I'm guessing many of us, Shepard included, struggle with the idea of looking back. Fortunately not many of have a camera crew offering to help us indulge, or an archive of letters.Those letters, shared somewhat in the film, showcase the clear talent Sam has with words. And his relationship with Johnny Dark feels substantial, although unequal.Could just be me, but I sensed a struggle within Sam to be more the type of man that Dark was, especially in terms of family devotion. Not just attending to his ailing wife, but honestly stepping in when Shepard steps out on his son and O-Lan for a life with Lange. Seems all the relationships with Shepard, from his father on down are branded with ambiguity.I walked away wondering if Shepard feels, like a lot of us, some shame with certain angles of our own character, and yet well-aware that those angles have pretty much put us where we are today.For worse, or for him, better. He sees aspects of the Dark that I'm certain he admires, but the shadows of his own father seem to occlude them.Maybe I'm not quite a big enough fan of Shepard, though I am a fan of his work; plenty of scenes of Sam as singer/star/stud/ranch hand in here for folks who are deeper in Shepard's flock. I walked away rooting for Dark, hoping he keeps on finding access to pianos and brings some sustaining snacks the next time he visits his friend.I do miss letter writing....such a different experience than anything e-phemeral.

I'll start by saying that I love Sam Shepard as an actor so I'm probably biased. Well obviously I am! So when I saw the trailer for this documentary I couldn't wait to see it. I was curious what brought together these two seemingly incongruous people, and why they kept up this correspondence like they did for so long. As Dark explains part way through, perhaps it's not their similarities but their differences that made it work. Or perhaps it's pure serendipity that threw them together into a living situation where they just had to get on and make the best of it, and then their bond was galvanised by tragedy before they went their separate ways. That's a pretty good set up for a lasting correspondence, especially when the two men involved are both prolific writers, one of which appears to have some form of either hypergraphia or at least obsessive traits. OK, spoilers imminent!... There's a painful irony in this documentary. On the one hand it's predicated on their friendship, or more particularly a publishing company requesting that they publish their letters, which means they have to get together for the first time in many years. On the other hand, when they do get together, after the initial "ah remember when's" wear off, they seem to get under each other's skin remarkably quickly, and it all goes downhill from there with fairly dismal results. So this raises questions about what friendship is, whether friendship can last, whether two people are really the same people any more given a long enough time apart, and whether people really present the real version of themselves in written correspondence, or a censored, sanitised safe version. And I suppose the tension makes for good viewing if you're into that kind of thing. I'm not, but fifty trillion Big Brother fans can't be wrong eh! Now I don't know the full story behind this. I don't know what either man is like in real life apart from the evidence on film here. And like I said, I'm biased. But I couldn't help feeling that this documentary was sympathetically skewed towards Dark's perspective. There seems to be a tacit assumption that the burden of blame lies with Shepard here. Yet that's not the story I saw between the lines. What I saw in Dark was a very particular man who was set in his ways and expected the world to fit in with that. On top of that he seems to have a bit of a loud old cough going on - sure not his fault, but annoying nonetheless especially when it cuts you off mid sentence. So all that could get old very quickly, but the documentary seems to frame it as Shepard snapping at poor old Dark non-stop, then giving Dark air time to complain about it in private afterwards. So I'm left wondering if Shepard had the opportunity to talk about it but declined for whatever reason, or if his comments ended up on the cutting room floor. It just doesn't feel very fair or objective to me and leaves Shepard looking like a monster. And like I say, that's just not the picture I saw between the lines so it bothers me. But of course, that could just be me projecting my expectations and bias onto the proceedings and the documentary could be presenting an accurate picture of what happened. I totally accept that could be the case. It's just not the feeling I ever got about the man and not the vibe I got from what I watched.I think what bothered me most was Dark's comments to camera about Shepard after the fact, when he had nothing to say to his face. With friends like these ... And then he gets the last word, reading out his letter to Shepard, saying that he'll always be his friend despite these difficulties. Very touching but doesn't tally with what he said immediately before which implied the friendship was over. So if someone told me the editor of this documentary owed Johnny Dark money I wouldn't be surprised. Regardless of this thorn in my side, I did enjoy the documentary as it was an unusual insight into Shepard's life. I found him to be very open and up front about his failings and his negative emotions. and if his comments weren't censored, then fair play to him for keeping his criticisms to his friend's face instead of behind his back. In the absence of an answer to the above concerns I'm not going to mark the documentary down based on that, as I have to accept the bias here could be all mine. Overall, a must watch for Shepard fans, or those curious about the nature of friendships.

Pure documentary. As pure reality film, the subjects of this film are given freedom to interact and to wander through a given time frame the documentary director chose as a span of coverage. Issues are either left resolved or unresolved at the end of the span of coverage. Thus, expect no objective, no moral goals or punchline. The correspondence remains private except for a few key letters, but we're left to observe a grounded, award-winning playwright and actor interact with persons outside the entertainment business. That said, take a board, get a bucket of paint (color is not important, but make it oil-based paint), acquire a horse-hair brush, apply paint to the wooden board--two coats, now sit back and watch it dry. Now, which was more entertaining?

SHEPARD & DARK (dir. Treva Wurmfeld) For over forty years American playwright, actor, film director, and Beat Generation apologist, Sam Shepard has been close friends with Johnny Dark, a man who chose to live a solitary life far from the limelight. In fact, Johnny Dark now works as a minimum wage clerk at a Hispanic deli in the backwater village of Deming, New Mexico, but for a time during the 70's the two men were related by marriage when Sam Shepard wed the daughter of Johnny's wife, and they, and their children, lived together in a ramshackle 'Hippie- style' commune.But the heart of this intriguing documentary concerns the thousands of letters, postcards, and photos that Johnny and Sam have archived which painstakingly chronicle their lasting relationship. I wish that the film had focused more on the content of these eloquently written letters, and less on the ultimately failed attempt to bring this appealing correspondence to an amenable publisher. Although the monetary implications of this venture did not end their rather unusual friendship, you can't help but sense that the financial aspects of this deal somehow tainted their relationship. Both men are truly magnetic and charismatic personalities, and to watch their interaction is a positive delight, and the film is a kind of a testament to 'male bonding' and the power of written correspondence over a lifetime. MUST SEE