Susanna eventually separated from Guy - he admits his bullshit was getting to be too much. In one of her many poems she wrote tellingly about Townes and Guy: “One is my soul, the other my heart.”Īudio cassette recordings made by Susanna are more than interstitial elements, they provide a fundamental bedrock for the film. Although the film charts the course of Guy’s life, it is told through the reflections of Susanna. Wherever they lived, Susanna and Guy’s house was a gathering of like-minded artists. The great reviews did not translate into sales, but covers of Susanna’s songs charted easily. After five albums on two major labels, Clark stopped chasing hits and moved solidly into acoustic folk. Like Townes, Guy required the lyrics to work first as poetry. Warner Nashville picked him up, and despite interactions with the likes of Emmylou Harris, Guy bumped into the same tensions between stardom and poetry. 1, from 1975) drew on his upbringing in Monahans, a tiny dusty west Texas town.

Guy rebelled against the Nashville way of recording and threatened to change his name if RCA released his recordings in a way he didn’t like. Mind you, Guy seemed to push back on stardom, especially if it meant shortchanging the song. Although honored and respected by his peers, wider recognition escaped Guy for too many years. In fact, all these artists covered Guy’s songs, as did so many others. Fellow travelers include Rodney Crowell, Steve Earle, Vince Gill, Lyle Lovett, Terry Allen, who float in and out of the narrative, providing perspective and color. So you know, the outlaw country movement is wider than just Willie, Waylon, Kris and Johnny.

Guy wrote the song with Susanna’s eyeliner pencil on a burger wrapper, with the wise advice to any songwriter that “if you ever have a fragment of a lyric, write it down because it will quickly disappear.”

Live clips, clever animations and home movies are interspersed with more recent interview clips.Īs the story unfolds, Susanna paints while Guy and Townes struggle to hone their songwriting skills. The documentary, Without Getting Killed or Caught, tells the story of three immensely talented and interconnected artists: Guy Clark, his best friend Townes Van Zandt and Susanna Clark, who loved them both.Ĭulled from both Susanna’s diary and the biography of Guy, Without Getting Killed or Caught: The Life and Music of Guy Clark, by Tamara Saviano, the film’s co-director along with Paul Whitfield, the story is anchored by Sissy Spacek’s voiceover as Susanna. This film will do much to educate those unaware of the immense talent that bubbled out of Nashville, and then Texas, in the ‘70s.

Without getting killed or caught movie