Hank Williams: The Show He Never Gave

I've loved the songs and the singing of Hank Williams for many years. When I saw this film I felt as though I were watching Hank himself. The actor who portrays him is excellent, the songs wonderful. My only criticism is that the film could have been an hour or two longer, with a lot more songs. Any Hank Williams fan would have to love this movie.

Damn son! You done it! Whoever's responsible for this movie, you done it! I been drinking and listening to Hank for 50 years. And this is the real deal. Forget all them hats you hear on the radio today. They ain't. That's all I'll say about that. They just ain't. My mama listened to Hank on a battery powered radio cause they didn't have no electricity. But he pulled more heart and more soul out of that $10 radio than all these wannabes today who spend $10K on the clothes they wear onstage trying to make you believe they're country. Like hell. If they don't got an Academy Award for getting the most out of an audience, they ought to. And the interplay between 'Hank' and the audience in this film speaks volumes about a time and a place and a people that are just about gone. This is real country. Give it a look-see.

I saw this about a decade ago, at Christmas, on HBO. I don't follow country music, but I knew of Williams from my sister. The story is almost a "Twilight Zone" tale; even as Williams, dying in his alcoholic haze, imagined an ideal concert, his fantasy is plagued by the demons that haunted his real life. The demons include the casual racism of country music of that time (although black music and country were intertwined), the celebrity-hungry fan who wants to seduce a famous person, and (as I recall) the basic despair of the audience, who have no other way to spend Christmas than to go to a bar and get drunk. The end of the fantasy, with Williams's haunting song about being deserted even by God, was devastating. I knew country music was nearly always sad, but I never thought it could approach existential despair. An unforgettable character portrait.

A fairly touching film about a man that I knew very little about, and whom quite frankly I had only heard a few tunes from my boyhood in the rural part of the United States. It was another HBO afternoon airing that caught my attention for this film. I gave it a chance because it seemed to be of some quality.

It's a bit of a sleeper that also has some fire in it. We see summation of a man's life in a performance that is fictional, but brings to both audience and characters the reflections of ups and downs of life's challenges. Hank Williams, as brilliant as he was as a musician, musical orator, and musical philosopher, was, after all, merely mortal-- as are we all.

But it's Hank Williams that we're interested in. He seems to know more about life than we do, and gives us messages on how to live better, or, when down, how to slug through the mire of life's toughs by telling us how he knows that life can be cruel, but that we're not the only ones by virtue of his singing.

The film itself has a kind of raw cinema veritae, almost documentary like quality to it. It's classic film making from the late 70s, on the cusp of the 80s. Who or what was Hank Williams? He was a man with a physical ailment that perhaps put him in tune a little better than most people with the pain that infects everyone. Sneazy Waters may not strictly resemble Hank Williams, but he does give us a good mimicry of Hank Williams energy in performances that Williams would have been proud of.

A Canadian film touching on an American icon, and telling of American ideals, the independent quality, as has been mentioned in other reviews, is something that actually helps deliver the film's story. Even so it doesn't quite translate to DVD, as the print seems to be somewhat battered.

Yet the film itself shines. Waters' performance is superb, the supporting cast do a fine job, even if the technical merits are a little on the rough side. A fresh print from an original negative would be welcome, but that may have to wait for another generation to rediscover this film.

If you can forgive the technical marks of the DVD, then you should be able to enjoy a touching character study of a brilliant mind with a heart.

Give it a whirl.

This is a movie that should be in the Smithsonian. It's a profound reflection of a time period that produced some of the best American music ever. I was very surprised to read at the end of the film that Hank Williams was only 29 when he died and that he had written over 700 songs many of them classic. I was born in '48 so he was not of my generation but after the 60's rock and roll died I came to appreciate the greats of the past like Hank and Bill Monroe. I think Sneezy Waters did an incredible job of acting. The writing was right on target for humor and the soulful journey that Williams must have experienced. He seems to be searching for a peace that eludes him. I didn't know he had written "I saw the light", which he sings here.