58. "Man in the Sand"
This is an odd documentary. It's kind of a film about the life and legend of Woody Guthrie. It's partly about Billy Bragg following in the footsteps, figuratively and mostly literally, of Guthrie. It attempts to give some perspective on the making of "Mermaid Avenue," a collaborative album between Billy Bragg and Wilco. It doesn't do any of these things well.
I read Greg Kot's book about Wilco a few years ago. He mentions an interview with Jeff Tweedy about these sessions. The Chicago band was taken aback by an extremely large American flag on the wall of Bragg's Dublin's studio. They thought it was odd that an Irishman was proud of a country he never lived in. The flag is in nearly every scene shot in Ireland.
Billy Bragg fans will eat this shit up. Woody Guthrie fans will call Billy Bragg a cheap impostor but proceed to eat this shit up. Wilco fans, which includes me, will argue that Tweedy should've done this project alone (which couldn't have happened because Bragg asked Wilco to join him) because he wrote the music to "California Songs" and that's much better than anything Bragg did. Wilco fans will also think, "Wow, everyone in that band has aged quite a bit in 10 years."
The documentary and albums (the first album came out in 1998 to critical acclaim so a second volume was released in 2000) exist because of Guthrie's daughter Nora. She comes off as an idealistic hippy that probably wants to sleep with Billy Bragg. But what do I know? I didn't grow up around Bob Dylan.
"I Am Trying to Break Your Heart" is a much better documentary.
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