A few days ago I had the opportunity to see Danielson: A Family Movie (or, Make A Joyful Noise Here), a compelling documentary that offers an intimate look at a band I have enjoyed immensely for many years now, but never understood on a personal level. I’d rather spend time talking about the film and not the history of Daniel Smith, so I’ll just say this: The Danielson Famile are a fantastic yet enigmatic rock band from my home state of New Jersey, who are often viewed as outcasts due to the religious messages that permeate through their oeuvre.
The documentary is exceptionally organized, introducing the audience to the members of the Danielson Famile one at a time while intertwining their own histories with Daniel’s. Although he is certainly the main character, each relative and friend has equal screen time. The available footage seemed infinite, with clips ranging back to the senior thesis performance at Rutgers University in the early ’90s to the most recent tour in support of the album Ships. The one-on-one interviews and overdubbed audio are poignant and insightful. Nothing confessed by any person sounds forced or pedantic. Well, maybe one person, but I’ll get to that later.
The focus of the documentary is various struggles Daniel encounters throughout his musical career. There is constant grappling with the notions of art, commence, religion and culture. In every snapshot of an audience member following a Danielson Famile performance, their comments are related to interpretations of the religious messages in the music, or how they do/do not care what he is singing, so long as the music is powerful and pleasurable. A DJ conducting a radio interview continually inquires about the religious undertones. Even though Daniel says continually throughout the film that the goal of the band is to be a conduit for joy, they are continually defined as a “Christian rock band,” forcefully placed into a genre that simply does not describe exactly their music.
Although I heard been warned by someone that the movie painted a negative portrait of Sufjan Stevens (warned? hell, that made me way to see it even more!), this turned out to be untrue (a shame, because I would have loved to devote another entire entry to my hatred of all this Sufjan Stevens). There is one brief scene where he says something jokingly about his “bad habits” and how they’ll lead him to an early death (melodramatic bullshit), but overall he came across as someone who was supremely interested in furthering the music and contributing positively to the group. I question the director’s motives for juxtaposing shots of Danielson Famile performances with Sufjan Stevens performances later in the film, because they tend to imply Stevens’ persona is a complete rip-off, from the kitschy costumes to the abnormally large bands and spiritual lyricism, and gives the impression that once his own career took off he disappeared from the Famile. There’s one quote from Daniel towards the end of the film that makes him sound a little bitter, as if there might be some residual jealousy or bad blood. It could just be my interpretation, though.
Overall, director J.L. Aronson did a fantastic job of presenting the history of a band and weaving a concise, enrapturing story. Throughout the film he remains at a great distance from the band (thank God, I can’t stand when people feel the need to inject themselves into their work, like I am right now). Danielson: A Family Movie is the antithesis of a film like Dig, which is a complete trainwreck painting negative portraits of all those involved. In Aronson’s documentary, we are afforded an intimate glimpse of an artist’s work-life as well as his home-life. Of course, for Daniel Smith these are not mutually exclusive. His is the personification of a family man, including them in every aspect of his life, and not losing sight of anyone as his success continues and expands.
The only problem I had with the entire DVD package was that the clip of the Famile performing “Smooth Death” on a foreign radio station — which had been available on the Danielson: A Famly Movie official website when I first heard about the film in 2005 — was cut from the film, and not included as an extra…And if that’s the only problem one can find in a documentary, everyone involved must have done a damn fine job.
Add it to your Netflix cue, order it from Amazon, watch and learn. You might just become a fan (or fall deeper in love if you are already a fan).
