Some may not enjoy it but I love this doc because it faces all the sadness and challenges of Shane head on but "prints the legend" with a knowing wink.
I reckon the film somehow achieves what few docs do : it catches his soul - even amid all the contradictions: He may be a 'self mythologising' non-Irish alcoholic and yet he's potentially as important a poet as Yeats.
The title works on all these levels too.
Many of my favourite artists are contradictory and unreliable biographers: Nina Simone, Sun Ra, Lee Perry, Scott Walker... and I've found acclaimed documentaries about them to be wanting. Whether by accident or design (some restrictive constraints undoubtedly forced by Shane) Julien Temple here achieves something quite rare, if not for all tastes.
I reckon the film somehow achieves what few docs do : it catches his soul - even amid all the contradictions: He may be a 'self mythologising' non-Irish alcoholic and yet he's potentially as important a poet as Yeats.
The title works on all these levels too.
Many of my favourite artists are contradictory and unreliable biographers: Nina Simone, Sun Ra, Lee Perry, Scott Walker... and I've found acclaimed documentaries about them to be wanting. Whether by accident or design (some restrictive constraints undoubtedly forced by Shane) Julien Temple here achieves something quite rare, if not for all tastes.