| Drink and drugs make singer's story all but untellable 17 March 2003 John Petkovic Plain Dealer Reporter Rock stars are notoriously inaccessible. There always seems to be a bodyguard, a bouncer, a posse and a press agent between them and the outside world. With Shane MacGo wan, it's booze and pills. Even when he stares you straight in the face, it seems like he's drifting further and further into an other world. That's the most in triguing thing about "If I Should Fall From Grace: The Shane MacGowan Story." The film, which features interviews with MacGowan, his parents, former associates and longtime girlfriend Victoria Clarke, chronicles the fermented life and times and songs of the Pogues' singer. Er, I mean, tries to. "When I went into it, I thought I wanted to capture his story," says director Sarah Share. "Then I realized you couldn't, really. It's less a documentary than wildlife photography." The reason, of course, is that the 44-year-old MacGowan was as drunk as a skunk. "We shot it over nine months," says Share, via phone from London, where the Irish-born filmmaker now resides. "A lot of that time was spent outside his flat waiting 10 hours for him to come out." When he did, MacGowan always made a beeline for the bar. Much of the 90-minute film follows him going to and hanging out in pubs - and talking about the Pogues, the seminal band that influenced a generation of Irish rockers. And while it's hard to make out much of what the almost-toothless MacGowan is slurring, it's almost beside the point. "If I Should Fall From Grace" is a portrait of the artist as a romantic and a drunk. In MacGowan's case, the two go hand in hand - in myth, song and life. "Shane developed this persona some time ago," says Share, 44. "He styles himself as a drunken Irish artist. "That's why I never cared much for the Pogues. I have a very different view of Ireland than him," she adds. "I grew up there. I couldn't wait to go to London to get away from all the drunken Paddies. He grew up in London and romanticized about them." So why make the movie? "I was slightly obsessed with why he is [the way] he is," says Share. "And I was friends with his former manager." The idea was clinched one night when MacGowan and manager Joey Cashman dropped by her place to talk about making a movie. It was the first of countless all-nighters. "Shane never leaves his flat until midnight," says Share. "Then he stays out all night, until they finally throw him out of the bar. You can't control him. He's like a vampire." Or a zombie. Share had to ditch hours of interview footage because MacGowan was so incoherent that even subtitles couldn't make sense out of the slobbering. When she was asked to extend the documentary from 60 to 90 minutes - to make it a feature-length film - Share had to incorporate footage from old Pogues videos to make up the time. It actually helps. Early clips of the Pogues romping through poetic, punk-fueled Celt-rock capture the band in all its drunken glory. They also stand as a sobering contrast to MacGowan's current state. "I've actually come around to liking his songs," says Share. "And when he's lucid, he's incredibly entertaining. "But Shane is tragic, even if he doesn't know it or doesn't care," she adds. "If he didn't have such a drug and alcohol problem, he'd actually be a prolific writer. Now, you get the feeling that he just might drop dead at any moment." |