‘Ochs’ more than just a biopic | Movies | Entertainment More than just a biopic of the famed troubadour, Phil Ochs: There But for Fortune is also a brief, brisk, brilliant history of social turmoil in America in the '60s.
Through his songs or his presence -- and often both -- Ochs was involved during civil rights' protests, workers' strikes, anti-war demonstrations and all manner of causes and political movements. Filmmaker Kenneth Bowser uses interviews and archival footage to convey, and powerfully, the era's intoxicating potential for change as well as its heartrending and violent tragedies -- Kent State, the Kennedy and Dr. King assassinations and the attacks on protesters at the 1968 Democratic convention in Chicago, to name a few. Phil Ochs: There But for Fortune hits the ground running, speedily bringing to life the landscape in which the singer/songwriter lived and performed. The documentary is dense with information and interpretation from the likes of Joan Baez, Peter Yarrow, Christopher Hitchens, Tom Hayden, Judy Henske, Sean Penn and many others; thanks to Och's brother, sister, wife and daughter, the film includes fascinating family minutiae as well as the broader social and political perspective. Information flies out of this movie, and the end result is a fascinating, heartbreaking, warts 'n' all portrait. Ochs became interested in protest music and left wing politics through his college roommate, Jim Glover. He won his first guitar in a bet. Despite the everyman persona and the moral outrage of his songs, Ochs was quite career ambitious, moving to Greenwich Village when he did with the hope of finding fame as a songwriter. Instead, he found Bob Dylan finding fame as a songwriter, as did so many others who were in the village scene. Dylan and Ochs were friends, sort of, in a competitive way; Dylan comes off badly here, and deservedly so. As usual. Ochs stayed a certain protest troubadour course while his peers were branching out into folk rock/pop and popularity. His recordings were not hugely successful, although a wealth of songs survives him, including There But for Fortune, Changes, I Ain't Marching Anymore, When I'm Gone, The Power and the Glory and dozens of others. As the 1970s unfolded, so began Ochs' sad decline into alcoholism and mental illness, and the film does not shy away from the particulars of that tragic end. Ochs travelled a lot in the years before his death (he was attacked and nearly killed in Africa) and in Chile he made a friend in like-minded folk artist Victor Jara. When Pinochet came to power, that friendship prompted Ochs to organize a concert in support of Chile; ticket sales were terrible, so Ochs called on an old friend, and this time, Dylan came through. By 1975, Ochs had spun out of control and had also alienated many of his friends. Some 30 years after his death, Ochs would be 'ecstatic', his daughter suggests, to discover that people were still interested in him and what he had to say. But, she continues, he'd be sorely disappointed to find that so many of the battles he thought would be won by now were still raging. Amen to that. In Toronto, Phil Ochs: There But for Fortune is at the Bloor Cinema. -- http://www.torontosun.com/entertainment/movies/2011/02/17/17314446.html Via InstaFetch -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Sixties-L" group. To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [email protected]. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/sixties-l?hl=en.
