‘You can’t separate them’: the unlikely love story of Guy Clark, Susanna Clark and Townes Van Zandt

The unusual bond between the three musicians is the focus of a new documentary Without Getting Killed or Caught, a story of romance, creativity and tragedy

When director Tamara Saviano decided to make a film about the Americana songwriter Guy Clark, she knew she couldn’t tell his story without covering the lives of two other creative souls – his wife, the songwriter and painter Susanna Clark, and his best friend, the fellow Americana star, Townes Van Zandt. “They influenced him so much, and he influenced them too,” said Saviano to the Guardian. “You can’t separate them.”

At the same time, their entwined lives endured deep fractures and brutal hurts. The story Saviano tells in the new documentary Without Getting Killed or Caught, named after a lyric from one of Clark’s best-known songs, LA Freeway, traces a wide arc of personal traumas and creative triumphs. It involves a violent suicide, multiple addictions, and ruinous depressions. But, despite all that, the central figures forged a three-way love that, however unconventional, enriched them all. To reveal the intimacies of the story, Saviano scored a true coup – audio and written diaries left by Susanna Clark after her death from cancer in 2012. Throughout the film, the diaries are read by Oscar-winner Sissy Spacek. “They’re a gold mine,” Saviano said of the tapes.

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from The Guardian https://ift.tt/3mT4kme

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