Skip to main content
Filmarian
All films
Poster for Wesley Willis
Sign in to rateBe the first to rate
+ write a review
Released
2003 · FILM

Wesley Willis

Directed by
Runtime
59 min
DocumentaryMusic

Synopsis

This documentary explores the life of the late Chicago-based artist and musician Wesley Willis. Directed by Daniel Bitton, the film follows Willis as he travels around the Chicago area, taking the bus, engaging in conversations with friends and strangers, selling his CDs at record shops, and going about his daily routine. Willis was known for his towering 6'6" frame and weight exceeding 300 pounds, as well as for being diagnosed with schizophrenia. Despite these challenges, he was cherished by fans and friends for his eccentric, offbeat music, his artistic abilities, and his gentle nature. Willis overcame significant obstacles, including extreme poverty, mental illness, child abuse, racism, and obesity. Surviving to the age of 40 was remarkable in itself, but the fact that he built a successful music career and managed to function independently was even more extraordinary.

Related titles

No curated related titles yet. Use the edit affordance to add "More from this director", "Same franchise", or "Adaptation source material" entries — every change goes through the wiki review queue.

How many hands made this film

The scale of the collaboration

Principal cast & crew: 10

These are the principals we have on file — the full crew ran to the hundreds. Every film this size was made by far more hands than any credits list ever names.

Why a floor?

This is a minimum, not a total. We only count the credits we’ve captured so far, and coverage is uneven — a blockbuster might show a few hundred names while another of the same size shows a couple dozen. The real crews all ran into the thousands. The number here only grows as full credits are enriched — so we frame it as a floor, never a headcount.

Craft leads on file

Edited by Daniel Bitton

Community tags

Be the first to tag this page — tags appear right away. Try a theme, capability, or subject (e.g. WWII, heist, slow burn, time travel, A24).

Help complete this page

We’re missing mpaa rating, logline. Sign in to add what you know.