Gram Parsons of the Byrds and the Flying Burrito Brothers. Originally filmed for British and German television, the movie is a very detailed portrait of Parsons' life, albeit at arm's length—there would appear to be very little footage of Gram available, most of it performance clips, many of amateurish home movie quality. I don't recall even one shot of Gram on screen talking, although his voice is heard in a few sound snippets from an audio interview of indeterminate origin. The movie instead relies on extensive usage of still photographs and, most impressively, interviews with just about anyone still alive who was involved in Parson's life, including bandmates Chris Hillman and Emmylou Harris, Keith Richards, the surviving members of Gram's family, blustery former road manager Phil Kaufman who stole Gram's body at LAX and drunkenly drove it out to the desert and burned it, and even the girlfriend who checked into room number 8 at the Joshua Tree Inn with Parsons and watched him die of an overdose. The dynamics of Parsons' dysfunctional family and the impact it had on him are well documented, perhaps maybe a little too well documented, but the recollections of the musicians who played with him provide the most illuminating commentary on the allure and difficulties of Parsons' self-destructive talent. Overall, I had two main criticisms. One, the filmmakers' melodramatic animation of cartoon flames that rise from the bottom of the screen as Kaufman describes striking a match and throwing it into Parsons' gasoline soaked coffin—not to mention the aerial shot of a bonfire burning in the desert, obviously supposed to emblematic of Gram's burning corpse—is especially cheesy, and really tacky. But my larger complaint is that despite the effluent praise of Parsons' talent, the film never establishes a broader historical context for his musical accomplishments that would allow the casual viewer to understand why he was so important, which was that he almost single-handedly invented the genre of country-rock. Pamela Des Barres alludes to it somewhat when she describes Gram playing records by Lefty Frizzell and Willie and Waylon for her, turning her on to a rich, vibrant side of country music that most rock music fans were unaware of at the time. But with the Byrd's Sweetheart Of The Rodeo and his injection of flashy Nudie suit glam rock star attitude into his fairly traditional but definitely non-Nashville brand of country songwriting, he broke through to the rock crowd with an updated take on country music that paved the way for the Eagles and every country-rock outfit that followed. You maybe wouldn't quite understand how revolutionary that was from this film—some obscure family friends could've been replaced by a perceptive rock critic or two—but all in all it's a really good documentary.

Among the most fascinating and ultimately saddest stories in American popular music is the brief life and odd afterlife of Gram Parsons, one-time Byrd, Burrito Brother, quasi-Rolling Stone and inventor of the "cosmic American music" that became alt-country or Americana after his death. Fallen Angel: Gram Parsons, a UK-Germany television production that screened as part of the Portland Reel Music festival, is a feature-length documentary that explores Parsons' life and musical legacy with a host of the musicians and family members who knew him best. Director Gandulf Hennig — a small and hyperactive German — hosted the screening in Portland, and was clearly blown away by an audience queue that extended around the block, forcing a sold-out showing and emergency late-night screening for the remaining audience.What is clearest about the Parsons documentary is that everyone who knew him realized they were in the presence of genius - a completely self-destructive and obnoxious genius, but genius nonetheless. His most prominent musical partners, including Chris Hillman of the Byrds, Keith Richards of the Stones, and Emmylou Harris, testify so eloquently. But the same self-assured genius made Parsons almost completely unbearable as a musical, romantic, or family partner, and he tore down relationships that could have saved him and enriched music immeasurably, alienating himself from his most dedicated allies. It's also clear that in his abbreviated life, Parsons was able to play key roles in some of the most significant musical transformations of his era - taking the Byrds into proto-country, performing on the bill with the Stones at the disastrous concert at Altamont, bringing Emmylou Harris to national attention, and playing an active role in the rediscovery of American roots and country by the rock audiences of the time. Keef in particular expresses his remorse at playing with Parsons, recognizing his gifts and his talent, and not recognizing how Parsons' own habits and weaknesses were threatening his prospects to continue his musical growth (Mick Jagger, not interviewed here, is depicted as a far more competent professional who tried to encourage Parsons to take his career, health, and family life more seriously).I was never a huge Parsons fan; my knowledge of his musical legacy comes from the performances by other musicians of his songs. But seeing the old concert footage - from sophisticated live sets to ramshackle house jams - makes it clear that he was a true one-of-a-kind, with a gorgeous voice and spectacular physical beauty, coupled with songwriterly gifts that were just beginning to grow - before alcohol and drugs caused caused his eventual decline and death at the age of only 26.I'm much less interested in the morbid tale of Parson's afterlife - the theft of his corpse and his partial-cremation in the desert by a road manager. But as Peter Buck of R.E.M. says in the film, that sort of mystery explains a large part of his mystique.My only complaint about the documentary, which is incredibly detailed, loving, and sympathetic to both Parsons' survivors and his musical colleagues, is that the director puts too much emphasis into talking-head commentary and fails to show any complete performances, or any live footage longer than a minute or so long. Additionally, there were either very few interviews ever recorded with Parsons or Hennig chose not to include them. As a result it's harder to get a sense of how Parsons himself spoke or expressed himself.