Documenting a Musical Outsider

Gay artists, he said, can find themselves dealing with a double dose of cultural alienation. He talked about his teenaged years, listening to the Smiths while lying on his bed and staring out the window. He compared the group's enigmatic lead singer and lyricist, Morrissey, to Walker, and said: "Think about how hard it is for anyone to pick up a guitar, to become any kind of an artist at all, to overcome the obstacles to expressing yourself in that way. But add to that being gay and having to write your songs with elaborate metaphors and layers of meaning, because you can't really say what you mean. That makes it much harder — and almost always much better."

Kijak hasn't found it easy, either. "I don't connect with the mainstreamed, A-list gay culture," he said, "but then there are a lot of 'queer queers' who are out of the mainstream. … I feel like the alternative I belong to isn't a sexuality thing; it's your artistic pursuit, your point of view, your political, social and cultural beliefs, that set you apart."

Is that queer culture? "Definitely," he answered. "Unless a better word comes along soon, that's the one. Absolutely. My whole world has been lived on a fringe of exploring the arts, really extreme music and culture. That's what turns me on. … I think that's why I admire Scott so much. He says he feels like he's floating outside of culture and roots."

Walker is intensely, painfully private about his personal life, and Kijak respected that privacy while making his documentary. The focus of 30 Century Man is on Walker's musical story, told in riveting interviews with giants of the music world, speaking of Walker and his influence with reverence. Not bad for a man almost universally thought to be basically out of his mind.

"He's very serious and dedicated to what he's doing, but he's not crazy," said Kijak, who had unprecedented access to Walker 's studio during the recording of his most recent album, The Drift (2006). "At one point when we were filming a conversation with him and his colleague David Sefton. David said, 'You know, Scott, most people expect you to be off twitching in a cave somewhere, and you're not. You're just a regular person who makes irregular records.'"

Audiences can judge for themselves, said Harold, who pointed out, "You only have to watch the movie to know that Walker isn't crazy."

There are plenty of people who will tell you that Scott Walker is crazy. "Pretentious" and "self-indulgent" are words that come up a lot, too. And for Americans unfamiliar with Walker , it might be hard to fully understand the context in which his music exists, or the extent to which he broke with the musical expectations of his era.

From producing swirling pop hits, including the Burt Bacharach-penned "Make it Easy on Yourself" and "The Sun Ain't Gonna Shine Anymore," to the stunningly experimental work he's released on his last two albums, Walker has taken listeners on a journey no one could have predicted and many fans couldn't understand.