PETE SEEGER: THE POWER OF SONG
The film began with a standing ovation.Um, no, not the film itself . . . the experience began with a standing ovation. Before the film started, Pete Seeger was announced to be in the audience. At once, everyone in the place stood and applauded. And then we sat down, the film cued up, and we were transported waaaay back in time ... before most of us had yet been born, there was Pete, there were the Weavers, there onscreen for us to remember and be reinspired by, was integrity personified, Pete Seeger ... unfolding, as biographies will, with only the occasional, thank the good filmmaker, talking head to get in the way (or in Arlo's case cause a knowing guffaw or two to erupt from the audience). The songs, of course, were wonderful, and it was great to relive those times we (all) shared on the planet with this man who sang his way through good times and bad. Of course, a film about Pete Seeger cannot be just about Pete or even just about song ... there is a clear agenda here ... but, as it's Pete & I'm with him in that agenda, it's okay, I forgive him, & yah I sang along though carrying a tune is hardly my forte. (But, Pete, my love, you're wrong, it's not the song that has such power, it's the people ... oh, but Pete I know you know that. Wish the filmmakers did -- can you tell I am at odds with that awful subtitle? The power of song, indeed. Bah.) ::ahem:: Okay. Another standing ovation was in order after the film. And a resounding ovation it was, too. The audience sat down again ... only to rise a third time, this ovation for the lady who keeps his home fires burning, his wife, Toshi. And well deserved the ovations are, although the smoldering radical countercultural feminist in me winces a bit at the implications of so highly praising Toshi's self-subsuming sacrifices to further her husband's career / mission in life. Um, sufficiently so that I refrained from the third ovation though no doubt that sacrifice was willingly and lovingly made. All in all, it was a *stellar* evening, one that left me with only one word coursing through my overloaded, sleep-deprived brain: WOW. And wow and wow and wow and wow.
CELEBRITY SIGHTINGS: Pete Seeger, of course, was in the audience. He'd come walking by before the show, by the curb, along the line of those of us waiting for the doors to open. After he'd passed by & entered the theater, the fellow behind me says to his companion, gee do you think Pete will be here? So several people said in unison, Did you not see him just go by??? Poor fellow.
