Better Late Then Never

The performances transcend the film's tropes, grounding it in characters that feel more complete than this subgenre often produces.

if their story seems completely bonkers, almost like a feverish work of fiction, you ain't heard nothing yet.

I think this is a new genre that they're all sort of working their way through it and haven't got all the kinks worked out yet but it's a genre that works for me.

This movie is America. The musician captured the soul of America, or was it the movie that did that? Through financial hardships it seems that there was still overall beauty and love for the country to be found in every corner. The black train rolling through the country side, and the chase of the American dream, only to be confronted with desolate treatment and less then equal human rights. The downtrodden suffered greatly with zero hope. Anger and despair was reflected in the guitar music. America became the place that it is today because of people like this guitar player. Woody was so emotionally attached to the suffering of the people that he neglected himself and his family, or were the two adults just not a good match? Perhaps they did not share the same ideals. I know in my past, I found an individual, who listened to Woody Guthrie, and whom understood me, but it is only after seven years of distance, that i comprehend the depth of the connection and at the same time, the loss. Like Woody, i followed my dream and neglected family. I followed passion and fell into a dark isolation, and i wonder if this is what happened to Woody, especially since he ended up in a hospital for his final years. It is how Woody spent his last days, weeks, months that bother me. His suffering seems so great both internally and externally and even though his songs on his guitar captured human suffering in America like a photograph, I cannot help but wonder if he could not attain even an ounce of happiness in his lifetime. This movie is about socialism and communism. It is opposing capitalism. Here capitalism is not shown in a good light. It is exposed to show the suffering and slave labour of the marginalized versus the elite. In this movie, the idea of the criminal is blurred, as is it not criminal to treat individuals like slaves to make a financial profit? Who benefits? The rich or the marginalized? Who voices the concerns of the marginalized, if not for Woody Guthrie? Who voices the concerns in 2014? Are not the voices of the underdog marked as delusional, and silenced by the powerful 1 %? Or are the voices silenced because they are considered criminal in a capitalist society? How did we get to this point in revisionism? How did we get to this point in time?

"Bound for Glory" is a dramatization of the early career of Woody Guthrie--particularly his wanderings around the country and the establishment of his career as a folk singer. However, the film does NOT cover his later years and his affliction with Huntington's.Have you ever seen a movie that is well made and you are supposed to enjoy it but you didn't? That's my experience with "Bound for Glory". While I could see it was a fine film and David Carradine did a fine job, I found my attention wandering throughout. Part of it is because the film is VERY deliberately paced (i.e., slow). Part of it is because I just don't happen to care much about the subject matter. This is sad, I know, as I am a retired history teacher and I should love seeing the dust bowl and the history of Woody Guthrie but I still didn't. Part of it is because Guthrie was a pretty selfish guy (leaving his family and just going on the road for months or years at a time with little regard for them). Regardless, I just didn't enjoy the experience. Well done but I had a devil of a time with "Bound for Glory"... But, I am NOT saying it's a bad film or that you shouldn't see it--it's just that I was not bowled over by it like nearly all the other reviewers.

There are visuals in Hal Ashby's Bound For Glory so real or so becoming that I might have to withdraw statements I've made in the past about Ashby not being a visual filmmaker. But the subdued but all-consuming absorption in the imagery eventually takes its toll on the movie's intonation. Scene after scene unfolds at such a patient rhythm, with such forecast and subtlety, that ultimately we appear to be experiencing a moving slideshow of the Depression. The film has a serious nobility and formality, which is fine---I found it fascinating that Woody Guthrie seems to take a backseat through his own biopic and that it is less about him and more about the time in which he lived---however it doesn't tend to have much life, which would be enthralling.The film maintains thorough fidelity to that adventure. Another element I admire greatly is that there's not an ingenuous frame in it, not a moment when we sense the significance of Guthrie's life has been arbitrated in favor of Hollywood license-taking. David Carradine's performance as Guthrie finds just the correct pitch between his dignity and inborn candor. There can hardly have been a period film before it with such affectionate heed to every historical detail, to the ways cars and dresses and living rooms and roadside diners looked during the Depression. We learn so much unconsciously through the mise-en-scene. All of these attributes have been treated cautiously, and with reverence. And ironically, as much as those elements are top-heavy compared to the drama itself, they are all done with the same deliberate subtlety with which Ashby lenses his other films. The imagery never points to itself; it's just there for us to subliminally take in.Nevertheless Bound For Glory is altogether a very sluggish experience. Each scene is organized so deliberately, is framed by immortal cinematographer Haskell Wexler with such virtuosity, is played with such gravity, that ultimately the movie feels too uniform. We want more drollery, more cheek, more of an clue that Guthrie had vinegar infused with his altruism. Anyone who loves movies or is intrigued by Guthrie should see Bound For Glory, though it'll be a rewarding affair that's very languid.There are two shots that are especially unforgettable: One is an incredible image showcasing a dust storm nearing Woody's little home town, and another is a shot on top of a freight train, held for minutes without a cut, while Woody and an accompanying vagabond share worldviews while the train carries them past the infinite fields, into the pitch black of a tunnel, reappears, feels about to run forever. However, the movie's political text, the doggedness of Woody and a musician friend to unionize the migrant workers, is calculable and repetitious. Guthrie's politics were evidently pivotal to his music, and yet in the film they feel virtually unnecessary. The matters of state and activism could have arisen naturally from the story, rather than being wedged in.This is not the only film I've found to be credited as the first film in which the invention of the Steadicam was used, but apparently it is, and that may account for its status as a contemporary classic. It may also largely account for the arresting fascination of the viewer with the Great Depression than the subject of the Great Depression does. So Bound For Glory isn't quite the great film it could have been. However, it is one of the most gorgeous films ever made, in its cinematography, in its locations, in its reconstruction of the America that Woody Guthrie found.

For realistic images of the 1930s dust bowl in Oklahoma and Texas, this is the film to see ... the shabby, frame houses, the dilapidated autos, the dreary clothes, the grinding poverty, and all that dust. Although the film was shot in color, the lighting is muted, even in daylight. I suspect that was on purpose, to show how the dust blotted out much of the sunlight, and thematically much of the optimism."Bound For Glory" is the story of folksinger Woody Guthrie (David Carradine), whose life as a sign painter and hobo during tough times led him to write many songs, the most famous being "This Land Is Your Land". The story begins in Texas, with Woody already married and with children. Eventually, all that dust and dreariness causes him to forsake his wife and kids, as he hitchhikes and rides the rails westward to the promised land.But the promised land doesn't want any more Okies. And Guthrie ends up eating in free soup kitchens and living in ugly migrant worker camps. He writes music about life as a poor man. He identifies with the problems of migrant workers, stuck with poverty wages, if they're lucky enough even to get a job. He and them resent the cruelty of their arrogant bosses and rich, powerful corporations, which leads him to write songs of protest.Despite the film's lengthy run-time, only a small part of Guthrie's life is shown here. We never learn anything about him once he becomes famous. Nor do we learn anything about his upbringing in rural Oklahoma. The film is more of a year-in-the-life-of, rather than a comprehensive bio."Bound For Glory" looks good, visually, with terrific period piece production design and costumes. And the cinematography is impressive. But the plot pace is very, very slow and deliberate. Everything is understated. And not until the film's end do we get to hear his most famous song. David Carradine is reasonably persuasive as Guthrie. Other performances are fairly standard.For all the great visuals, the script is somewhat of a letdown. I would have preferred a more conventional biography, with a faster clip. As is, genuinely certified fans of Woody Guthrie are the only viewers likely to have the patience and forbearance to sit through this toilsome and sluggish, though realistic, story.