Review of Phil Ochs: There But for Fortune (2011) by Biff_Loman — 16 Apr 2011

The film captures the grimness of that era, the struggles of the civil rights era, the shock of the Kennedy and MLK assassinations, and the interminable horror of the Vietnam War. It's a worthy corrective to mendacious film fantasies like Forrest Gump.

Those born since the '70s have no idea of how threatened, paranoid and alienating it was in post-WWII America, and the propaganda ministry of the mainstream media tends to keep it that way. With regards to Ochs, the film exaggerates his interest in pop-stardom, which was always an absurdist parody of same.

Likewise the influence of John Wayne. James Dean was a real influence, particularly the misunderstood rebel without a cause who died an early tragic death. Likewise, the diagnosis of bipolarity, which is made much of, seems mainly in retrospect.

Today bipolarity is a catch-all for what were in those days psychopathologies, and the victims of which were often institutionalized. Today many of the delusional symptoms of same are treatable with drugs.

In those days they were not. But, distinctly, that's not what was wrong with Ochs. He was saner and more politically astute than most. Under the stresses of the music business, radical politics, harassment by the FBI, he took various drugs and drank in excess, and they took their toll.

There is a form of depression that results from chronic THC intake, and it's known to sometimes lead to suicide. That may have been it with Ochs, if indeed he committed suicide.... But I digress. The film is worth seeing.

Phil Ochs lives.