Product Details

• Actors: Jack Elliott, Gil Gross, Arlo Guthrie, Kris Kristofferson, Harold Leventhal
• Directors: Aiyana Elliott
• Writers: Aiyana Elliott, Dicky Dahl
• Producers: Aiyana Elliott, Art Horan, Cameron Brodie, Dan Partland, David Brendel
• Format: Black & White, Color, NTSC
• Language: English
• Rated: PG-13 (Parental Guidance Suggested)
• Number of tapes: 1
• Studio: Winstar
• VHS Release Date: May 8, 2001
• Run Time: 112 minutes
• Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (17 customer reviews)
• ASIN: B00005AADV
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #297,828 in Movies & TV (See Top 100 in Movies & TV)

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com

Ramblin' Jack Elliott has been many things in the course of a life now nearing the end of its seventh decade: trucker, sailor, cowboy, storyteller, ladies man, eccentric, iconoclast, and a folksinger-guitarist who's considered the link between Woody Guthrie and Bob Dylan. What he hasn't been is much of a father, and that becomes the poignant focus of this documentary directed, written, coproduced, and narrated by his daughter, Aiyana. The film includes plenty of material (home movies, performance footage both old and new, interviews with friends, family, and Elliott himself, etc.) about Elliott's life, and a remarkable life it's been.

Born Elliot Charles Adnopoz in 1931, son of a Jewish doctor from Brooklyn, he left home to become a cowboy, eventually becoming Guthrie's protégé and a minor legend in his own right who was well-known in England in the '50s and on the scene during the early '60s folk boom in New York. His own irresponsibility and lack of ambition and focus kept him from being a bigger name, and those are the same flaws that have afflicted his relationship with his daughter. "I can't remember having an actual conversation with my dad," Aiyana says, and by the end of the film that still seems to be the case. In what may be the most telling moment here, she asks her mother (one of Elliott's four wives) if Ramblin' Jack "had any talents as a father." What follows is a long, bemused pause... and no response at all. A fascinating document, but not one that you'd call uplifting. --Sam Graham

From The New Yorker

Aiyana Elliott crafted this loving, affecting documentary of her father, Ramblin' Jack Elliott, the legendary folksinger who was both a disciple of Woody Guthrie and a mentor to Bob Dylan (who later denied Jack's influence). The son of a Jewish doctor from Brooklyn, Ramblin' Jack refashioned himself as a folksinger, and, after his early success as part of the Washington Square folk revival, he spent decades singing songs of lumberjacks, cotton pickers, and cowboys until his 1995 album "South Coast" brought him belated recognition. Father and daughter travel the United States visiting old friends, like Kris Kristofferson and Arlo Guthrie, and throughout Jack sustains a wistful, funny monologue that imparts his own peculiar brand of wisdom: "My advice to young people today: learn how to whittle." He's a master storyteller, and it's easy to get caught up in the spell of his words and miss the film's sad core: a daughter's search for her unknown father. -Michael Agger
Copyright © 2006 The New Yorker

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

23 of 25 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The last of the Ramblin' Jewish Cowboys from New York City, March 19, 2001

By A Customer

This review is from: The Ballad of Ramblin' Jack [VHS] (VHS Tape)

I was fortunate enough to see this film at the 2000 Sundance Festival with a couple of musician friends. Leaving the theatre, we all agreed that it was the best single character documentary we had ever seen. Aiyana utelizes the help and stories from family and some very popular names in music to tell a wonderful life's story of her father, Jack Elliot, who may be the last true ramblin' man. He learned a great majority of his musical craft from spending time with Woody Guthrie. This was long after he had left his mother and father back in NYC. I can not possibly do the film justice by simply trying to summarize. There are only three things you need to know to make your decision by way of this armchair review. 1.) You will get to know the real Jack Elliot by way of many celebrities' stories as well as learning of Jack's own gentle and sometimes brutal honesty because that is what he was and is. 2.) Unless you have no hope of being anything but repulsed by hearing and learning about original and real "one man and his guitar" country / folk music, even though it is the foundation of where rock music comes from, you will like the music even more. And 3.) This film may violently burst the balloon of Bob Dylan fans that believe Dylan is a true original.

14 of 15 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars This Man is Your Land, February 24, 2003

By 

Mark Oliva (Muenchsteinach Deutschland) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Ballad of Ramblin' Jack (DVD)

First of all - if you live outside of the U.S. and Canada, ignore Amazon[.com]'s claim that this is a Region 1 CD. It's Region 0 or Region Free if you will, and it plays beautifully anywhere in the world. Yes, it really does play beautifully. If you find any joy whatsoever in American folk or country music and you're interested in both the people as well as the music side of things, there probably isn't a DVD anywhere you'll appreciate owning more. There are white folk and country musicians galore in the U.S., but Ramblin' Jack Elliott is a step apart from all of them. Why? Well, he's the real thing. When we think of other names associated with white folk music - Pete Seeger, maybe, or over on the other much more commercial end of things, folks like the Kingston Trio and Peter, Paul and Mary, they all were great talents who reproduced folk music, not people who sang the songs they lived. Please don't interpret this as a bad shot at these folks. One thinks of Studs Terkel's introduction at the 1959 Newport Folk Festival: "Whenever you see a young banjo player anywhere in the country, with a banjo waist high, head back, Adam's apple bobbing, you can say like Kilroy, Pete Seeger has been there." That's one legacy in American folk music, one of a great man who went forth, learned the songs of his land and brought them to us. Our debt to Pete Seeger is great. Ramblin' Jack Elliott is the other side of that coin. He went out and learned the land and then learned to sing its songs but as an expression of his own life. He made the land his own, thus, by their very nature, the songs too became his own, although he wrote nary a one of them. This wonderful story of America singing out through one of its really great bards, minstrels and troubadours is joyous indeed. There are of course some other points made to a lesser extent in the film and to a greater extent in the promotional material. It's true that Ramblin' Jack spent five years on the road with his mentor, Woody Guthrie, and that Bobby Zimmermann aka Bob Dylan spent a good bit of time with his mentor, Ramblin' Jack. People like to raise Dylan's name in connection with this film, although it's largely irrelevant. Ramblin' Jack handles the idea himself in a black-and-white interview from the 1960s, when Dylan still was new on the block: "Hell, I've been singin' like Bob Dylan for 20 years now." The film was made by Ramblin' Jack's daughter Aiyana, and much is made of daughter's search for her father, but that really isn't the focal point of the film. That is the big slice of America that Ramblin' Jack is and was. If think you know Woody Guthrie's song "This Land is Your Land," take a good look at this film. Afterward, you'll understand it much better. With Ramblin' Jack in mind, you might even switch the lyrics a bit: "This Man is Your Land ..."

14 of 17 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A fascinating, touching look at an overlooked figure, June 12, 2001

By A Customer

This review is from: The Ballad of Ramblin' Jack (DVD)

This film is a fascinating character study and a touching look at the personal price people can pay for going their own way. Seeing the filmmaker, Elliott's daughter, trying to connect with her father while profiling him, is both sad and inspiring. The essence of the film seems to be summed up by Dave Van Ronk who tells Aiyana that he and countless others are grateful that Elliott roamed around, making music and being a folk treasure, but recognizes that his daughter never really had a father as a result. Her loss was our gain.