Ballad of Ramblin Jack

Theatrical Release Date: 2000 08 18 (USA - Limited)

UPC: 720917313429

Studio: Winsor

MPAA Rating: PG13   Contains:null

Summary: Ramblin' Jack Elliott, a self-styled folk musician, was an important transitional figure between Woody Guthrie and Bob Dylan. This documentary serves as both a chronicle of his colorful life and an attempt by his daughter, director Aiyanna Elliott, to reconnect with her often-absent father. Born Elliott Adnopoz in Brooklyn, Jack ran off as a teenager in 1947 to join a traveling rodeo troupe after seeing them perform in Madison Square Garden. He returned to New York and took up singing, first cowboy songs, then traditional and contemporary folk music. He and Woody Guthrie traveled through the South in the 1950s, learning songs from blues artists such as the Reverend Gary Davis, Elizabeth Cotton, and Jesse Fuller. Elliott remained one of Guthrie's truest friends all through Guthrie's long battle with Huntington's chorea, the congenital nerve disease that killed him in 1967. In 1955, Elliott and the first of his four wives decamped to England, where his reputation was made with fans of the skiffle music craze. He returned to New York in 1961, just as the folk music boom was producing its biggest hero, Bob Dylan, who aped both Guthrie and Elliott in his early recordings. Among the interviewees are Nora and Arlo Guthrie, singers Pete Seeger and Dave Van Ronk, and ex-wives and managers, who all agree on Elliott's carefree attitude toward schedules and money. His almost pathological determination not to conform to any kind of bourgeois lifestyle eventually crippled his chances for wider recognition, though in the mid-'90s, he won a Grammy and a National Medal of the Arts, awarded by President Bill Clinton. The vintage clips are interspersed with Aiyanna Elliott trailing her father around with a camera and microphone, hoping to capture some admission of past mistakes, but as always, Ramblin' Jack Elliott is a tough man to pin down. ~ Tom Wiener, Rovi

Category: Music [nf]

Awards: Special Jury Prize for Artistic Achievement – Sundance Film Festival

Features: Interactive menus
Scene access
Production credits
Theatrical trailer
Audio commentary with Ramblin' Jack Elliott
Clips from short film "Ramblin' Jack in Texas"
Discography
Weblinks

Ballad of Ramblin Jack

Format: Digital Video Disc (DVD)

Release Date: 05/08/2001

Runtime: 112 Minutes

Sides: 1

Number of Discs: 1

Language(s) English

Region: USA & territories, Canada

Chapters: Side #1
0. Scene Access
1. Ramblin' Man [:10]
2. New York Town [5:53]
3. Roots [6:12]
4. Hard Traveling [7:37]
5. Cowboy Poetry [2:51]
6. Jack & Woody [5:15]
7. Searching America [5:51]
8. Muleskinner Blues [2:50]
9. British Folk [3:30]
10. Positive Influence [7:04]
11. The Godfather [1:50]
12. Where Dylan Went [1:25]
13. Skateboard [3:24]
14. It Ain't Easy [4:54]
15. Take Me Home [5:18]
16. Cadillac Jack [13:20]

Tom Wiener

An overdue look at an important figure on the folk music scene, The Ballad of Ramblin' Jack also contains a personal dimension. Aiyanna Elliott, Jack's daughter by his fourth wife, Martha, is as determined to track down her father for a reunion that just happens to include a camera and microphone as he is to avoid dredging up past wrongs. Ramblin' Jack Elliott is described by everyone, from exasperated club and personal managers to his forgiving ex-wives to his fellow musicians, as a cheerfully irresponsible man. Aiyanna plays a phone message from him that acknowledges missing her birthday by almost a week, claiming he hadn't been able to get to a phone. You can laugh, since Jack isn't your father; Aiyanna's reaction is an exasperated grimace she wears for most of the film. Aiyanna has done a prodigious job of research, gathering up evocative photographs, clips from TV and movie appearances, and every surviving key figure in Jack's life but one. She admits, in an interview that sometimes runs with TV broadcasts of the film, that she tried to contact Bob Dylan, who generously included Jack in his Rolling Thunder Revue shows of the mid-'70s. Dylan had rebuffed overtures from Elliott, so it's not surprising that Dylan wouldn't appear to acknowledge his debt to one of his mentors. But the film, a valentine to a less than devoted father, does fine without him. ~ Tom Wiener, Rovi

Cast and Crew: Pete Seeger  Actor 
Odette  Actor 
Arlo Guthrie  Actor 
Kris Kristofferson  Actor 
Jack Elliott  Actor 
Dave Van Ronk  Actor 
Dan Partland  Producer 
Paul S. Mezey  Producer 
Aiyanna Elliott  Director 
Aiyanna Elliott  Producer 
Aiyanna Elliott  Screenwriter 

Country: USA