The Devil and Daniel Johnston

...the most harrowing and aesthetically keen portrait of madness and artistic inspiration since Crumb.

This fascinating doc salutes the ''genius'' of Daniel Johnston, a mascot of the '80s music scene, but reveals him to be the Chauncey Gardiner of indie rock.

He is a singer-songwriter and an artist whose underground tapes and gallery shows sell out, and he is also a manic-depressive with other mental problems that have had him in and out of hospitals for years.

The locations, sound design, and even the simplest mattes – pictures, postcards, a huge, heart-shaped pile of cassettes – complement the story like red on black.

For the uninitiated, Johnston is a pop music cult figure, once praised by Kurt Cobain as “the greatest living songwriter.” His songs are excruciatingly personal, small, and messy.