Geraldine
The story, direction, characters, and writing/dialogue is akin to taking a tranquilizer shot to the neck, but everything else was so well done.
bkoganbing
I think that Woody Guthrie came along at the right time for his music to be played and become popular. The 30s, the years of the Depression of economic want and deprivation, Guthrie was a voice for the homeless and dispossessed, for those just wanting a small slice of the American dream. Guthrie would not go over in the Reagan years and surely not in the age of Trump. One really should see Bound For Glory back to back with A Face In The Crowd. The real Woody Guthrie is not all that far apart from the fictional Lonesome Rhodes whom Andy Griffith played in that latter picture. Both represent differing strains of American populism just that Griffith's character Lonesome Rhodes represents the dark side. And we've recently seen the dark side triumph.Guthrie didn't want people to just feel good, he wanted for them to be healthy and happy and prosperous. It's not enough as I think people who voted for Donald Trump in the last election will find out soon to deprive those 'others' whomever they be of what you think they're stealing from you. Subsisting isn't living. Enough to pay your rent or buy home, see your kids get educated with the hope they'll do even better than you, that's what it's about. And you get it by organizing. Putting the sweat of the working man on an equal footing with the buying power of the bosses. An ethic that's being challenged now.David Carradine plays the rambling and rebellious Guthrie who got the cook's helper's tour of America via the freight trains and the migrant labor camps. It would have been the easiest thing for Guthrie to just pack it in and just become a hillbilly entertainer on country music stations. He was after far more than that with his songs. Carradine captures Guthrie's rebellious spirit perfectly and gets great support from Melinda Dillon as his loving wife who is also concerned the next meal for their growing family.Bound For Glory got an Oscar for Best Adapted Musical score and when you have Woody Guthrie's voluminous writings to work with it must have been a labor of love. It was up for Best Picture and a flock technical awards as well.Woody Guthrie's most famous song was This Land Is Your Land and listen to the words carefully. It's not just patriotic pablum the benefits and responsibilities of this land called America is for all of us to take care of and leave in good condition for the next generation.After all this land was made for you, me, all of us.
tieman64
"I've seen lots of funny men in this world. Some will rob you with a six-gun and some will rob you with a fountain pen" – Woody Guthrie Set during the Great Depression, Hal Ashby's "Bound for Glory" follows folk singer Woody Guthrie as he evolves from a lowly sign painter in Texas to a popular radio singer in California. Guthrie's cross-country journey was itself commonplace during the Dust Bowl years. This decades long period saw dust storms and droughts ravaging the American panhandle, conditions which led to an exodus of farmers, most of whom lost their land and travelled West, eventually settling in California, where they were ruthlessly exploited by land barons who pitted worker against worker.Like most of Ashby's lead characters, Woody's thus a non-conformist with a strong sense of moral outrage. Ashby paints him as a wandering artist, hopping from town to town, riding trains, hitching rides, meeting folk and developing his conscience. It's not long before his songs become weapons; a means to rally men against social injustice.And so as the film progresses, Woody begins to inspire people to unionise and organise (against farm barons and landlords) and morphs into a kind of romantic anarchist-socialist figure who lives to fight and loves to sing.Like John Ford's "Grapes of Wrath", "Bound for Glory's" view of the Great Depression mixes inappropriately cosy postcard images with gut wrenching hardship. Families struggle to make ends meet, food is scarce and jobs are few. But where Ashby and Ford differ most is in the latter's sense of optimism; things will be better, if only we keep singing. If only we keep chanting, our guitars in hand. Ashy, you sense, is a bit more pessimistic. Understandable, considering the era in which he was active.The title of Ashby's 1979 film, "Being There", was perhaps inspired by German philosopher Martin Heidegger's magnum opus "Being and Time". In his book, Heidegger coined the term "Dasein" or "Being there", which referred to existence in the most minimal sense. By using the expression "Being There", Heidegger called attention to the fact that a human being cannot be taken into account except as a being existing in the middle of a larger "fabric". To be human is to be fixed, embedded and immersed in the physical, literal, tangible day to day. But Heidegger believed that certain people could escape this fabric, or perhaps be more attuned to it via a heightened self reflexivity, thought most were too preoccupied to do so.In "Being There", Ashby had actor Peter Sellers essentially play a brain damaged child called Chance. Depending upon one's reading of the film, Chance's innocence either represented a kind of perceptual freedom which allowed him to unknowingly see beyond the delusive forms that mask everyday reality, or the exact opposite, Chance a figure of "chance", of lawless, nonsensical irrationality. Regardless, "Bound for Glory's" Guthrie is obviously intended to be juxtaposed with Chance. Gutherie's a simple man with few possessions and few ties. But while others are on their hands and knees, working and toiling in the dirt, Woody stands upright and sees the world both as it is, and in terms of possibilities instead of limitations. Whever someone tries to force their frameworks upon him, Woody rejects them (marriage, family, job, class, money etc) and goes in search of better paths. These path may not be visible, or indeed even exist, but what matters most is that Woody inspires others to join him on his search.8.5/10 - Though Ashby fails to delve deeply into Guthrie's life, preferring to reduce him to an archetypal "wandering artist" character, this is nevertheless a fine, era defining film, and features some stunning cinematography by the legendary Haskell Wexler. Worth two viewings.
