A worshipful invocation of the fallen indie god, SEARCHING FOR ELLIOTT SMITH attempts to piece together a man too talented for the underground and too shy for the spotlight. An icon defined by his music’s emotional accessibility and the detached enigma of his public persona, Smith is as quietly compelling in the accounts of his friends and fans as his life and lyrics were. The film’s search is for a complete person amid the stories and associations, to preserve his memory and detail the disturbing uncertainties of his death.
The strange circumstances of Smith’s alleged suicide seem too perfectly and tragically poetic to be real. Reportedly, after arguing with his fiancée, Jennifer Chiba—the secondary center of the film’s latter half—Smith stabbed himself twice in the heart with a kitchen knife. Discovering the scene minutes later, Chiba immediately pulled the knife out of her love’s chest—the absolute opposite of any first-aid recommendation—and instantly worsened the already fatal wound. After Smith died, Chiba’s refusal to speak with detectives left the cause of death undetermined and allowed for the mounting popular assumption that the crime’s only witness was actually the murderer.
The case is not yet closed, but as the mystery is sustained, so is Smith’s spirit. Balancing his darkest depressions and greatest achievements, SEARCHING FOR ELLIOTT SMITH reveals its subject’s kindness, subtle humor, and reserved brilliance, as well as the perfect imperfections of his prolific output—and it testifies to the overwhelming effect his visceral truths had on his closest friends and anonymous admirers alike.
—Daniel Barnum-Swett
Screening presented by Newbury Comics
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