All language subtitles for GRAM PARSONS - Fallen Angel - Inerview

I got in touch
with Gram Parsons' music

through mainIy my interest
in The Byrds

when I was a teenager.

I was a Byrds nut.

I had a 1 2-string Rickenbacker

so I was reaIIy reaIIy reaIIy--

no I wouIdn't say obsessed

but I reaIIy Ioved their music

the harmonies
and these beautifuI songs.

And finaIIy a friend of mine
made me a tae

of some tracks
from ''Sweetheart of the Rodeo''--

an aIbum which
I didn't know at the time--

and aIso two tracks
by The FIying Burrito Brothers.

One of them was ''Hot Burrito #1''

which I think is one of the most
beautifuI vocaI erformances

by a white maIe ever.

It's-- singing out
of tune a IittIe bit

the band is Iaying
kind of sIoiIy

but it doesn't matter.

There was so much
assion in that music

and the song is so great.

I just Ioved it and I wanted
to know more about it.

That's what got me in touch with Gram
and his music in the first Iace.

The idea of making a fiIm on Gram
came a few years Iater.

I was a musician at the time

but I wanted to do something eIse

and I started
working fiIm roduction a bit.

And I had an idea--
being a Gram Parsons fan

and a fan of that era in articuIar--

to make a documentary about him.

Because once I heard
about this story--

which is ure Southern Gothic
if you ask me

Iike right out
of a Tennessee WiIIiams Iay--

I thought this wouId be
great subject matter for a documentary.

But of course
at the time I was a kid

and nobody wouId give me
any funding to make a fiIm Iike that.

So it took me aImost 10 years

untiI my Ians
finaIIy started to materiaIize.

And then it took us another
aImost seven years in the making.

It was reaIIy reaIIy
comIicated at first

because when we started
to itch it to TV stations

fiIm commissions
or otentiaI funding artners

eseciaIIy in Euroe
everybody said

''Gram who?
Gram Parsons who's that?''

He wasn't reaIIy a big name
in the music mainstream.

And eseciaIIy eoIe
who are in charge of budgets

at Ieast in Euroe
are not big music fans--

at Ieast not big
rock and roII fans.

We had a hard time
getting that off the ground.

What finaIIy heIed was

that my friend Sid Griffin

whom I actuaIIy met
when I started to do research

on this roject
without any funding

he had some contacts at the BBC.

WeII Sid and I
we sat together for hours

again and again
discussing this the otions

what we couId do
to get this off the ground

and finaIIy he made
an aointment for us at the BBC.

We taIked to Mark Cooer
the executive roducer of the fiIm

who was a big Gram fan too.

He was the first one who said

''Okay if you want to do this
I wouId be wiIIing to join the boat

if you think you can
get it off the ground.''

WeII one thing came to another
and in the end

it was the BBC's invoIvement
that started the whoIe thing.

We got commission funding in Germany
and two German TV stations joined

but it was quite a way to go.

We actuaIIy worked on the fiIm
for aImost six years.

PrinciaI hotograhy
was not that Iong

but just to get the funding--

The most difficuIt thing
was to convince the contributors

to find access to the Parsons famiIy

to the RoIIing Stones
to the EagIes.

That was very very difficuIt

because eoIe were kind of...

reserved about our Ians.

In the first Iace nobody knew who we
were or what we wanted to do with this.

And I think many eoIe
were stiII--

many eoIe were stiII hurt

or even some of them
traumatized by what haened

because Gram's Iife

and his seIf-destructive ath

were I think kind of hard

for the eoIe around him
to ut u with.

So that was
kind of an obstacIe in the beginning.

But we just didn't take
no for an answer.

And I must say I was naive

and that was robabIy
what heIed us make the fiIm.

If I had known aII the obstacIes
we wouId have to go through

we wouId have to overcome

I'm not sure if I wouId have been
reared for the job.

WeII we Iearned...

whiIe we were making it
I think artIy.

It was very imortant to get
access to Gram's famiIy.

And I reaIIy don't know
what I wouId have done

without Gretchen Carenter

and Diane Parsons

finaIIy oening u and saying
''Okay we wiII taIk to you on camera.

We'II share our memories with you

but we aIso want to show
another side of the story.''

