Product Details

• Actors: Billy Bragg, Arlo Guthrie, Harold Leventhal, Pete Seeger, Nora Guthrie
• Directors: Stephen Gammond
• Format: Color, DVD, Widescreen, NTSC
• Language: English (Dolby Digital 2.0 Stereo)
• Region: Region 1 (U.S. and Canada only. Read more about DVD formats.)
  
• Aspect Ratio: 1.77:1
• Number of discs: 1
• Rated: NR (Not Rated)
• Studio: Snapper UK
• DVD Release Date: April 1, 2008
• Run Time: 160 minutes
• Average Customer Review: 4.1 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (9 customer reviews)
• ASIN: B000FP2ZY4
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #155,750 in Movies & TV (See Top 100 in Movies & TV)

Editorial Reviews

WOODY GUTHRIE:THIS MACHINE KILLS FACI - DVD Movie

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

28 of 33 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Could have been better, August 29, 2005

By 

Dave Essel (on the web) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Woody Guthrie - This Machine Kills Fascists (DVD)

I bought this DVD, prompted by a positive review in Mojo magazine. However, in my view it's a waste of money.
The 2-hour plus DVD has been put together as a production for MTV-brained folk with a 15-second attention span: not one song is played in full and the interviews are lightweight reminiscences.
On the positive side there are nice period newsreel excerpts and period stills and some talk. However, even these items are kept brief, presumably to match the 15-second attention span the producers condescendingly think is the most a viewer is capable of.
People interested in Woody Guthrie are not like that!

15 of 18 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars This machine created a huge legacy, September 7, 2005

By 

Jay Pfeiffer "Pfeifferpfarm" (Quincy, Florida) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Woody Guthrie - This Machine Kills Fascists (DVD)

I have been a fan of Woody Guthrie since the days of the "folk revival". I have had high regard for his written musings and have followed renditions of his music since his own recordings to the Billy Bragg/Wilco disks. I was travelng a few months ago and heard an excellent review of a Bob Dylan exhibition sponsored by "No Depression". I was particularly interested in Dylan's early visits to the master while he was in the hospital. Indirectly, this review lead me to the "This Machine Kills Facists" DVD. I thoroughly enjoyed this fresh look at the life and legend of Woody Guthrie and recommend it to all with an interest in his music and background. I would like to see a follow-up that focuses on his legacy - his influences on the music we hear today and will continue to hear in the future.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A collection of fascinating interviews drive this important documentary, July 5, 2009

By 

Robert Moore (Chicago, IL USA) - See all my reviews
(HALL OF FAME REVIEWER)    (VINE VOICE)    (TOP 100 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Woody Guthrie: This Machine Kills Fascists (DVD)

This is a highly informative, enjoyable documentary life of Woody Guthrie. It is filled with a host of interviews with people who either knew Guthrie (including his sister and some of his children) or have been students of his life. There are a lot of great photos, footage shot in locales key to Woody's story, and what little footage there is of Woody performing. But despite all this, the documentary, despite the richness of the source material and collaborators, lacks a lot in the production department. It is filled with odd with odd decisions, such as having a large percentage of the narration by Billy Bragg take place onscreen. Indeed, the decision to use Billy Bragg is odd. I love Billy Bragg, own many of his albums, and have seen him twice live, and I understand the role that Bragg has played in promoting his music, but I just can't believe that Bragg, with his heavy English accent, was the best choice to narrate this quintessential American story. Aesthetically, the documentary feels like something made for a local PBS station.

Nonetheless, the film is a treasure trove of interviews about Woody. I'd read earlier Joe Klein's biography of Guthrie (back when I thought the now right-wing Democrat Klein -- seriously, why does the man still even call himself a Democrat? -- was a leftist) and even Woody's own somewhat fictional account of his own life BOUND FOR GLORY. So even while this is not a lovely film, it is just an essential resource. The great interviews just keep coming and coming, some of them humorous, some of them insightful, some of them tragic. The tragic ones come from the stories from when he suffered from Huntington's Chorea. The story of his losing his abilities due to the disease is part of the lore of American music. And it is sad.

Guthrie's importance in American music can hardly be overestimated. He is easily the most important songwriter in the folk tradition the nation has produced. The documentary doesn't bring this up, but Woody was writing original songs at a time when the notion of performers producing their own material was unheard of. In contrast, Jimmie Rodgers wrote only a few of the songs that he performed (and many of the songs he "wrote" were actually written by his sister-in-law). This has to be understood in context. The folk music movement was driven by the idea of songs growing organically up from the larger community, from "the people." It was very much part of the left-wing ideology of the movement. Individualism was not important to people like Alan Lomax. The documentary mentions the Library of Congress Recordings that Woody did with Lomax. The reason that Lomax wanted to record Woody was that he thought that Woody knew a lot of traditional folksongs. In fact, only well into the recordings did Lomax suddenly realize that Woody wasn't singing traditional songs, but songs that he had written himself. Although Lomax became a supporter of Woody, he was a challenge to Lomax's ideology.

One of the more disturbing things that comes up in the film - something that I had forgotten from my earlier reading - was the tragic role that fire played in Woody's life. Homes were lost to fire. His sister and a daughter both died from fire. His father was gravely injured from his wife having thrown an oil lamp at him (at a time when she was beginning to suffer from the Huntington's Chorea that she would pass on to her son).

I've added a couple of books to the impossibly large reading list I've compiled over the years. One is Ed Cray's RAMBLIN' MAN: THE LIFE AND TIMES OF WOODY GUTHRIE. I was impressed with Cray's cold-eyed understanding of Woody. Cray doesn't idealize Woody even though he clearly likes him. I would definitely like to read his biography. The other book I'd like to read is Jim Longhi's memoir WOODY, CISCO, AND ME: SEAMEN THREE IN THE MERCHANT MARINE.

If you have any interest in the music of Woody Guthrie, this documentary is not going to disappoint.