Cynical Cinema

I have one complaint with Pete Seeger:  The Power of Song, and I’m going to get it off my chest first.  Pete Seeger is a folk singer who is mostly forgotten today.  You might remember Bruce Springsteen’s recent album, The Seeger Sessions.  Springsteen is a huge Seeger fan and appears in this documentary.  So too does Bob Dylan.  And here’s what bugs me.  One of the biggest stories in Pete Seeger lore involves Bob Dylan.  At the Newport Folk Festival in 1965, Bob Dylan went electric, creating a massive controversy.  According to legend, Pete Seeger was so incensed when Dylan plugged in his electric guitar that he stalked the backstage area with an axe, looking to chop through the power cables running his amp.  He apparently had to be physically restrained.  But Bob Dylan appears in this documentary, and there is no mention of this event!  None!  This is one, as a Dylan fanatic, I really wanted to hear about.

But, that really is my only complaint.  There are other Pete Seeger stories, legendary stories, that are explored in full detail in this film.  Like the story about the Vietnam veteran who showed up at one of Seeger’s concerts with the intent to murder him, but after hearing Seeger’s songs and understanding them for the first time, he broke down, didn’t go through with his plan, and told Seeger that his life had been changed.  And that was the kind of man and the kind of artist Seeger was.  This documentary traces his activism and music through his early days, through his pop star days, all the way up to the present day where he still lives with his wife of what must be sixty years at least, and continues his activism even in his 80s.  It’s an incredible portrait of an American patriot, a patriot every bit as great as Ralph Waldo Emerson or Henry David Thoreau.

There are some impressive interview appearances from the likes of Dylan and Springsteen, as well as Natalie Maines from the Dixie Chicks, Joan Baez, Bonnie Raitt and Arlo Guthrie.  And some of Seeger’s great songs are featured as well - “Stickin’ To The Union”, “If I Had a Hammer”, “We Shall Overcome”, “Where Have All the Flowers Gone”, and “Big Muddy”.  There is footage from Seeger’s appearance in front of the House Un-American Activities Committee, where he refused to testify and faced jail time.  His activism is traced right up to the present day, and another impressive moment is when he built a boat and lobbied (successfully) to clean up the Hudson River.

This is the best DVD out this week, from Alliance Films.  Check it out.

This entry was posted on Monday, September 1st, 2008 at 11:28 am and is filed under Joan Baez, Bruce Springsteen, Jim Brown, Bonnie Raitt, Arlo Guthrie, Pete Seeger, Documentary, Biography, Bob Dylan, 2007, Music. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.