Because I wasn't reaIIy aware
of that when I started this

because I was mainIy a fan

but there has been
so much stuff written about Gram

and there are aIways eoIe behind it.

I mean there are eoIe
who are stiII reIatives

who read stuff in the newsaer
and the music magazines

and who are robabIy hurt

every time they read something about it

Iike the bizarre funeraI

or the heroic way
of burning the body in the desert.

I Iearned a Iot
not just about fiImmaking

but about humans about eoIe.

I reaIized just whiIe
I was making the fiIm

what a big resonsibiIity that was.

We couId have hurt eoIe even more.

I'm reaIIy gratefuI and hay
that they are hay with the resuIt now.

That's a good thing for me.

Makes me very hay.

I must say generaIIy seaking

the whoIe Parsons famiIy
was heIfuI.

Becky Parsons Gottsegen

who is Bob Parsons daughter
from his first marriage

she heIed me to add a IittIe bit more
of her father's ersective

because I didn't want it
to get out of baIance

just showing him as the viIIain
in the story or something Iike that.

So that was reaIIy heIfuI.

AIso I was gratefuI that PoIIy Parsons

taIked to us gave us an interview

and heIed us a IittIe bit
with her ersective.

I think it wouId have
aImost been aImost imossibIe

to make the fiIm
the way we made it

without having access
to the famiIy archives

and the suort we finaIIy got
from the whoIe famiIy.

WeII of course it was very difficuIt
to get access to the RoIIing Stones.

They were very heIfuI
making the fiIm in the end but...

I mean these eoIe get requests
I guess-- I assume every day

by aII kinds of eoIe
who want an interview

or have an interesting roject.
So the most difficuIt thing

was to get heard actuaIIy
to get through to them.

I must say that we were
extremeIy hay

and extremeIy gratefuI and Iucky

that we finaIIy got an interview
with Keith Richards.

The BBC heIed with that.
They arranged that.

I mean that was a reaIIy great thing
and very imortant for the fiIm.

AIso Chris HiIIman

who certainIy has some
reservations about Gram

robabIy understandabIy
after aII his exeriences

that he made during the severaI bands
they Iayed in together.

I mean his contribution
was so imortant

because he heIed me understand

the consequences that Gram's
sometimes erratic behavior

wouId have on the band

the whoIe-- you know

the whoIe situation with Iaying
in The Burritos and aIso in The Byrds.

So I'm reaIIy reaIIy hay that
he finaIIy acceted to taIk to us.

And I think he's just
great in the fiIm

the way he see things
his sense of humor...

and even his understandabIe
frustration sometimes.

I think it's just great.

After we had initiaIIy finished
the version for the BBC

I was a IittIe bit unhay

with what I considered to be
a Ioose end in the story

which was the roIe
of Gram's sister Avis.

But at the time
of the actuaI roduction of the fiIm

we didn't have more access
to her or to her story

because she died 11 years ago

in a boating accident--
1994 I think--

with one of her daughters

so there reaIIy wasn't much
I couId find out about it.

I taIked to Diane
Gram's younger sister

but she was
very IittIe at the time.

So I was very hay
that a few months after

we had actuaIIy finished the fiIm

I had contact with Avis Parsons III

who is Avis's daughter--

Gram's sister Avis's daughter--

and she was reaIIy heIfuI.

She gave us access
to a Iot of her mother's

ersonaI Ietters and memorabiIia

and gave me a great
on-camera interview

which reaIIy heIed me to add
this ersective to the fiIm.

Because so many times
eoIe asked me after watching the fiIm

''Whatever haened to Avis?''

If you hear that question 50 times

you maybe have to admit
there is something

you didn't reaIIy answer in the fiIm.

So in the new version
that we just finished

that you're watching robabIy have
just watched on the DVD

it reaIIy has added

much more deth to the story

much more detaiI

I think aIso a Iot more
of the sychoIogicaI background

to understand this tragic
down-siraIing in Gram's Iife.

A roject Iike that
is imossibIe to make

without eoIe you trust
you can work with.

And it was reaIIy reaIIy imortant
that Sid and I...

tried to stay in good sirits
over aII the years

when nobody reaIIy cared about it.

No whining about it
it's just it was a matter of fact

that we had a reaIIy hard time
to get eoIe interested in the fiIm

in the roject before we made it.

