Bound for Glory (1976)

☆ ☆ ☆ ☆

Bound for Glory (1976) – H. Ashby

David Carradine is an easy-going Woody Guthrie escaping the dustbowl for California and developing a social conscience in Hal Ashby’s moving film based on Guthrie’s autobiography.  Haskell Wexler deservingly won the Oscar for his cinematography, with golden brown a prominent hue.  Ronny Cox is excellent in support as Ozark Bule, the protest singer that inspires Woody and hooks him up with the radio station that helped him to become a big star.  But as played superbly by Carradine, Guthrie is restless, forever wanting to be among the people spreading the Union word through song, so much so that he neglects his wife and family (thus leaving viewers with a very ambivalent feeling toward him, to Ashby’s credit).  Of course, it is the songs themselves and the guitar picking (seemingly performed by Carradine himself) that dominate everything and lend a wistful consistency to the whole film.  And when I say the film is moving, I mean that Woody Guthrie’s message about support for workers against capitalists who would exploit them resonates more today than it probably did in 1976.  This land is made for you and me.