“Glen Campbell: I’ll Be Me” doesn’t just highlight the end of a music icon’s celebrated career, it illuminates the devastating effects of Alzheimer’s disease, which the particular patient being profiled handles with humor and grace.
Sadly, there’s no cure in sight, and only $600 million of the federal government’s annual budget is dedicated to discovering one, so director James Keach and producer Trevor Albert hope their documentary can turn its “Rhinestone Cowboy” into “the Magic Johnson of Alzheimer’s.”
“He puts a human face to it,” Keach told an audience after TheWrap‘s Awards Season Screening Series presentation of the film at the Landmark Theater in Los Angeles on Thursday. “You fall in love with him, and hopefully think, ‘We’re going to do something about it.’”
Campbell announced his condition to the public in June of 2011, and decided to embark on one last tour to promote his final record, “Ghost on the Canvas.” He asked Keach, who produced Johnny Cash biopic “Walk the Line,” to document the five-week journey.
“At the beginning, we could not imagine that he could get on stage and perform for 2,000 people with Alzheimer’s because his short-term memory was nonexistent,” Albert said.
Campbell, however, proved music was a language not easily forgotten.
The five week tour eventually extended to 151 shows before his family decided a concert in Napa, Calif. would be his last. Despite reaching Stage 4 of the disease by the end, the footage Keach captured over a year-and-a-half of filming showed Campbell could still leave audiences in awe, thanks to a pitch-perfect voice, and fingers effortlessly dancing between his guitar’s frets.
“When we were filming, I remember there were days when I was like, ‘This is the end.’ But then the next concert he would blow us away,” Albert said. “His music seemed to come and go, but even in the end, I believe the next concert could have been incredible.”
Campbell has since lost most of his musical ability, Keach said. The country singer is living at a memory care facility in Nashville, Tenn., and has reached Stage 6 of the disease. Stage 7 is the last.
“What’s fascinating is he’ll start laughing. You don’t know what he’s laughing about, but he’s really laughing. He’ll get everyone laughing,” Keach said. “He’s still Glen.”
Although an Alzheimer’s diagnosis may sound grim, laughter was a huge part of the surprisingly uplifting film, both on screen and off. The audience attending the screening frequently joined Campbell’s friends, family and fans laughing at the singer’s never-ending supply of jokes that made the final cut.
“We looked at everything about Alzheimer’s and thought, ‘This is really going to be hard,’ because everything about Alzheimer’s is depressing,” Keach said. “Then we met Glen, and he was anything but depressing.”
While Alzheimer’s affects everybody differently, Campbell’s cognitive decline revealed it’s possible for patients to progress gracefully throughout the seven-stage framework of the disease. In the movie, Campbell only gets emotional about his affliction once, and is otherwise able to keep a smile on his face when discussing his memory loss.
Still, Campbell had his fair share of dark days. Keach and Trevor wrestled over just how much of them to show, but ultimately decided “a little goes a long way” when giving glimpses of Campbell’s temper tantrums.
“We both committed that we wouldn’t make a movie that would leave people feeling like they wanted to die, and life was meaningless. We wanted to try to make a movie that sort of showed the human spirit at its best,” Albert said. “This is really a story about how we choose to live our life when faced with adversity.”
“I’ll Be Me” can currently be seen in select theaters in Los Angeles and New York City. Since the chances of a documentary taking off in theaters is slim, the filmmakers have adopted a different release strategy to ensure their message gets heard.
After creating the I’ll Be Me Alzheimer’s Foundation, a non-profit dedicated to raising money and awareness for the disease, and screening it in front of 4,500 people attending a Nashville concert, Keach and Albert have received over 200 requests to screen the film for schools and other organizations interested in learning about the disease.
“Our business is very limited in terms of theatrical, but the tale is pretty long for this,” Keach said.
Watch the trailer for the film below: