San Antonio Express-News (Sunday)
Documentary digs into the life of Guy Clark
As planned, Tamara Saviano’s film “Without Getting Killed or Caught” debuted at the South by Southwest Film Festival. Admittedly, the documentary about legendary songwriter Guy Clark arrived one March later than expected, screening at the online festival, which began Tuesday.
But such is the nature of labors of love during a pandemic: After spending several years and $650,000 to make the film, Saviano last year decided to pull it back and release it when she felt she could more confidently recoup costs for her investors and get the film to the broadest possible audience.
So having made its festival debut, “Without Getting Killed or Caught” can be seen for a more modest ticket price during a series of special screenings that begin this week. They will feature an introduction by Saviano and Q&A’s with musicians such as Rodney Crowell, Sarah Jarosz and Steve Earle. The first is Tuesday.
After the series of virtual events, the movie will have an outdoor screening in Austin on May 19 before its worldwide ondemand release at the end of May.
To talk to Saviano about the film, which she co-directed with her husband, video operator Paul Whitfield, is to find two complicated tales tangled together. There’s the documentary’s content, a continuation of work she did writing Clark’s biography several years ago. The songwriter — capable of being both gruff and tender — insisted both present the bad with the good in his thorny life and career.
Saviano similarly had a hot/ cold relationship with the film. It was a sentimental project, but it also produced a series of headaches, some of which linger.
“I have no problem talking about that side of it; I will not shy away,” she said. “If anybody wants to make a film, I’m here to tell you, please know the reality of it. If I knew what I know now before going in, there’s no (expletive) way I’d have done this. Not a chance.”
An undiscovered life
Among the greatest snares particular to a music documentary is the sea of music licensing,
footage licensing, publishing fees, musician’s union fees and photo fees. The scroll of minutia requiring permissions and payments is extensive. While some Clark fans want a DVD of the film, pressing and distributing a physical copy of “Without Getting Killed or Caught” would cost Saviano another $80,000.
“I don’t have any more money,” she said. “If I get all my investors paid back, we can think about that.”
So why all the fuss for a musician whose broad name recognition remains a murmur?
Well, that’s part of the point of “Without Getting Killed or Caught.” Clark’s renown grew in his last years — he died in 2016 at age 74 — but he remains a fringe figure in the history of country music, even though he’s widely considered one of the great songwriters of the past 100 years. “Without Getting Killed or Caught” serves as a soulful introduction to a songwriter who never made concessions in his stories in exchange for success.
Clark was a hero and mentor to writers, such as Rodney Crowell,
Lyle Lovett and Steve Earle, who found wider renown. He had songs covered by Brad Paisley, Ricky Skaggs, Kenny Chesney and numerous other stars.
In addition to documenting Clark’s work, “Without Getting Killed or Caught” captures a mercurial love story between him and wife Susanna Clark, a story that begins and ends with tragedy. Two thorny creative types stumbled through a messy life together and apart.
“It’s funny to hear Guy talk about it, saying she was the love of his life,” Saviano says. “He called it a ‘mythical love story.’ ”
But that assessment contains a barbed punchline best left to viewers. Suffice to say Guy and Susanna Clark cared for the tools of their trades in different ways that say a lot about each of them.
Saviano wrote some narration for the film from Susanna’s point of view, with actor Sissy Spacek filling the role of Susanna, who died in 2012.
Difficult love story
When the Clarks moved to Nashville, their home became a
gravitational center for smart and outsider songwriters who fell beyond the bounds of the country music being pushed on radio. She had hit songs cut by other musicians (including Emmylou Harris) before her husband did, and anyone who has gazed upon the cover art for Willie Nelson’s “Stardust” album has seen her visual work.
As with her book, Saviano went deep into Clark’s life prior to his arrival in Houston in the mid-1960s, where he found a folk scene that included other musicians, such as Townes Van Zandt. He was born in Monahans and raised in Rockport, “two places you just wouldn’t believe could be in the same state,” says Saviano.
She offers background on Jack Prigg, a friend of his grandmother’s, who would inspire “Desperados Waiting for a Train,” one of Clark’s most beloved and enduring songs. In Rockport, Saviano says, “He lived this idyllic uppermiddle-class existence but worked on shrimp boats and with carpenters. So he had all these interesting experiences in two very different places.”
Susanna likened Houston’s
’60s folk scene to that in New York’s Greenwich Village. But the couple ended up in Nashville.
In Nashville, Clark created albums that rarely seemed to please him, even though they were full of songs that awed a small crowd of listeners. Though “Without Getting Killed or Caught” never teeters toward tawdry, its characters make clear that Susanna Clark and Van
Zandt had a soulmate’s connection unique to them, leaving Guy Clark on the periphery.
When Van Zandt died on New Year’s Day 1997, Susanna took to her bed and never really emerged. She was homebound as Clark finally enjoyed renown.This dynamic hardwires the film with a gentle tragedy.
The crow’s call
When Susanna died, Clark gave her journal and the audio recordings she’d made in the ’70s to Saviano. Houston artist Mel Chin provides some wonderful animation in the film for moments that have audio and no video.
“He never went through them himself,” Saviano says. “He said whatever was there was Susanna’s truth. It was her reality. And he wasn’t the kind of person who’d sweep things under the rug. That’s one of the things I loved about him. He was fully confident in his being a flawed human being, just like all of us are. To make it tidy would be a sham.”
The film winds to a close with a beautiful take on the days after Clark’s death by friend Jo Harvey Allen, an actor/writer/artist. I’ll leave the thought for viewers rather than spoiling it. When Clark died, he stipulated that he wanted his ashes presented to Jo Harvey’s husband, Terry Allen, a friend and a great songwriter and visual artist from Lubbock. His wish was that Allen would work the ashes into a sculpture.
“What a jerk thing to do to somebody,” Allen told me at the time. “It was his last (expletive) you to me.”
That piece makes an appearance in “Without Getting Killed or Caught.” Clark loved crows, so his remains carry on in “Caw
Caw Blues,” which resides at the Witliff Collections at Texas State University in San Marcos.