Hard Times. Soft Focus.

Rip It Up, Issue 3, 1 August 1977, Page 7

Hard Times. Soft Focus.

Bruce Belsham

Bound For Glory Directed by Hal Ashby Woody Guthrie is one of those legends of American music for which we all profess reverence but most of us affix that proclamation with a silent prayer that nobody will ask embarrassing questions, because beyond the name, a few titles, and a vague notion of an American nomad, we feel thoroughly ignorant. One accordingly assumes that a film about Guthrie would be mandatory viewing, a painless way to fill in your historical gaps. Not so. If you were thinking of seeing Bound for Glory for that reason alone, don’t bother. Bound for Glory selects material from Guthrie's autobiography of the same name, which in turn only covers three years of his life. We see Woody leave Texas, jump trains and hitch his way to California, where he witnesses the persecution of Okie migrants and works for his first time in radio. But there is more incident than pattern to this narrative: Guthrie’s political sentiments are only patchily shown, his

songs presented in bits and pieces, and his character never developed. In its script, imagery, and compilation, this is a fractured movie; one further inhibited by radiant soft focus photography which belies the harshness of migrant life. However, Bound for Glory is not an openly offensive film. It maintains anecdotal interest and, surprisingly, David Carradine manages creditable performances of Guthrie songs. The music, excepting Leonard Rosenman’s limp incidental score, is kept simple and a little rough. “Do Re Mi”, “This Train is Bound for Glory”, and “Deportee” all retain some edge, which makes for a pleasant surprise. In that respect, Bound for Glory is more informative than the Kingston Trio singing “This Land is Your Land” but why oh why must the Cinema of Nostalgia insist on administering to every subject, even brutal violence and social rage, this patina of pretty inconsequence?