Bound for Glory (1976)

A film that depicts a Man and His Time with remarkable dust filled clarity. There is much emphasis on the plight of the poor and the Crusade that Woody Guthrie embraced and brought to America through songs with an unfiltered reality like Life Magazine did through pictures. It has a brought to life performance from David Carradine and the whole cast is in great support. The Award Winning Cinematography is excellent ditto the soundtrack but the Woody songs sung adequately by the Star are far less than the crackling creations of the real Guthrie and are only passable and infrequent. The film is compelling and evenly and effectively paced that exemplifies the extraordinary stifling situations that are depressing the people during the depression. But there is also some hope burning beneath the Western sun and most of it comes from the Western soul of a bona fide benefactor of the working poor and a breathless voice who sang anthems with songs like...there are no liars on THIS TRAIN...and...THIS LAND was made for you and me.There was no lie in this man...Woody Guthrie. The movie does him proud.

Forget 'the grasshopper' guy. Carradine outperformed himself and showed he was truly his father's son. The way he responded to the bullying and attempts to package him were great. However, he must have interacted or found a way or an agent to interact with the music business enough to get his music known all over the world.The expressions on his face as he listens to the humiliating demands of the show business people mirror the attitudes of the thugs who were trying to get him to stay away from the workers as he tried to unionize them. So much of this is true today, where the media are forced to tell only the 'news' the corporations want out there in our own National Pravda. Actually, the coercion is so profound in this country that either you wouldn't even get hired if you were detected as a liberal, or you would be forced to read the managed news the network prostitutes had written.As our country becomes more and more corrupt, you can't help but love these movies where Americans actually trusted one another. Woody asks to borrow the worker's car and he says, "Sure, will you come back?" And Woody says, "That's where I've got to sleep." Which isn't an answer as he could steal the truck and still sleep in it on the other side of the country.The sight of the railroad goons shooting the guy at the moment he's so exhilarated about getting into L.A. was quite a surprise. YOu really expected that to happen at the beginning of Woodie's riding the rails experience, when they lined all those folks up, women and men, and threatened them.And we're heading for those rough times again, as people begin to wake up from the lies the corporate media have told us about the 'bailout'. At least Rolling Stone has it right: we gave the money to the banks, and it was like giving the bankers an ATM account into the taxpayers pocket. Of course, we'll never see that money again. The bankers and their Congressional goons/whores will see to that. This movie was about a similar time in our country's history.It is too bad that his own family had to suffer from his wanderings. Although his wife was a nag, one can't blame her. Wonder if Arlo has ever opened up about that, since effectively he chose a very similar lifestyle to his father.Despite the bad review I read in "The Thousand Best Movies Ever Made", this was a beautifully made film.And in fact, the book itself is quite funny as much of the reviews pan the movies that are 'the best'!!!!! Rent it. Buy it. It gives you a lot about our country to remember and love, even if it's gone forever. Unions forever!!! Organize or the middle class is dead; and so I do what Woody got fired from the station for doing: speak of something controversial that will irritate our corporate 'massas'.

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.

This was one of the first biographies of a music star. Woody Guthrie was also the most famous communist in American history. This made just doing the movie an act of extreme courage on the part of everybody involved.The movie is as much about the depression in the 1930's as it is about Guthrie. Evoking the atmosphere of the 1930's Midwestern United States is what the movie does best. "Bonnie and Clyde" is really the only other movie that succeeds as well as this one.When I saw it thirty-two years ago, I thought it was beautiful, but politically tepid, downplaying much of the politics of Guthrie and the period. It seemed to also show Guthrie as inarticulate, rash, self-destructive, egocentric and foolish. Looking at it now, the cinematography is not great, some of it is quite grainy. It is fine, but not brilliant.More importantly, I appreciate now that it does not romanticize Guthrie. No doubt in the coming century, he will become an icon like Che Guevara. One gets a vision of a real flawed and down-to-earth person and not a white-washed myth in Carradine's brooding portrayal. It hurts the drama, but that is something I think Guthrie would have appreciated.Some have noted that David Carradine never did anything better. This is true. Still, he has worked steadily as an actor, now with over 200 movie and television roles. He is in no less than ten movies this year. If you include over 120 episodes of his two Kung Fu television series, he has been in as many productions as his legendary father, John Carradine (339). It is ironic that his father was best known for his role in "Grapes of Wrath" and he will be best known for his role in "Bound for Glory," Altogether this is a beautiful, laid-back, easy-going version of the Woody Guthrie story. One expects that soon, in the future, a much more passionate version will appear.