Highway 99 a Double Album (World premiere, in person: Ethan Hawke, Ryan Hawke, Buddy Squires)

Ethan Hawke: Highway 99 a Double Album (US 2025). Ethan Hawke.

Jason Silverman (TFF 2025): "“The spoken word holds the whole thing together,” says John Carter Cash, talking generally about culture and specifically about Merle Haggard. “Someone needs to speak it into existence.” During his prime, Haggard might be best compared to Bob Dylan: Both seemed to have the ability to reach up into the unknown and pull down songs that were completely alive and tuned into the moment. Haggard lived an epic life, surviving crushing childhood poverty and teenage incarceration and his explosive rise to fame. In the 1960s, he was both a hit-maker and a potent spokesperson for America’s rural poor and then, with one 1969 song, landed at the center of the ‘60s culture wars. Haggard may be the Odysseus of country music, and director Ethan Hawke is his Homer. He has lovingly crafted a wise, big-hearted and endlessly surprising biography featuring songchapters performed and remembered by American musical royalty, Dwight Yoakam, Rosanne Cash and Norah Jones among them." –JS (U.S., 2025, 193m) In person: Ethan Hawke, Ryan Hawke, Buddy Squires"

    Viewed at Sheridan Opera House, Telluride Film Festival (TFF), 29 Aug 2025

AA: Ethan Hawke's Highway 99 A Double Album is a non-fiction biopic of Merle Haggard (1937-2016) , the country & western legend. It fulfills artist biopic expectations as a "rise and fall" story and transcends them magnificently. 

It is a fantastic movie about music - about Merle Haggard, his family and the entire country & western culture. It is an illustrated version of a fictional "double album" of 26 of Merle Haggard's greatest songs, sung by himself and countless other great performers, male and female, black and white.

At the heart is "Okie from Muskogee" (1969), the protest song against protest songs, the anthem of the silent majority, embraced by Richard Nixon.

Until then, folk and country music had not neglected its ties with the Depression era. The 1960s folk & protest movement was close to country & western. But now a divide appeared between hippies and anti-hippies, reflecting a wider change in America.

Merle Haggard was embraced by Nixon and Reagan, but Haggard distanced himself from fake populism. He stayed true to the forgotten people, the hard-working America. He shared their pain and love.

He also distanced himself from well-meaning liberals who talked down to people. This is the biggest issue of the movie and the biggest challenge of today. Populism is taking over everywhere, and liberal democrats have lost touch with the people. Haggard was not a teacher, but he teaches us.

Ethan Hawke reveals Merle Haggard as an artist who kept growing as a great poet and musician while fighting to make sense of his contradictions.

I happened to sit in front of Hawke and congratulated him in person for this movie that alone was worth the visit to Telluride.

PS. 4 Sep 2025: confirmation post festum: Highway 99 a Double Album was my favourite at the Festival.