Post by RedFlag32 on Nov 8, 2007 20:05:34 GMT
Roger Ebert's review:
Pete Seeger: The Power of Song
**** Stars
September 13, 2007
Cast & Credits
Featuring Pete Seeger, Toshi Seeger, Bob Dylan, Bruce Springsteen,
Natalie Maines, Tom Paxton, David Dunaway, Bess Lomax Hawes, Joan
Baez, Ronnie Gilbert, Jerry Silverman, Henry Foner, Eric Weissberg,
Arlo Guthrie, Peter Yarrow, Mary Travers, Julian Bond, Tommy Smothers
and Bonnie Raitt.
The Weinstein Company presents a documentary directed by Jim Brown.
Running time: 93 minutes. No MPAA rating (suitable for all ages).
Opening today at Landmark Renaissance.
BY ROGER EBERT
I don't know if Pete Seeger believes in saints, but I believe he is
one. He's the one in the front as they go marching in. "Pete Seeger:
The Power of Song" is a tribute to the legendary singer and composer
who thought music could be a force for good, and proved it by writing
songs that have actually helped shape our times ("If I Had a Hammer"
and "Turn, Turn, Turn") and popularizing "We Shall Overcome" and
Woody Guthrie's unofficial national anthem, "This Land Is Your Land."
Over his long career (he is 88), he has toured tirelessly with song
and stories, never happier than when he gets everyone in the audience
to sing along.
This documentary, directed by Jim Brown, is a sequel of sorts to
Brown's wonderful "The Weavers: Wasn't That a Time" (1982), which
centered on the farewell Carnegie Hall concert of the singing group
Seeger was long associated with. The Weavers had many big hits circa
1950 ("Goodnight Irene," "Kisses Sweeter Than Wine") before being
blacklisted during the McCarthy years; called before the House
Un-American Activities Committee and asked to name members of the
Communist Party, Seeger evoked, not the fifth, but the First
Amendment. The Weavers immediately disappeared from the playlists of
most radio stations, and Seeger did not appear on television for 17
years, until the Smothers Brothers broke the boycott.
But he kept singing, invented a new kind of banjo, did more for the
rebirth of that instrument than anyone else, co-founded two folk-song
magazines, and with Toshi, his wife of 62 years, did more and sooner
than most to live a "green" lifestyle, just because it was his
nature. On rural land in upstate New York, they lived for years in a
log cabin he built himself, and we see him still chopping firewood
and working on the land. "I like to say I'm more conservative than
Goldwater," Wikipedia quotes him. "He just wanted to turn the clock
back to when there was no income tax. I want to turn the clock back
to when people lived in small villages and took care of each other."
With access to remarkable archival footage, old TV shows, home movies
and the family photo album, Brown weaves together the story of the
Seegers with testimony by admirers who represent his influence and
legacy: Bruce Springsteen, Bob Dylan, Natalie Maines of the Dixie
Chicks, Tom Paxton, Joan Baez, Arlo Guthrie, Peter Yarrow, Mary
Travers, Julian Bond and Bonnie Raitt. There is also coverage of the
whole Seeger family musical tradition, including brother Mike and
sister Peggy.
This isn't simply an assembly of historical materials and talking
heads (however eloquent), but a vibrant musical film as well, and
Brown has remastered the music so that we feel the real excitement of
Seeger walking into a room and starting a sing-along. Unique among
musicians, he doesn't covet the spotlight but actually insists on the
audience joining in; he seems more choir director than soloist.
You could see that in 2004 at the Toronto Film Festival, in the
"final" farewell performance of the Weavers, as he was joined onstage
by original group members Ronnie Gilbert and Fred Hellerman, who go
back 57 years together, and more recent members Erik Darling and Eric
Weissberg. Missing from the original group was the late Lee Hays, who
co-wrote "If I Had a Hammer."
The occasion was the showing of an interim Brown doc, "Isn't This a
Time," a documentary about a Carnegie Hall "farewell concert" concert
in honor of Harold Leventhal's 50th anniversary as an impresario. It
was Leventhal who booked the Weavers into Carnegie Hall for the first
time in the late 1940s, and Leventhal who brought them back to the
hall when the group's left-wing politics had made them victims of the
show-business blacklist. Although Seeger has sung infrequently in
recent years, claiming his voice is "gone," he was in fine form that
night in Toronto, his head as always held high and thrown back, as if
focused in the future.
Sadly, for many people, Seeger is still associated in memory with the
Communist Party USA. Although never a "card-carrying member," he was
and is adamantly left-wing; he broke with the party in 1950,
disillusioned with Stalinism, and as recently as this year, according
to Wikipedia, apologized to a historian: "I think you're right.
I should have asked to see the gulags when I was in the USSR."
What I feel from Seeger and his music is a deep-seated, instinctive
decency, a sense of fair play, a democratic impulse reflected by
singing along as a metaphor. I get the same feeling from Toshi, who
co-produced this film and has co-produced her husband's life. How
many women would sign on with a folk singer who planned to build them
a cabin to live in? The portrait of their long marriage, their
children and grandchildren, is one of the most inspiring elements in
the film. They actually live as if this land was made for you and me.
