We hear these stories, which are so larger than life, and we marvel at the audacity of those involved.  We wonder at the rebelliousness, a rebelliousness that has defined Rock and Roll since its inception.  We might even shake our head and smile.But we often forget there are others involved in the story.  People like Diane Parsons, Gram’s younger half-sister who says about the Phil Kaufman incident: “I understood a little more, after him [Kaufman] explaining it to me.  I accepted it, but I also felt like there had been a better way to handle it than what he had done.  And I never communicated to him the pain that he had caused and actually to this day still causes.”“I was painfully reminded of that by meeting the family,” producer/director Gandulf Hennig says, “and I really tried to show that other side of this myth… because it is painful, it’s real people and they didn’t choose to be in the limelight.”  With Gram Parsons - Fallen Angel, Hennig strives to show that balance between the personal and the public life of Gram Parsons.  Growing up in Germany as a self-described punk rock kid, Hennig first came to Country music through the seemingly unlikely path of Elvis Costello and his 1981 album Almost Blue, which incidentally includes two Gram Parsons songs.  Hennig notes this as his first exposure to Country music and he then began to find other artists whom he connected with, such as the Byrds.  Around 1990, a girlfriend gave Henning a homemade tape that included “Hot Burrito #1”.  “It just swept me off my feet,” Hennig says of the track, “it literally touched me so deeply that I wanted to know more about that.”  Hennig quickly went out to get Gilded Palace of Sin and a 1982 compilation of Parsons tracks, both Burrito and solo, which included liner notes by Elvis Costello.The liner notes of Costello hinted at the life of Gram, including the sensational story of his death and the stealing of the body.  Curiosity about the life of Gram and the music that moved Gandulf planted the initial seeds for the eventual film.It was during this time that Gandulf was an intern for a media company and learning the craft of filmmaking.  On his own, he researched Gram and began to see the need for a documentary.  One of his first contacts was Sid Griffin, a former member of the Long Ryders and an author who had published in 1985 the first full-length book on Parsons.Griffin and Hennig became fast friends and through a connection Griffin had with the BBC, they were on their way toward the goal of making the documentary a reality.  Through the uphill battles to get the film financed, they also encountered victories along the way in the form of interviews with key figures in the story, many of which had not spoken publicly on the subject.  “When I started, nobody really wanted to talk to me about it,” he says of the trials of earning the trust of these friends and family members.Gandulf was aware that many of the things that had been written about Gram in the past were hurtful to the family and he wanted to be careful not to do the same with his film.  “I am really happy they like the result,” he says, “that’s a really great thing for me.”Hennig also struggled to show the balance between the pain and anger of another close associate of Grams, Chris Hillman.  Hillman was instrumental in bringing Parsons to the Byrds, only to be left cold when Parsons quit on the eve of a tour of South Africa.  It is a testament to both his charisma and his musical vision that following the incident, Hillman, two months later, joined with Gram to form the Flying Burrito Brothers, only to be left again when Gram decided on a solo career rather than continue with the band he helped found. “To me,” Hennig says, “it became obvious that he really liked Gram, that he suffered a lot of frustration from that.” But even as Hennig strives not to add further hurt to the family, he does not gloss over some of Grams attitudes that might not be entirely flattering. “I thought it was important to show both the musical vision, the strength and power, and the torn character he was.  And I don’t think that is a contradiction, at least nothing that should be hidden.”  This balance, often times overlooked by directors and writers, was something Gandulf learned in the process of writing of the project: “The Gram Parsons that I found was not the Gram Parsons I started to look for.  So that was a process for me because you start to find someone less appealing on a personal level than you thought it would be, you know.  But so far audiences seem to appreciate that.”  But even so, Gandulf never second guessed the project or his desire to bring Grams story to a larger audience.“There is not that much footage of Gram around,” Gandulf notes, “so we show mainly the impact he had on other people.”  Beyond the emotional impact he had on those he knew and loved, there is also the musical impact he left on artists of all genres.  The foundation that Gram laid can be traced through artists such as the Eagles, The Desert Rose Band, Steve Earle and Dwight Yoakam, to name just a few.  Parsons “cosmic American music” has morphed into what we have through the years come to call Americana.  Fallen Angel will, in part, be responsible for allowing more fans and future musicians to discover Gram and his music.