Very well executed

This Movie Can Only Be Described With One Word.

This is a tender, generous movie that likes its characters and presents them as real people, full of flaws and strengths.

Great movie. Not sure what people expected but I found it highly entertaining.

I would encourage anyone who is a fan of Townes' music watch this. Townes Van Zandt was a man of deep and complex character. He spoke his soul through his lyrics. I can't help but wonder, throughout watching the clips of Townes himself and those left behind and their recollections, if anyone really "got" Townes. He literally sacrificed his health, his family, and ultimately his life trying to be heard.The scenes with Townes' wives and children were the most touching. Looking into the great black pools of Townes' eyes, it's easy to see how those around him would be mesmerized and want to be near him. The film also handled the less glamorous side of Townes' life with grace.It's clear that Townes rejected the privileged lifestyle of his family and sought the real gold, that which touches the humanity in each of us, which he did so well through his music.

In this film, people talk about their experiences with Townes Van Zandt. Bit by bit, you get a slow sense of who he was, why he was, and most importantly, how he was in life. Townes was a profoundly injured person, a brilliant poet, a good friend, a bad friend, a drunk, a wanderer, the combination of so many contradictions that made up a basically straightforward person. The questions and confusion that surrounds Townes Van Zandt as a person has little to do with the quality of who he was, only how he lived. I grew up around my uncle, a man of similar mental history and makeup as Van Zandt. As much as he could turn your life upside down and cause you pain, there was a natural softness, a kind of charm. The lack of self-awareness just couldn't be helped.This film is of brilliant construction. Using conversational interviews, footage from the open road, different locations, archive footage, and of course the music of Townes himself, Margaret Brown creates a perfect example of the biographical documentary. Everything flows through like it should, like it only could. I can't really say any more. There's no flaws in this. You are taken in, you are convinced of whatever you need be, you live in his life. And that's all there is to it.

"Well, many of my songs, they aren't sad, they're hopeless." - Townes Van Zandt."I don't envision a very long life for myself. I think my life will run out before my work does, you know? I've designed it that way." - Townes Van Zandt.An amazing talent, with a bent for self-destruction, Townes was a unique and singular voice. This film reuses much footage from "Heartworn Highways", an arty documentary made in the 70s. It conveys the pain and self destructiveness that plagued Van Zandt and reveals that he was a manic depressive and alcoholic, facts which would not surprise anyone who listened to his work.The film focuses on the period between the late 70s and late 80s when Townes went into hiding. After producing a record called "7 Come 11" he literally vanished, refusing to release his music until 20 years later.The film is peppered with interviews with producers and song writers, many touting him as one of the greatest singer/poets since Dylan, who sadly, because of his suicidal tendencies, never achieved the superstar status he deserved.Townes inexplicable failure to promote himself and his music baffled the industry and pretty soon he began a downward spiral, creatively and personally. He'd play Russian roulette with a .357 Magnum, often talk about suicide, inexplicably avoid his family, stay up nights drinking and spent years locked away in a log cabin, away from the world.It seems that these "lost years" contributed to Van Zandt's decline, although one gets the sense that Townes didn't know what he was looking for or what he really wanted to achieve. He was an intelligent man, but his pain was just too much to warrant living. When questioned in an interview about what his goals were, it seems Townes had never thought about it (or didn't have any), and he struggles with the question until answering with a smile, "I would like to write a song that no one understands, including myself." It's a playful comment, until you see the look in his eyes and realise what he means. He'd like no one to understand or identify with the pain of his music, because sadly, to understand is to suffer too. As the film nears its end, the shocking transformation of Van Zandt into a skeletal alcoholic is particularly disturbing. His cheek bones protrude like shards of broken pottery, his guitar skills deteriorating and his voice becoming torn and melancholy.Van Zandt's music has been called folk and country, but on its deepest level it relates most comfortably to the blues. Over the past two years there's been a tremendous revival of interest in roots music. People initially turned to this music as a kind of protest against the childishness and soullessness of commercial, popular music. Then, after September 11th, roots music came to be associated with "Americana". A kind of cultural patriotism.A couple years later and scepticism and anger raises it's ugly head. "Americana" was suddenly bad, and the old vanguard of roots music, those angry anti establishment folk guys like Dylan are suddenly popular again.Zandt never had a revival. Aside from the Coen brothers using his song in "Lebowski" and paying homages in "O brother where art thou?", he's still relatively unheralded and unheard of. Like Van Gogh, he seems a tortured artist doomed to slow appreciation. One of those masters who, though hugely influential, remains remembered by only those in the industry. But at his best, Van Zandt is songwriter who could rival anyone. There is nothing cute, celebratory or charmingly old-timey about him. Far from reassuring, his songs are as unsettling as they come. And as one producer says in this documentary, "if you're serious about American music, eventually you're going to have to enter this darkness." 8/10- Great artists are sensitive people, permanently attuned to the world. Townes Van Zandt lived a tortured life, his music reaching depths few writers are able to plunge. I'm not a huge fan of country music or blues, but even I found this documentary to be quietly adventurous, visually poetic and emotionally devastating. "Be here to love me" is a sad meditation on the darkness and beauty of Van Zandt's life and the collateral damage such a life can have on those who live it with you.

I went to see this film with a limit knowledge of the mans music and next to nothing on the life of the man. This film give a great look into a songwriter that has the ability to put into word, what many people will fail to feel in their lifetime. The mix of footage from the Townes own home footage to live performances and interviews with the people who know him make the whole experience a full one and as you leave you will understand how unique he was, his talent was and his effect on people. The film has been made is such a way that it provides a full spectrum into the life. You will both laugh and feel sorrow at the events that made up the life of Townes Van Zandt. A must see for music lovers.....