Songwriter (1984)

(On Cable TV, April 2022) I don’t have much to say about Songwriter’s plot – it’s something about country singers, the predatory elements in the genre, and holding on to song rights – but neither does the film itself: It’s a film of moments and observations loosely structured around a narrative clothesline. I do have much nicer things to say about the film’s quasi-documentary atmosphere, its portrayal of the country music industry and its performers: Director Alan Rudolph makes the good choice to film things as if the camera was almost irrelevant to the staging and actors, and this allows the performers to be showcased in a quasi-documentary fashion. It certainly helps that the film was first conceived by singer-actor Willie Nelson as a semi-autobiographical rant, and that he was able to rope in the always-likable singer-actor Kris Kristofferson as co-star. They know what they’re talking about, and that credible authenticity carries to the end product. The music is terrific if you’re in that genre, and having Nelson and Kristofferson as performers makes for a nice time-capsule capture of their performances. Kristofferson had a great run of films in the 1970s and early 1980s, and you can add this film to the list – he always comes across as compelling. The echoes of New Hollywood are apparent in this mid-1980s effort, through gritty cinematography and de-glammed presentation. Songwriter is not going to be for everyone, but country fans will enjoy this throwback to the 1980s, and everyone looking for a specific portrayal of a musical niche at a specific time and place will get the full immersion.