The Last Movie I Saw

Phil Ochs has been one of my heroes since the first time I heard the song "I Ain't a Marchin' Anymore," which was probably sometime when I was in high school. He never enjoyed the popular success of contemporaries like Bob Dylan and Joan Baez, but he certainly was a powerful presence in folk music circles of the 1960s. His specialty was the topical song, and he truly pushed his audience to try and live up to the principles upon which America was founded, to do more than just pay lip serves to the ideals of freedom, equality and democracy. That's a noble cause, and a really tough one-- I refer you to a long line of radical patriots from history, including the likes of William Lloyd Garrison, Eugene Debs, Randolph Bourne, I.F. Stone, and Mort Sahl (among many others)-- since many bizarrely tend to see that kind of effort as somehow anti-American. There have been a couple of print biographies of Ochs, one by Marc Eliot which I recall as pretty good though I read it a long time ago, and a second by Michael Schumacher which I didn't like very much even though it was probably more comprehensive than the Eliot book. The difficulty with Ochs as a subject is in keeping his work in the forefront, and not letting it be overwhelmed by the melodrama and tragedy of his personal life. It's a real trick, prtly because his personal life was a compelling story in its own right, and partly because much of his music had autobiographical overtones, especially in the second half of his career. In fact, it often reflected his psyche in various stages of crisis. But those reflections are not necessarily the full substance of what he wanted to convey; that is, when I refer to crisis, I mean Ochs efforts to come to terms with how his country seemed to be drifting from his idealistic impression of it. Early in his career, he described himself as a musical journalist, and his songs were near literal reports of events linked tot he civil rights movement, the war in Vietnam, and other subjects taken from the headlines of the day. As time went on, and he developed as an artist, his style, his means of expression, grew more artistic but the general themes evident in his last recordings strike me every bit as socially conscious as his first. The new documentary Phil Ochs: There But for Fortune, directed by Kenneth Bowser, gets that aspect of Ochs career. It certainly addresses such "behind-the-scenes" themes as his commercial struggles (including the rivalry with Bob Dylan), his alcoholism, and the overall dissolution and mental problems that led him finally to suicide. But it makes sure that his music remains in the forefront, and makes a case that those other demons were at least partly the result of his intense desire to express himself and the frustration that his message was not getting through to his hoped for mass audience. We live in a celebrity-drenched culture that more and more wallows in the personal failures of stars, to the point of dismissing or forgetting the actual efforts they make to communicate with us through their art and performance. It may not all be equally worthwhile or valuable, but that work is the true representation of what such creative types contribute to society, the sordid details of their personal lives notwithstanding. One of the primary features of American culture is that it allows us, even compels us, to make up who we are-- to be the creator, and actor, of our own destiny. When Phil Ochs donned a gold lame suit in homage/parody of Elvis Presley, one can see that as a performer losing his authenticity or making a misguided grab for Vegas-style stardom (and many did at the time). But doesn't it make more sense-- especially since Ochs said as much-- that he was tapping into a public persona that signified the power that people held to dictate their fate, just as Elvis did by inventing himself, and thereby launching what became the counterculture? Bowser's film treats it as such, and because of that makes clear that Ochs message didn't change over the course of his career, only his means of expressing it. It's certainly debatable whether Ochs was successful in always getting that message across, but this documentary is proof that some people got it and remembered it. It's about time that this fine artist got the sort of biographical treatment he deserves. It'd be great if someone new would take up his cause, because we could sure use another Phil Ochs today.