Some of the biggest stars of country music -- past and present -- are
part of the IMAX big-screen Our Country, a toe-tapping but overly
ambitious film that attempts to celebrate both the history of the music
and America itself. And all in just 37 minutes, including the credits.
When it pauses, Our Country can be quite wonderful, as in a sequence in
which Dolly Parton begins singing "Turn, Turn, Turn" on an old front
porch of a mountain home by herself, but is soon joined by the likes of
Guy Clark, Radney Foster, Kathy Mattea, Roger McGuinn, Leigh Nash and
Kim Richey, who appear in turn seemingly from nowhere to accompany her
in song.
But the film tries to cram too much information into its scant running
time. Our Country, produced by the Grand Ole Opry, tries to make it seem
that just about everyone in America is a country music fan and that this
is the music that shaped a nation. Rather than dealing only in country
scenes, there's plenty of ancient newsreel footage of big-city America
and, on the history side, everything from Martin Luther King and the
civil rights struggle to Richard Nixon's resignation and the collapse of
the World Trade Center!
While it pays homage to the fact that the origins of country music lie
in Celtic traditions brought here by Irish and Scottish and English
immigrants (Our Country opens in Ireland), it tries to give the
impression that immigrants of all persuasions contributed to country
music.
Some of the best moments feature the country singers themselves, from
grainy newsreel footage of Jimmie Rodgers and Roy Acuff, to the slicker
TV shows hosted by Porter Wagoner to today's MTV-inspired glitz, with Jo
Dee Messina in tight leather riding across the arid West on a motorcycle
and belting out "My Own Kind of Hat" on a craggy mountaintop. There are
nods to Hank Williams, singing in a smoky roadhouse, and Patsy Cline,
taking part in an Ed Sullivan-style TV show. Alan Jackson channels
Williams on "Hey, Good Lookin' "; Martina McBride does it for Cline on
"Walkin' After Midnight."
There's rough old footage of Elvis and Jerry Lee Lewis and Johnny Cash
in their heyday, and polished stuff with such stars as Loretta Lynn,
Alabama and Lyle Lovett today. One of the most effective moments --
"Will the Circle Be Unbroken" -- is staged at the beginning and end of
Our Country at Ryman Auditorium in Nashville, the original home of the
Grand Ole Opry, with the likes of Patty Loveless, Ricky Skaggs, Pam
Tillis, Trisha Yearwood, Rhode Island's Billy Gilman and many more
joining in song.
One very well done sequence begins with Marty Stuart singing "City of
New Orleans" while riding atop a coach of a steam locomotive. The songs
continue -- "Rawhide/Foggy Mountain Breakdown" -- in the coach car and
later on the railroad station platform with fiddlers and banjo players,
including Earl Scruggs.
A major quibble: of the dozens of singers in the film, few are
identified. It would have been nice if each had had an onscreen tag line
for those in the audience who aren't huge country fans. But then again,
would anyone who is not a huge country fan be in the audience in the
first place? And would a tag line have been an insult to the country
stars and their fans?
Our Country is designed as a feel-good-about-America film. And when it
breaks into song -- as Lee Ann Womack does at the end riding the
paddle-wheel showboat General Jackson and singing Willie Nelson's
"Living in the Promiseland" from its deck -- it's a very good feeling.
***1/2
Our Country
Starring: Dolly Parton, Lyle Lovett, Loretta Lynn, Alabama, Charlie
Daniels, Vince Gill, Patty Loveless, Kathy Mattea, Pam Tillis, Trisha
Yearwood, Dwight Yoakam, Billy Gilman.
Rated: Not rated, contains nothing offensive.
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