Previously Unknown: The Legend of Blaze Foley is a biographical documentary about muscian Blaze Foley. I had never heard of Foley, and by the looks of the other people at the screening, his biggest fans are not exactly in my age bracket. In general I enjoyed the screening, but it was by no means one of my favorite docs, nor in a style that I would ever make one. The director, Kevin Triplett (no relation) has been working on this film for 10-12 years now. That makes my head and heart hurt. Foley was already deceased by the time he started, and Triplett didn't know or listen to Foley's music when he was alive. I thought that was really interesting, and was dying to know what motivated him to get into this topic and make this film. Surely something make him crazy passionate, otherwise how could've he have stuck with it for this long? But, when asked at the Q&A, Triplett responded, "I don't know why I made this documentary." ...And he was dead serious. He was interested and proud of his work, and yet seemed oddly apathetic on many levels.
The doc chronicled Foley's life and broke it down into chapters, 'The ___ Years" (insert where he was living or name he went by at the time). Every now and then it would cut away from the interviews and typical doc form into what appeared to be clips of a TV special done on Foley. However it was all part Triplett's own work. There were also fake commercials for Foley's CDs or compilations. They were funny, but for me were really jarring and distracting. Even the TV program format confused me sometimes. It was an entertaining and creative take on the feature doc, taking all these different elements of biographical programming and putting them together, but I don't know if I love it.
Also something I didn't really like, was the panel who joined the director were all people who'd appeared in the film, and all knew Foley when he was alive, and the crowd was full of friends and fans, so the Q&A turned into story time, inside joke swapping, and reminiscing about Foley. That's all fine and dandy, but I felt like I wasn't supposed to be there, it was kind of awkward. And Triplett couldn't relate either, so we weren't even talking about the film. The woman on the panel apparently used to date Foley, but only one relationship of Foley's was represented in the film, and it was just really awkward and confusing for her to be bringing up all these stories of the two of them. She even said 'I love her (the wife/girlfriend), but Blaze HAD other girlfriends'. I don't know, it just didn't seem like that was the discussion that needed to be going on after the film.
But anyway, I did enjoy it, and loved all the archive video and photos they had of Foley. Check it out and support K. Triplett!
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