American Magus

Harry Smith was neglected during his life but, as more details about his work emerged since his death in 1991, he is now recognized as one of the great visionary outsiders of American art. A painter, experimental film-maker, occultist, musicologist and self-proclaimed urban anthropologist, Smith has been championed by everyone from Bob Dylan ('without Harry Smith I wouldn't have existed') to Beck and the Grateful Dead. With its stumbling narration (from Igliori herself) and crude mix of film footage, interviews and music, this is not a polished documentary, but Smith is such a wondrously exotic subject it's easy to overlook the formal inadequacies.