Review of Bound for Glory (1976) by Matt B — 19 Sep 2009

Woodie Guthrie is one of my personal heros. Somone I admire with a great passion but have obviously never met. This was made in the waning years of the "New Hollywood" era. A year after "Jaws" came in like a trojan horse and ruined it and the same year "Rocky" was out. The following year would have the releases of "Star Wars", "Smokey and the Bandit" and "Close Encounters of the Third Kind" come and put the final nails in. This film was directed by Hal Ashby. He of "Harold and Maude" and "Shampoo" fame. This film pulls no punches and doesn't really get into much of the recording aspect of Woddie Guthrie's life. Something that bored me to tears in "Ray" and "Walk the Line". The depiction of the great dust bowl tragedies of the Depression era Oklahoma are low key compared to the dramatic sweeps of the old standard "The Grapes of Wrath". But it works just as good. At first I was really disliking Woodie Guthrie upon first seeing this movie but as the movie goes on you get a sort of amdiration for the man who just wasn't satisfied settling down in a suburban home. He was a rambler. A vagabond. Loved to travel and meet new people and have new adventures and experiences. This is something I personally love to do since I spend alot of my off time planning or going on road trips across the country. Then the movie shifts into more about his music and thats great too because I am a huge fan of the songwriting talents of Mr. Guthrie. he is the man who wrote the greatest song about America. "This Land is my Land". It also delves surprisingly heavy into his more communistic/ socialistic tendancies and talks alot about why unions AT THAT TIME had to be created. I'll leave that up to your personal political views to decide whether that is a pro or con. Personally I don't care. I see the pros and cons of both sides. Everyone gives a good performance and while David Carridine is good as Guthrie. The legand of the man he is playing far outweighs anything David Carridine could have done. A biopicture done right and not dull or pretentious. Recomended for any music afficionado or fan of "New Hollywood" films.

This is one of my favorite movies.