documentary without getting killed or caught

The film, partially funded by a Kickstarter campaign, makes good use of Clark’s songs, family photographs and archives, vintage film footage, and radio talk shows on which Clark appeared solo and in tandem with Van Zandt. Freeway”) also offers poignant reflections from Clark’s closest friends and musical allies, most prominently Rodney Crowell, Steve Earle, Vince Gill, Verlon Thompson, and Terry and Jo Harvey Allen, as well as record executive Barry Poss. Without Getting Killed or Caught (the title comes from Clark’s song, “L.A. Saviano, a longtime figure on the Americana scene as a journalist, artist manager, and Grammy-winning producer, had the complete cooperation of Clark, who sat for interviews on and off camera.

Based on the diaries of Susanna Clark and Saviano’s 2016 book Without Getting Killed or Caught: The Life and Music of Guy Clark, the film tells the saga from Susanna’s point of view, with Academy Award- winner Sissy Spacek voicing Susanna’s narration. This 95-minute documentary follows Guy Clark, Susanna Clark, and Townes Van Zandt as they rise from obscurity to reverence: Guy, the Pancho to Van Zandt’s Lefty, struggling to establish himself as the Dylan Thomas of American music, while Susanna pens hit songs and paints album covers for top artists, and Townes spirals in self-destruction after writing some of Americana music’s most enduring and influential ballads.

Documentary without getting killed or caught