Pete Seeger: The Power of Song
by Jim Brown
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DVD Cover Information
Actor: Bonnie Raitt, Joan Baez, Ronnie Gilbert, Tom Paxton, Tom SmothersDirector: Jim Brown
Brand: WELLSPRING/GENIUS
DVD: Region Code 1
Audio: English (Original Language); English (Subtitled); Spanish (Subtitled)
Format: Color, NTSC, Subtitled, Widescreen
Running Time: 93 minutes
DVD Release Date: 2008-08-05
Audience Rating: PG-13 (Parental Guidance Suggested)
Studio: Genius Products (Ingram)
Movie Reviews of Pete Seeger: The Power of Song
Movie Review: An American hero
Summary: 5 Stars
Pete Seeger has been a leading voice on real moral issues for 70 years: workers' rights, civil rights, free speech, women's rights, peace, the environment, gay rights. Such struggles are never over, but America has moved far in Seeger's direction on all of them, and we won't go back. It's so hard to imagine a time (in my lifetime) when denial of all these rights was standard, that we forget how long these struggles lasted, and how much courage and integrity they required, in the face of isolation, uncertainty, and angry, unprincipled attacks - physical and economic, as well as in the media. Throughout, save perhaps for a brief and passive membership in the Communist party, Seeger kept his integrity and hope, never complained or hated, and turned setbacks into opportunities. Blacklisted from virtually all media for most of the 50s and 60s, he was mostly "reduced" to teaching folk songs to children - and thereby sparked the folk revival which helped bring real depth into most other popular music. This is a good account of an astonishing life. Did I mention that the music is great?
Summary of Pete Seeger: The Power of Song
In Pete Seeger: The Power of Song, Director Jim Brown documents the life of one of the greatest American singer/songwriters of the last century. Pete Seeger was the architect of the folk revival, writing some of its best known songs including Where Have All the Flowers Gone, Turn, Turn, Turn and If I Had A Hammer. Largely misunderstood and criticized for his strong beliefs he was picketed, protested, blacklisted, and, in spite of his enormous popularity, banned from commercial television for more than 17 years. Musicians including Bob Dylan, Arlo Guthrie, Joan Baez, Bonnie Raitt, Brice Springsteen, Natalie Maines, and Peter, Paul and Mary appear in this intimate portrait and discuss Seeger s lasting influence on the fabric of American music.Pete Seeger reads The Wall Street Journal! That's perhaps the most startling revelation in Jim Brown's (The Weavers: Wasn't That a Time) wonderful documentary that etches an indelible portrait of an American icon and a global treasure. As a solo performer and as a member of the Weavers, Seeger introduced America to its musical heritage and was instrumental in ushering in the folk music revival in the 1960s. Branded as an "evil Commie" for his leftist beliefs, he is hailed here as an "absolute patriot" and "a living testament to the First Amendment." Seeger didn't call out politicians or presidents. He called out backward policies, unjust laws, and divisive attitudes. Songs that he popularized, or were covered by others, such as "We Shall Overcome," "The Hammer Song," "Where Have All the Flowers Gone," and "Turn, Turn, Turn," became Civil Rights and anti-war anthems. Music, he eloquently states in The Power of Song, should not be used just to forget one's troubles, but to also help to understand and to do something about your troubles. Whether singing work songs at union rallies or Woody Guthrie's "This Land Is Your Land" to schoolchildren, Seeger used folk music as a uniter. The Power of Song is a profile in courage. In dramatic archival footage, he is seen defying the House Un-American Activities Committee. Seeger, never in it for the money, recalls how he quit the phenomenally popular Weavers when the other members agreed to do a cigarette commercial. Seeger was green before green was cool. At 88, he lives in the log cabin that he built and continues to work the land; chopping wood and hauling water. This film also chronicles his successful campaign to clean up the polluted Hudson River.
The Power of Song" is more than a great life story. It's also a great love story. Toshi, his wife of more than 60 years, emerges as an extraordinary woman who has greatly sacrificed to allow Seeger to take his music and message around the world (at one point she jokes that she wished her husband chased women instead of causes so she could leave him). Seeger says his singing voice is gone, but his spirit is undimmed (one clip captures him standing on the roadside with a handful of war protesters). Bob Dylan, Bruce Springsteen, Bonnie Raitt, Natalie Maines of the Dixie Chicks, Mary Travers, and family members are among those who pay tribute, but Seeger's own plain-spoken words and the concert footage and performance clips--by turns joyous and profoundly moving--take full measure of the man as a musicologist, iconoclast, and "social artist." One admirer says of Seeger that he stood for justice and had powerful enemies. That makes him sound like a superhero. In his own gentle way, perhaps he was. --Donald Liebenson
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