I’m going to pour myself a glass of whiskey and cry in it when Harry Dean Stanton is gone.
IF that ever happens. Maybe it won’t. He could well outlive us all. Stanton is about 86 years old in this documentary, smoking, drinking, still working and not giving much of a shit about anything that isn’t worth giving a shit about (maybe that last part is the secret). It’s a film that thankfully doesn’t bother with a history lesson about the man’s nearly sixty-year career. Director Sophie Huber opts instead to do something that many movie fans have wanted to do for decades: simply hang out with the world’s greatest character-actor. Hear him talk about how he doesn’t like to talk. Hear the penetrating anecdotes that slip out of him anyway. Hear him sing several old songs (Stanton’s got music in his heart and a still-beautiful vocal range to go along with it). Take in his secondhand smoke. Watch him and David Lynch, sharing an ashtray in Stanton’s home, play off each other like an old comedy team. There’s scarcely a film in Stanton’s vast resume that he doesn’t improve merely by being there, no matter how small his part, and Huber wisely hands this profile over to him. It’s no DVD bonus feature puff-piece. This is a real movie, beautifully made and on a mission. Huber puts us on the bar stool next to Stanton after he’s loosened up with his second tequila and tenth cigarette. She loves his face and his words and gives us as great a profile as we’re likely to ever see of this private personality who genuinely doesn’t seem to give two thoughts toward his legacy.
He’s the kind of elder worth learning from. The model of a cool old guy. Not a drop of insecurity in him over his place in the Hollywood hierarchy. A self-proclaimed loner who walks the walk. Never married, but had a host of relationships that crashed and burned, at least one of which still hurts a little. He’s a living, breathing folk song and he seems fine with that. To hear him tell it, the acting comes easy (his personal assistant meanwhile testifies to Stanton’s discipline). His advice to young actors: Just be yourself. That’s how he does it, he claims. Sounds simple, but it’s a rare skill. Some people can’t even be themselves in their own personal lives. Others who can be themselves are about as likable as mold spores.
If Harry Dean Stanton’s great talent is simply being Harry Dean Stanton, then that’s good enough for me and likely good enough for anyone who’s ever lit up in their seat when they see his name toward the back of a film’s opening credits or see him show up unexpectedly in everything from big-budget blockbusters to small independents. Here’s a luxurious near hour-and-a-half of the feeling.