HEARTWORN HIGHWAYS
About the Film
Documentary | 1 HR 32 MIN
“One of the best music films these eyes have ever seen. Heartworn Highways achieves the sort of intimacy previously captured only in music films by Les Blank.”
– John Lomax III, Aquarian Weekly
“The best musical documentary since the classic Woodstock—and it’s much more entertaining.”
– Townsend Miller, Austin American-Statesman
“Szalapski is an attentive and scrupulous cinematographer; he loves his subjects, and the imagery is so warm and finely detailed.”
– Pauline Kael, New Yorker
DOCUMENTARY | 1 HR 32 MIN
Available for streaming February 26
Because the Isis Theatre will remain closed for the foreseeable future, we are going to re-establish our monthly Indie Showcase – virtually. All Aspen Film members are entitled to a free screening almost every month, which traditionally has taken place at the Isis. Since we cannot offer you in-person events at this time, we are designating HEARTWORN HIGHWAYS as this month’s Indie Showcase.
Price for non-Aspen Film members is $10.
“Sometimes, a documentary maker is present at precisely the right moment to capture lightning in a bottle. It happened with essential punk doc The Decline of Western Civilization, it happened with Dylan’s Don’t Look Back and Chet Baker’s Let’s Get Lost, and it happened with 1976’s Heartworn Highways.
The iconic performance documentary saw filmmaker James Szalapski travel to Texas and Tennessee to capture the radical country artists reclaiming the genre via an appreciation for its heritage in folk and bluegrass and a rejection of the mainstream Nashville machine. Townes Van Zandt, Guy Clark, Steve Young, David Allan Coe, Steve Earle and many others appeared on both screen and soundtrack, where musical highlights include Clark’s brilliant “Desperados WaitingFor A Train,”Young’s stirring “Alabama Highways” and Van Zandt’s emotional “Waiting Around To Die.”
The hard living–and hard partying–lifestyles of outlaw country’s figureheads are played out on screen as we visit Van Zandt’s Austin trailer, see Coe play in Tennessee State Prison, join the gang in Nashville’s notorious Wig Wam Tavern and witness a liquor-fueled Christmas at Clark’s house. No wonder the film’s original tagline read: “The best music and the best whiskey come from the same part of the country.”
Outside of a couple festival screenings, the movie remained unreleased for five years after its completion, finally hitting screens in 1981 and finding a cult audience ever since.”
–Light in the Attic
Trailer
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