A version of this story about “Jason Isbell: Running With Our Eyes Closed” first appeared at race begins issue of TheWrap Magazine’s Emmy.
The latest installment in the HBO Max Music Box series created by Bill Simmons, “Jason Isbell: Running With Our Eyes Closed” from director Sam Jones (“Tony Hawk: The Wheels Fall Off,” “I’m Trying to Break Your Heart: About Wilco a film in”) after writing and recording singer Jason Isbell’s 2020 album “Reunion”,But the film is much more than just one of the talented musician and writer’s best-ever albums, which chronicles his self-destructive days with drugs and alcohol and his marriage to fellow singer Amanda Shires, a charged creative and personal partnership. Which broke at about the same time. Jones’ cameras were rolling.
Why Sam, a movie about Jason Isbell?
Sam Jones: He’s on my interview show (“Off Camera with Sam Jones, And once I spoke to him, I felt that he not only had an interesting story, but was also good at telling it. So I flew to Nashville and a few hours before he was supposed to go on stage at Ryman, I asked him. He was very receptive and open to the terms and conditions, which were basically, “You just have to trust me and let me do my job.”
I imagine, Jason, that you had no idea what this would lead to.
Jason Isbell: Sam asked me if I would make a documentary about the making of the “Reunion” album. I thought it would be a documentary about a group of people making a record in the studio. I think Sam probably thought the same thing in the beginning. But it turned out to be much more than that. It turned out to be a huge pain in the ass. But at the same time, I think, there’s a really cool story to tell.
Was it hard to keep your focus when you had cameras in the studio while all this was happening?
Isabel: I’ve been doing it long enough to get good at ignoring distractions. It probably complicated the communication process, especially for me and Amanda when we were having a tough time. It became difficult to talk about things because cameras and microphones were everywhere. But you learn very quickly how to unplug the mic. [Laughs] You know, how to reach back and unplug it and plug it back in by saying when you’ve peed or whatever.
In the editing room, Sam, you had to juggle footage of Jason making the album, his and Amanda’s personal story, and segments of history where you followed his entire life up to that point.
Jones: Yes. In the past I either made straight vert docs or straight biographical, archival docs. With this one, I wanted to mix it up and jump through time. I felt like Jason’s past informed his art and his decision making and his relationships. And so the challenge was finding these little doorways or transitions.
The key was in the lyrics. Luckily for me, a lot of the material on “Reunions” was autobiographical and looked back a lot of his childhood. It was a very interesting thing to see her examine her parents’ divorce so nakedly and emotionally, and then be hit with the whirlwind that her own marriage wasn’t going so well.
Jason, would you have agreed to do it if you knew what would happen?
Isabel: I don’t know if I can answer this or not. Would this mean that I knew the process but not the result? I’m glad it happened. I think film is something that deserves to exist. So even if I had complete information, I would say yes. And, you know, not everything should be easy. The things that are difficult for me and the things that don’t paint me in the most comfortable light are usually the things I run from rather than run from.
Read more here from the Race Begins issue.
