Film explores music, struggles of rock band Drive-By Truckers
Political and social issues typically permeate the work of Barr Weissman. But it was the sonic pull of Athens-based rock outfit Drive-By Truckers that led the 54-year-old, Maryland-based filmmaker down a different trail.
Strapped with a volunteer skeleton crew, Weissman chronicled three years of the convention-breaking band’s career. With “The Secret to a Happy Ending,” which helps wrap up the Atlanta Film Festival on April 23, the director quilts together an expose of a tenacious act that defies Murphy’s musical law.
After a friend turned him onto the band, Weissman says he became obsessed with the songwriting and its connection with the human condition.
“They made me feel the power and liberation that great rock songs can give,” he says. “And they go a little deeper, because their songs are so connected to their lives, the lives of the characters in their songs, and somehow to our collective history as a nation, but in the most natural way possible -- great storytelling.”
So Weissman set out to tell the band’s story. It was his non-rock resume that helped convince founding Truckers, Patterson Hood and Mike Cooley, to give him warts-and-all backstage access.
Shooting began in 2005 and the footage lends itself to something far beyond the typical rock doc.
For Weissman, it required the juggling act of shoestring filming and editing while holding down a day job, marriage and parenthood.
It was challenging, Weissman says. “As someone with three kids, I hope that it sends a message to them that it’s OK to follow your dreams.”
At the same time it ironically mirrors The Truckers’ unwavering determination.
“I do think [Drive-By Truckers] are a wonderful example of persistence and hard work over 25-plus years garnering them the success that they do have,” he says. “And if there is a justice in this world, more may be on the way.”
"The Secret to a Happy Ending"
7:30 p.m. April 23. $40-$50. 14th Street Playhouse, 173 14th St., Atlanta. 404-352-4225, www.atlantafilmfestival.com.
A Q&A with Weissman and a performance by members of Drive-By Truckers, including Patterson Hood and Brad Morgan, follows the screening.
