America’s Heart & Soul

America’s Heart & Soul

Louis Schwartzberg’s approach as a filmmaker is glossy, skin-deep and relentlessly cheerful; the people he finds are precious. Most of them I could have watched an entire film about, which means that this movie is a series of frustrations for me. But it underscores a point I always try to make when students ask me about job prospects: Figure out what you love, and do it, no matter how little it pays, because you’ll have fun and probably be happy. Mid-career test: If retirement sounds better than the job you’re doing, you’re doing the wrong job.

The first person we meet in “America’s Heart & Soul” is Thomas “Roudy” Roudebush, a cowboy in Telluride, Colo., whose life has gotten much better since he quit drinking but who still rides his horse into a bar for a drink (water, straight up). Then we meet Mark and Ann Savoy, Cajun musicians; watch them make gumbo; visit black gospel singer Mosie Burks; and listen to weaver Minnie Yancey (“If I’ve woven 10 feet into the rug and it still doesn’t say ‘yes,’ I’ll cut it right off and start again”) as she looks out her window at her husband plowing a field on one of the last family farms.

In Vermont George Woodard is a dairy farmer who milks his cows, plays in a string band and stars as Dracula in a local production. We say hello to Ben Cohen of Ben & Jerry’s as he invents a new flavor. We meet a hatmaker. A chairmaker. A winemaker. Men who fight oil well fires. A New Orleans jazz band. Patty Wagstaff of Florida, who is champion acrobatic pilot.

Also people who dance on cliff tops at the ends of ropes. A blind mountain climber. Rick Hoyt, marathon runner with cerebral palsy, whose father Dick pushes his wheelchair. Paul Stone of Creede, Colo., who spends his winters blowing up stuff real good (one of his cannon shells is made of ham and cheese). David Krakauer, klezmer musician influenced by Jimi Hendrix.

An opera singer. Salsa dancers. Michael Bennett of Chicago, an armed robber who started boxing in the pen, became captain of the U.S. Olympics boxing team and works to keep kids off the streets. Cecil Williams, pastor of the progressive Glide Church in San Francisco, which feeds a million meals to the homeless every year. People who decorate their cars as works of art. A Manhattan bike messenger who loves racing through traffic. Dan Klennert, who makes art out of junk. The Indian elder Charles Jimmie Sr., who releases a healed eagle back into the skies.

All these people are happy and productive and creative and nonconformist; if there were more such people in our society, thenews would be much brighter. They live in a parallel universe where everyone is oddball and fascinating and has a story that can be neatly wrapped up in a few minutes certainly there must be more to these people than meets the eye-seemingly everything but “America’s Heart & Soul” has miles to go before it sleeps

I watched one shot that lasted for a few seconds during the middle of a montage. It was a shot of Howard Armstrong the African American string musician who died in August 2003 at 93 years old. In April, I presented two documentaries about this amazing man at my Overlooked Film Festival. These were made 15 years apart and depicted his unique art as well as music while showing that his life was always evolving.

Since I am aware how much could be said about him, I can imagine what there is to say about others in “America’s Heart & Soul”. Unfortunately, this film does not take a break to find out; it is too fast and uses “&” because using “and” would take too long. The people in this movie are deserving of four stars based on the star rating system but their portrayal only gets two stars since they were condensed into cute images along with sound bites.

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