A Mighty Wind (1 10)

 Copyright © 2003 by Tony Medley

 

 I don’t understand this movie.  I was a big fan of folk music, still am.  Starting with The Kingston Trio in the ‘50s and throughout the ‘60s, I listened to, and liked them all.  The music was captivating, the performers talented.  Melodic, great lyrics, wonderful rhythms, what’s not to like?

 That’s why this movie is so mystifying.  It’s a “mockumentary,” a self-styled parody about a group of fictional ‘60s folk singers who are getting together for a retrospective concert.  But the classic of this youthful genre, This is Spinal Tap, made fun of things that were there to be made fun of.  This makes fun of things that never were.  It tries to picture the writers and performers of folk music as naïve, untalented squares.  Woody Guthrie a square? Bob Dylan a square?  The Smothers Brothers squares?  I don’t think so. Just think for a minute of the great folk artists of the ‘50s-‘70s; The Byrds, The Highwaymen, New Christy Minstrels, Bud and Travis, The Weavers, Pete Seeger, Peter Paul & Mary, The Mommas and the Poppas, Joni Mitchell, The Brothers Four; I could go on and on.  And the great music!  Turn! Turn! Turn!, Lemon Tree, Kisses Sweeter Than Wine, Greenfields, Both Sides Now, the list is almost never-ending.

 Writer-Director Christopher Guest just doesn’t know what he’s talking about here.  The music, which seems to have been originally written for the movie, contains lyrics that are, to give them the best of it, inane.  To the contrary, writers of folk music have always had their message.  Their lyrics have a point.  Generally they contain sharp political commentary or tell a story.  Why does Guest want to diminish such message songs as Blowin’ In The Wind and There’s Something Happening Here, or songs that tell a history like Creeque Alley, or patriotic songs like This Land is Your Land, and many, many others by trying to paint all folk music with the wide swath of the vacuous lyrics he foists upon us in this movie?  Is he just nescient?  Is he irresponsible and going for a cheap laugh? Or is he intentionally trying to belittle, even slander, folk music and its artists?  Whatever his motives, this movie is the cheapest of shots, made without any discernable reason other than greed. 

 Who’s he basing these characters on?  Nobody in the picture correlates to anyone in real life of whom I am aware.  I didn’t recognize a parody of anybody I knew in the heyday of folk.  One character, a guy whose brain had apparently been melted down by excessive drug usage and who could barely talk coherently, could have been based on Brian Wilson of The Beach Boys.  The only problem is that Brian Wilson and The Beach Boys did not write or sing folk music (well, they did have a hit with Sloop John B, but Wilson didn’t write it, and he recorded it as an homage to The Kingston Trio, who also had a version of it with a different arrangement).  Director Guest tries to create a picture of all the great folk artists as naïve airheads.  Nothing could be further from the truth.

 I just don’t understand this movie or the reason it was made (well, greed, irresponsibility, and ignorance come to mind).  It’s not that you can’t laugh or find something amusing about folk music.  That, after all, was what The Smothers Brothers were about. This has some mildly amusing lines but they don’t make sense because the entire film is so off target.  If Guest wanted to attack Folk Music, he could have made fun of the political points of view.  But to try to paint the artists as dopes and the music as lame is just dead wrong.  If you don’t know anything about folk music, or don’t like it, you’ll probably find this amusing.  If you are a fan, as I am, The Mighty Wind is misleading, inaccurate, and reprehensible.  I loathe the lack of integrity that went into making it and the dearth of respect and consideration for the many talented artists it libels.

 May 3, 2003

 The End

 

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