This film is a very special treasure to those who love Gram Parsons and his music. The director did a wonderful job with very old film and the lack of any on film interviews with the subject. The clips of performances that are seen are not up to modern standards but they are what is available and it was wonderful to see Gram performing even if they are not very clear or complete. The interviews with his wife Gretchen, daughter Polly, step-sister, and sister are all very moving. No one is denying that the marriage was in trouble but is is very clear from her obvious distress and tears (facelfts do not destroy the tear ducts) that she loved him very much. I also found the comments of Bob Parsons's friend very painful but very enlightening. We have the director to thank for the kind of research it took to obtain these first time interviews with the people in his life. Margaret Fisher was very courageous and heartbreaking to watch as she was interviewed about the last day of his life It was very clear that she to loved this young man who had been her friend from their teen years in Florida. On the musical side it was wonderful to hear from Keith, Emmylou, James Burton, and Chris Ethridge. Chris Hillman was also interviewed and gave his usual conflicted view of his feelings about Gram. The one fault with the film and it is huge is Phil Kaufman making a joke out of the tragic death and horrendous desecration of Gram's remains. It is heartbreaking to think of Gram(dead or alive)in this awful man's realm. The film is a tribute to this beautiful, self-destructive genius who did so much to give the world Cosmic American Music. If he had not left us way to soon one can only imagine what might have been.

By the time the documentary gets to the end of Gram's life we might as well be watching a "Behind the Music" episode of VH1. I appreciate the effort that the director put in to get this story told (since there is very little material to work with, we have to accept what we get), but his own interview reveals all the flaws in the conceit. I have seen footage that didn't make it into the movie and I wonder why. We are expected to accept this overview as objective, while the director is dressed in cowboy spangles and turquoise; obviously copying the costume of the period even though he probably wasn't born when Gram died. What really got my goat was the idea that there was something wrong about the way his body was treated by Phil and Michael. As though the "family" gave a damn. It's a body, it's not the person. Gram wanted to be burned at the Cap Rock when he died. Phil was Gram's friend, however anyone feels about it, and he fulfilled his friend's wish. Gram was in the process of divorcing Gretchen. The family interviews suggest that Phil Kaufman was to blame for Gram's death, even though the first 3/4's of the film make it clear that Gram was not controlled by anyone. Allowing Gretchen to appear on camera is the height of absurdity. She can't even muster a tear for the man she supposedly loved (plastic surgery will do that). We are subjected to the opinion of the whore who was with him when he died, and expected to believe that Gram's family was looking out for him when they weren't anywhere near him at the end. Look up the Parsons and you will find that the reason that Bob Parsons wanted Gram buried in New Orleans was so he could have access to Gram's royalties. Gram did not want to be anywhere near Bob Parsons. Gram and Phil made a pact and Phil kept it, regardless of how anyone feels about it. So instead of exploring the reasons why Gram wanted to obliterate reality, and how earth shatteringly great his final record was, we get platitudes from people who didn't spend any time with him in the last years of his life. There is only James Burton and Emmylou to give us a musical perspective, even though all he did was revolutionize rock music. I feel bad about his sister and his daughter, but they are barely a part of this documentary. The unkindest cut is that Bob Parsons is portrayed as some sort of caring parent. If you want to know about Gram, you'd be better off listening to his records and watching "Grand Theft Parsons" (which, though fictionalized, tells the truth).Putting aside my anger for a moment, Chris Hillman, Chris Ethridge, Bernie Leadon, and Emmylou tell the truth, and there are some excellent pictures that aren't available anywhere else. Gram was a giant, however, and he deserves better. Because this is all we have, I rate the film higher than it deserves. p.s. Sid Griffin is credited as a co-writer, but the film shares none of the insight of Sid's book. It's as though he forgot who he was writing about, unless the director decided to ignore his work.

A very worthwhile documentary about musician Gram Parsons of the Byrds and the Flying Burrito Brothers. Originally filmed for British and German television, the movie is a very detailed portrait of Parsons' life, albeit at arm's length—there would appear to be very little footage of Gram available, most of it performance clips, many of amateurish home movie quality. I don't recall even one shot of Gram on screen talking, although his voice is heard in a few sound snippets from an audio interview of indeterminate origin. The movie instead relies on extensive usage of still photographs and, most impressively, interviews with just about anyone still alive who was involved in Parson's life, including bandmates Chris Hillman and Emmylou Harris, Keith Richards, the surviving members of Gram's family, blustery former road manager Phil Kaufman who stole Gram's body at LAX and drunkenly drove it out to the desert and burned it, and even the girlfriend who checked into room number 8 at the Joshua Tree Inn with Parsons and watched him die of an overdose. The dynamics of Parsons' dysfunctional family and the impact it had on him are well documented, perhaps maybe a little too well documented, but the recollections of the musicians who played with him provide the most illuminating commentary on the allure and difficulties of Parsons' self-destructive talent. Overall, I had two main criticisms. One, the filmmakers' melodramatic animation of cartoon flames that rise from the bottom of the screen as Kaufman describes striking a match and throwing it into Parsons' gasoline soaked coffin—not to mention the aerial shot of a bonfire burning in the desert, obviously supposed to emblematic of Gram's burning corpse—is especially cheesy, and really tacky. But my larger complaint is that despite the effluent praise of Parsons' talent, the film never establishes a broader historical context for his musical accomplishments that would allow the casual viewer to understand why he was so important, which was that he almost single-handedly invented the genre of country-rock. Pamela Des Barres alludes to it somewhat when she describes Gram playing records by Lefty Frizzell and Willie and Waylon for her, turning her on to a rich, vibrant side of country music that most rock music fans were unaware of at the time. But with the Byrd's Sweetheart Of The Rodeo and his injection of flashy Nudie suit glam rock star attitude into his fairly traditional but definitely non-Nashville brand of country songwriting, he broke through to the rock crowd with an updated take on country music that paved the way for the Eagles and every country-rock outfit that followed. You maybe wouldn't quite understand how revolutionary that was from this film—some obscure family friends could've been replaced by a perceptive rock critic or two—but all in all it's a really good documentary.

This is a slipshod documentary that is about as original and involving as an episode of VH1's Behind the Music. The production values are very poor, with much of the video footage shot erratically out the window of a moving car, and the editing is a clumsy, uninspired pastiche of quick pans and tilts across black and white still photos jarringly inter-cut with a relentless onslaught of meaningless talking heads (do we really need to hear from the girlfriend of Parson's manager or the best friend of Parson's dead stepfather?). We hear very little of Parson's music, most of which plays in the background under the interviews, and no one except Emmylou Harris manages to truly elucidate Parson's gifts as a singer and songwriter. Technically, the film is embarrassing, but it is even worse in its shameful final minutes, when it juxtaposes the bizarre circumstances of Parson's burial with the heartfelt grief of those who loved Parsons, and manipulates the audience into laughter when what we should be feeling is sadness. Fallen Angel is disrespectful of Gram Parsons' groundbreaking music, banal in its storytelling, and grotesquely insensitive to the people who knew and loved him.