Ethan Hawke wrote and directed this acclaimed biopic about country music singer-songwriter Blaze Foley.
Veteran actor, multiple Oscar nominee and two-time C&I cover guy Ethan Hawke serves as writer and director of Blaze, the acclaimed biopic about Blaze Foley, the legendary country music singer-songwriter whose tunes have been recorded by such notables as Merle Haggard, Lyle Lovett, Willie Nelson and John Prine. Actor/musician Ben Dickey earned a special Jury Award for his performance in the title role at the 2018 Sundance Film Festival, where the film had its world premiere. Co-stars include Alia Shawkat, Charlie Sexton, Josh Hamilton, Richard Linklater, Alynda Segarra, Sam Rockwell, Steve Zahn and Kris Kristofferson.
As Variety film critic Owen Lieberman noted at Sundance, Blaze is a far cry from your average rags-to-riches story about a superstar musician. Rather, the film spins a tale about “a sweetly passive and self-destructive anti-star, with a buried bad temper, who is mostly a monosyllabic layabout. He’s the hero as lug — but the thing is, this lug has heart. And the daring of Ethan Hawke as a filmmaker is that he shapes his scenes not in a conventional way but as randomly observed slivers of life that amble and glide along to Blaze’s dawdling spirit.
“If the film were any less accomplished, that redneck-verité approach might have proved disastrous. But Blaze, which leaps around in time, telling Blaze Foley’s story by zeroing in on a handful of disparate moments, is beautifully made. It’s an organic slice of life — raw and untidy, deceptively aimless but always exploratory.”
Blaze is slated to open in a handful of Texas theaters in mid-August before rolling out into nationwide release. This trailer will give you a good idea what to expect.