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| Movie Name : |
Blaze
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| Cinema Type : |
Hollywood
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| Release Date : |
17-Aug-2018( 6 years, 130 days ago)
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| Directed By : |
Ethan Hawke |
| Production House : |
John Sloss,Ethan Hawke |
| Genre : |
Biography |
| Lead Role : |
Charles Adams, Edgar Arreola, Charles Barber
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Rating:4.5/5
Ethan Hawke’s easy-to-like “Blaze” is full of country-spun wisdom like “Rain doesn’t try and fall, it just falls” and “Wherever I’m going, it’s the same place I’ve been.” Clearly inspired by his work on the underrated “Born to be Blue,” the Oscar-nominated actor/writer/director has crafted a film that attempts to capture the spirit of its subject not merely through an ABC chronology of his life but through a structure that reflects his art. At its best, “Blaze” feels like a cinematic translation of not just Blaze Foley’s life but his music, anchored by two incredibly likable, lived-in performances. Its shapelessness can sometimes get the better of it, especially during the second hour when the “montage set to a Foley song” approach starts to wear thin, but it’s a high compliment to how much this film conveys the genius of its subject in the fact that I’ve wanted to listen to almost nothing but Blaze since it ended.
If you don’t know the name Blaze Foley (played by Ben Dickey in the film), you’re not alone. He was something of a contemporary of people like Merle Haggard, Willie Nelson (who recorded one of his songs), and especially the brilliant Townes van Zandt, who was actually a friend and collaborator. Foley had a few minor hits that obviously inspired current alt-country artists like “Clay Pigeons” and “If I Could Only Fly,” but he essentially lived up to something he says in Hawke’s film: “I don’t want to be a star, I want to be a legend.” He was never quite a star, but he was a legend to the people who loved him.
Hawke wisely avoids too many of the biopic traps that have the potential to sink any country singer story post-“Walk Hard” by sticking to three major storylines at three different points in history. One of the major framing devices of “Blaze” is a radio interview being done with Van Zandt (Charlie Sexton) and one of Foley’s best friends and collaborators, Zee (Josh Hamilton, having a hell of an indie movie summer with this and “Eighth Grade”). It allows the two gentlemen to reminisce about Foley with the occasional prodding of the interviewer, voiced by Hawke himself. The film also flashes back regularly to the last night of Foley’s life, during which he recorded a live album in a seedy Austin bar. This vision of Foley—fatter, drunker, sadder—is contrasted with his relationship with Sybil Rosen (Alia Shawkat), who a younger Foley met in an artist’s community years earlier. Sybil was Blaze’s muse, the one who inspired so much of his music and encouraged him to move to Austin and become a singer. Of course, Foley’s touring and drinking would tear his relationship apart, but the core of “Blaze” is still that dynamic in which one person helps bring out the artistic dimensions of another.