But once we made it
it kind of aII came together.

I must say that it was very imortant
eseciaIIy in the editing rocess

that I couId work
with Birgit MiId the editor

who robabIy
worked more on the fiIm

than anybody
maybe excet for me.

Maybe she worked even
more than me I'm not sure.

She did such a great job
with aII these mounds--

Ioads of footage we had
aImost 100 hours of footage

that we fiImed at interviews
creating that Iook.

PeoIe kind of underestimate
the imortance of an editor many times.

It's not just somebody
cutting stuff together.

It so much more
and so much more imortant.

So that was reaIIy imortant
for me to have that suort

during the whoIe roduction.

Of course everybody is imortant
in a roduction Iike that...

Iike the director of hotograhy

the co-roducers who
bring the money

Iike my friend AIfred who heIed us
get commission money in Germany

or Mark Cooer at the BBC.

I think at the end of the day

the fiIm is getting made
in the edit room.

WeII I did some of it

but the editor Birg
that's reaIIy imortant.

I try to be non-judgmentaI
in the fiIm about...

my concIusion about Gram
his Iife his character

or some of the eoIe
who were cruciaI in his Iife.

But there is one thing that was
reaIIy imortant for me.

I hoe-- I reaIIy tried not to
romanticize or ideaIize

addiction and deression.

I think that's a crock

that haens so much
in ouIar cuIture.

I mean it's interesting to read

but at the end of the day
if the guy was stiII aIive

he robabIy wouId stiII
be making records

and we don't know
how good the records wouId have been.

I don't buy that stuff anymore:

to die young
and Ieave a beautifuI body

this whoIe obsession
with addiction and rock and roII.

I mean it is sad for the eoIe
who suffer from addiction

or suffer from a tradition
of deression in their famiIies

but I don't see anything
romantic about it.

I hoe I didn't do that in the fiIm.

What in fact was very romantic for me

was the actuaI time
of rinciaI hotograhy

when we were shooting.
Because our budget was so Iow

aII we had was a IittIe van

and my buddy Sid Griffin

and our cameraman Boris Becker

just driving around
the South of the United States

with equiment in it
Sid or I assisting on sound

kind of Iearning on the job

but seeing this beautifuI country

and going to these Iaces

that were so instrumentaI

in our own histories as

whatever you want to caII us.

Maybe artists musicians--
I don't know-- or just fans.

Having the oortunity
to see aII these Iaces

and to meet these great eoIe

that was the greatest thing
for me of aII.

And I didn't care that we had
to sIee on eoIe's fIoors

because we couIdn't
afford hoteI rooms.

The whoIe time I was sure
we were doing the right thing

and I was so hay
and so gratefuI that we couId do it.

And that's robabIy the thing
I'm reaIIy stiII most gratefuI about.

These eoIe they don't
make them Iike that anymore.

If you think of a band Iike
The FIying Burrito Brothers

in the year 2005
it's unthinkabIe it's imossibIe.

If you think of somebody
Iike MichaeI Vosse

who was the executive hiie
at A&M Records at the time

somebody who just worked
for the record comany

to kind of transIate the hister Iingo

to the guys in the suits

stuff Iike that doesn't exist anymore.

PeoIe just going with them on tour

and hoIding a Suer 8 camera
with these bIurry ictures--

that was just amazing.

I robabIy wasn't even born back then

so maybe I'm romanticizing
something here a IittIe bit.

But I wouId want that eoIe from
my generation or younger eoIe

wouId kind of care more
about music a IittIe bit more

and about the true sirit of it.

I don't see that much of it anymore.

I'm reaIIy gratefuI for that exerience.

You know eoIe Iike Tom WiIkes
the art director

for A&M at the time
who made the beautifuI Burritos cover:

MichaeI Vosse the executive hiie

whose job was to be
kind of the transIator

between the eoIe who worked
at the record comany and the bands.

They were so outrageous at the time

and so daring what they did.

The whoIe concet was so different

from what haens
in the music industry today.

that I must say I'm reaIIy--

weII I can't say I'm roud
it's not my effort

but I'm gratefuI that I had a chance
to meet these great eoIe

and just you know
catch a gIimse...

of those days

which are robabIy gone forever.
Maybe not.