The hair may say 70, but the face says 30.
The biographical drama Leadbelly (1976) chronicles the life of Huddie William Ledbetter from his late teenage years through his second prison term for murder. He was a blues musician who worked from 1903 until his death 45 years later. This is truly a chronicle, for there is little attempt to do more than connect his upbringing, the strictures of the American South in which he grew up, and his own lust for life with his prison terms and his music.
Indeed, in some ways this movie is all about the music he composed and performed, the subjects both well-worn, such as women and love, and more unusual, such as the song he sang hoping that the Governor of Texas might grant him a pardon. We’re given performances of his many songs as they fit the time and scene.
But as such, the movie comes off just a little flat. In some ways, I found it hard to connect with Ledbetter, and perhaps that’s just a societal difference of 100+ years and a completely different social circumstance. Some of it may have been questions in my head about whether Ledbetter ever really learned from his experiences, or if the pain he endured was more a function of the racist society in which he lived. Indeed, it has elements of film noir to it, although I wouldn’t classify it as such, as an epilogue suggests there was, in fact, a happy ending to his life, as it claims he later played Carnegie Hall.
It is an interesting movie, but not necessarily a movie you’ll remember a month from now.
