Tribeca: Pete Seeger
One of my earliest memories is of attending a Pete Seegar/Arlo Guthrie concert in a tent somewhere in New Jersey. I’m pretty sure it was before my sister was born so I must have been three or four years old. I have almost no other memories from that young, so the concert must have definitely made an incredible impact on me. That’s something that wouldn’t have surprised Seegar, who talks in the documentary about how much he likes to introduce children to folk music.
The best part of this documentary was the audience. A large part of the crowd were older folks, who were obviously Seeger fans from back when he was in the Weavers. So the crowd was incredibly responsive, often singing along with the clips of Seeger performing. The single best moment was the spontaneous applause after a clip of Seeger singing “Bring Them Home” from a Vietnam protest. The applicability of that song to the current situation in Iraq was clearly not lost on the audience.
As an enjoyable hour-and-a-half, the film clearly passed muster. But as a serious, well-documented look at Seeger’s life and influence, this film falls far short. It is partially the fault of the medium: Seeger’s legacy would be better served by an extensive mini-series rather than by a film. But the best part of the film (the music) is also its downfall. The film spends so much time on clips of Seeger performing that it doesn’t devote enough to actually discussing his life. It is hard to criticize the documentary for this because so much of Seeger’s life is his music. But it also is clearly not the definitive Pete Seeger film. I do not know if one will ever be made (and as I said, it would work better as a TV mini-series), but I hope it is. It gets a 3 out of 5. but is worth seeing by anyone who loves Seeger’s music.