Best documentary nomination for 2011 ?
This movie was a stunning and stirring tribute to two things: The beloved (but far-too-neglected) musician, Phil Ochs, and the oft-tributed 1960's. Weaving the topical songwriter's biography through the fascinating history of his time helps make sense of the indelible stamp that decade left on our souls. Appropriately, it doesn't end well, but does capture that "we can change the world" empowerment that may presently and forever be rekindled. Here you will find beautiful music (but seldom the whole song) and filmed insights into the early Greenwich Village folk scene, the riots at the 1968 Democratic Convention, the assassination of the Kennedy's, and as Phil embraced the world-at-large, the CIA-backed coup that helped install South American dictator, Pinochet. Here is understanding for that phrase, "the personal is political and the political is personal." The real power-punch is that for those who know his songs.. The themes are still relevant after 40+ years ! Sample these lyrics (I believe from 1965), "We own half the world, Oh Say Can You See. And the name for our profits is democracy. So like it or not you will have to be free. Cause we're the cops of the world." Well, one update is necessary.. Because of those policies we no longer own half the world. If only Phil were with us now I have no doubt he would have similarly and poetically explained the financial collapse, the tea party, Citizens United, Iraq and Afghanistan, and the Wisconsin attack on unions. His gift filtered out complexities through a sharp lens of social justice and distilled the truth into a tune you could hum. Nobody did it better.
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