Jeanskynebu the audience applauded

Cathardincu Surprisingly incoherent and boring

Stephanie There is, somehow, an interesting story here, as well as some good acting. There are also some good scenes

Allissa .Like the great film, it's made with a great deal of visible affection both in front of and behind the camera.

SnoopyStyle This biopic starts in 1936. Woody Guthrie (David Carradine) is struggling in the dusty small town of Pampa, Texas with his wife Mary (Melinda Dillon). Jobs are hard to find and everybody is looking to leave for California. He runs off to ride the rails and becomes one of the most influential folk singers.This is limited in excitement and tension. It's a quiet easy movie. It's quietness takes away some of the emotions in the movie. David Carradine is putting in a simple nice guy performance. There are some inventive camera work using the new steadycam. The look of the movie is one of faded dusty postcard. It's a pretty and interesting movie to look but it's not much more than that. It's a long winding road.

Steffi_P While a written biography may cover its subject's life from beginning to end over hundreds of pages, a biopic that lasts only two or three hours simply does not have the time to do the same. And yet the best biopics do justice to an individual's life by offering a slice of their existence, giving an impression of who they were and what they did. Bound for Glory covers only a few years in Woody Guthrie's life, and yet the portion it covers is a transitional one, showing his change from a friendly, easygoing country boy, to a man more cynical but firmly politicised, with his emotions shaken but his core honesty intact, and his career on the verge of national fame.A good biopic is often as much about tone as story, and this requires a good director. Consummate 70s filmmaker Hal Ashby is perfect for the project. His style is just so wonderfully light and tentative. He won't force an idea upon you, but he'll give you time to notice some little snippet of life which adds texture to a scene, for example a split-second shot that reveals one of the hobos being pulled off the train has only one arm. There's a lot of darkness in this movie, a lot of enclosed spaces and shuttered windows. The countryside appears achingly beautiful, but it is only fleetingly glimpsed, over the top of a railway carriage or through a gap in the swirling dust, like some unattainable paradise. The sublime cinematography of Haskell Wexler picks out every mote of dust and finds shape and definition in the swathes of black and brown.Let's give a word a two now to lead man David Carradine. Carradine has long been one of my favourite actors, even before he was in Kill Bill and everyone had heard of him. He worked mostly in TV and B-Westerns before landing this, his greatest and most apt role, the one he seems born to play. He has no ego. He doesn't play to the camera, and yet he has such presence here, such charisma. He thereby gives a good account of the real Woody, as well as giving us the impression of a life being lived rather than a performance being played. And of course being a proper folk musician he can do the songs justice.And the songs are crucial to this adaptation. Bound for Glory works much like a semi-musical King Vidor movie from nearly fifty years earlier by the name of Hallelujah. All the music is diagetic – it makes sense within the scene, and yet it is used to comment upon the narrative and move it forward, just as a true musical does. When Woody decides to leave his dustbowl home, he never actually states his intention to do so in dialogue, but we hear him singing a lose version of "So Long, It's Been Good to Know You" with its appropriate line about "dusty old dust", which is then picked up in instrumental form as he heads out of town. Later, the scene of Woody playing I Ain't Got no Home in the radio studio segues into a shot of workers in a field as the tune continues, linking the man and his music to their social context. The songs are never merely presented while the story takes a break, the songs exist alongside and become part of story. Bound for Glory does not just show the life of a musician, it shows a musical life.

alicecbr Forget 'the grasshopper' guy. Carradine outperformed himself and showed he was truly his father's son. The way he responded to the bullying and attempts to package him were great. However, he must have interacted or found a way or an agent to interact with the music business enough to get his music known all over the world.The expressions on his face as he listens to the humiliating demands of the show business people mirror the attitudes of the thugs who were trying to get him to stay away from the workers as he tried to unionize them. So much of this is true today, where the media are forced to tell only the 'news' the corporations want out there in our own National Pravda. Actually, the coercion is so profound in this country that either you wouldn't even get hired if you were detected as a liberal, or you would be forced to read the managed news the network prostitutes had written.As our country becomes more and more corrupt, you can't help but love these movies where Americans actually trusted one another. Woody asks to borrow the worker's car and he says, "Sure, will you come back?" And Woody says, "That's where I've got to sleep." Which isn't an answer as he could steal the truck and still sleep in it on the other side of the country.The sight of the railroad goons shooting the guy at the moment he's so exhilarated about getting into L.A. was quite a surprise. YOu really expected that to happen at the beginning of Woodie's riding the rails experience, when they lined all those folks up, women and men, and threatened them.And we're heading for those rough times again, as people begin to wake up from the lies the corporate media have told us about the 'bailout'. At least Rolling Stone has it right: we gave the money to the banks, and it was like giving the bankers an ATM account into the taxpayers pocket. Of course, we'll never see that money again. The bankers and their Congressional goons/whores will see to that. This movie was about a similar time in our country's history.It is too bad that his own family had to suffer from his wanderings. Although his wife was a nag, one can't blame her. Wonder if Arlo has ever opened up about that, since effectively he chose a very similar lifestyle to his father.Despite the bad review I read in "The Thousand Best Movies Ever Made", this was a beautifully made film.And in fact, the book itself is quite funny as much of the reviews pan the movies that are 'the best'!!!!! Rent it. Buy it. It gives you a lot about our country to remember and love, even if it's gone forever. Unions forever!!! Organize or the middle class is dead; and so I do what Woody got fired from the station for doing: speak of something controversial that will irritate our corporate 'massas'.

thestrikeoutboys Who in who's name thought that David Carradine was the man to play Woody Guthrie. His portrayal of one of America's greatest characters & song writers was empty, listening to the songs was an ordeal, they were butchered, which is a big problem when watching a film about a singer / songwriter. As a result the films attempt to tell the story of the downtrodden, misplaced masses of the time has no emotional affect, has no affect. Nothing about this film was right, there didn't seem to be any serious ups or downs, just some guy called Woody, he meets a few people and he sings some songs. I read Woody's book and it is a fascinating real life adventure story, this film seems in no way related. Damn, i'm disappointed. Maybe someone will pick up the story again some time and do it right. If you are a fan of Woody Guthrie, listen to his music and I also recommend you read his book but there's nothing for you here.