Pete Seeger: The Power of Song
**** Stars
September 13, 2007
Cast & Credits
Featuring Pete Seeger, Toshi Seeger, Bob Dylan, Bruce Springsteen,
Natalie Maines, Tom Paxton, David Dunaway, Bess Lomax Hawes, Joan
Baez, Ronnie Gilbert, Jerry Silverman, Henry Foner, Eric Weissberg,
Arlo Guthrie, Peter Yarrow, Mary Travers, Julian Bond, Tommy Smothers
and Bonnie Raitt.
The Weinstein Company presents a documentary directed by Jim Brown.
Running time: 93 minutes. No MPAA rating (suitable for all ages).
Opening today at Landmark Renaissance.
BY ROGER EBERT
I don't know if Pete Seeger believes in saints, but I believe he is
one. He's the one in the front as they go marching in. "Pete Seeger:
The Power of Song" is a tribute to the legendary singer and composer
who thought music could be a force for good, and proved it by writing
songs that have actually helped shape our times ("If I Had a Hammer"
and "Turn, Turn, Turn") and popularizing "We Shall Overcome" and
Woody Guthrie's unofficial national anthem, "This Land Is Your Land."
Over his long career (he is 88), he has toured tirelessly with song
and stories, never happier than when he gets everyone in the audience
to sing along.
This documentary, directed by Jim Brown, is a sequel of sorts to
Brown's wonderful "The Weavers: Wasn't That a Time" (1982), which
centered on the farewell Carnegie Hall concert of the singing group
Seeger was long associated with. The Weavers had many big hits circa
1950 ("Goodnight Irene," "Kisses Sweeter Than Wine") before being
blacklisted during the McCarthy years; called before the House
Un-American Activities Committee and asked to name members of the
Communist Party, Seeger evoked, not the fifth, but the First
Amendment. The Weavers immediately disappeared from the playlists of
most radio stations, and Seeger did not appear on television for 17
years, until the Smothers Brothers broke the boycott.
But he kept singing, invented a new kind of banjo, did more for the
rebirth of that instrument than anyone else, co-founded two folk-song
magazines, and with Toshi, his wife of 62 years, did more and sooner
than most to live a "green" lifestyle, just because it was his
nature. On rural land in upstate New York, they lived for years in a
log cabin he built himself, and we see him still chopping firewood
and working on the land. "I like to say I'm more conservative than
Goldwater," Wikipedia quotes him. "He just wanted to turn the clock
back to when there was no income tax. I want to turn the clock back
to when people lived in small villages and took care of each other."
With access to remarkable archival footage, old TV shows, home movies
and the family photo album, Brown weaves together the story of the
Seegers with testimony by admirers who represent his influence and
legacy: Bruce Springsteen, Bob Dylan, Natalie Maines of the Dixie
Chicks, Tom Paxton, Joan Baez, Arlo Guthrie, Peter Yarrow, Mary
Travers, Julian Bond and Bonnie Raitt. There is also coverage of the
whole Seeger family musical tradition, including brother Mike and
sister Peggy.
This isn't simply an assembly of historical materials and talking
heads (however eloquent), but a vibrant musical film as well, and
Brown has remastered the music so that we feel the real excitement of
Seeger walking into a room and starting a sing-along. Unique among
musicians, he doesn't covet the spotlight but actually insists on the
audience joining in; he seems more choir director than soloist.
You could see that in 2004 at the Toronto Film Festival, in the
"final" farewell performance of the Weavers, as he was joined onstage
by original group members Ronnie Gilbert and Fred Hellerman, who go
back 57 years together, and more recent members Erik Darling and Eric
Weissberg. Missing from the original group was the late Lee Hays, who
co-wrote "If I Had a Hammer."
The occasion was the showing of an interim Brown doc, "Isn't This a
Time," a documentary about a Carnegie Hall "farewell concert" concert
in honor of Harold Leventhal's 50th anniversary as an impresario. It
was Leventhal who booked the Weavers into Carnegie Hall for the first
time in the late 1940s, and Leventhal who brought them back to the
hall when the group's left-wing politics had made them victims of the
show-business blacklist. Although Seeger has sung infrequently in
recent years, claiming his voice is "gone," he was in fine form that
night in Toronto, his head as always held high and thrown back, as if
focused in the future.
Sadly, for many people, Seeger is still associated in memory with the
Communist Party USA. Although never a "card-carrying member," he was
and is adamantly left-wing; he broke with the party in 1950,
disillusioned with Stalinism, and as recently as this year, according
to Wikipedia, apologized to a historian: "I think you're right.
I should have asked to see the gulags when I was in the USSR."
What I feel from Seeger and his music is a deep-seated, instinctive
decency, a sense of fair play, a democratic impulse reflected by
singing along as a metaphor. I get the same feeling from Toshi, who
co-produced this film and has co-produced her husband's life. How
many women would sign on with a folk singer who planned to build them
a cabin to live in? The portrait of their long marriage, their
children and grandchildren, is one of the most inspiring elements in
the film. They actually live as if this land was made for you and me.
