LEADBELLY

US, 1976, 127 minutes, Colour.
Roger E. Mosley, James E. Brodhead, John McDonald?, Ernest L. Hudson, William Wintersole.
Directed by Gordon Parks.

Leadbelly is a satisfying "show biz" biography of a man whose traditional southern music influenced modern developments. But this is also a good story well told of the status of blacks in the early decades of this century - poverty and discrimination, joy and suffering, farms, brothels and prison. It is interesting in its re-creation of places and atmosphere and, at times, breathtakingly photographed and permeated by the music and songs of the negro tradition. Huddie Leadbetter, played with pathos and exuberance by Roger Mosley, shows what the harrowing experience of life can achieve for a poor, uneducated and long-imprisoned man, if he does not remain bitter. Directed by author, photographer, film-maker, Gordon Parks.

1. The reputation of Huddie Leadbetter? His importance for American music in the 20th century? His representing the poetry of the negroes in their music in the early 20th century?

2. How successful was the film as a biography? The Hollywood kind of biography, glamorising the subject, making the background more rosy than it actually was? Did it present the background accurately and with its grim impact? The interest in the biography as the atmosphere and environment behind the celebrity? The importance of the flashback technique., the final caption about Leadbelly and his concert tours? How well did the film probe his character and personality, present him in his environment in growing up, prison etc.? How well did it present the pressures on the ordinary negro man in the early 20th century? Did it help audiences understand the background of the music, its origins, absorption by Leadbelly. transition into songs through him? A man of ambitions, goals. a great interior drive and impetus to success?

3. How could the film be seen as a story of negroes in the 20th century. their social and human conditions? The changing patterns in the early decades?

4. The importance of the visual presentation of the locations, the Louisiana prison, the home town and where he grew up, the Texas background? Comment on the colour photography. the emphasis on colour and beauty. e.g. the sunsets? The way that the music and the songs were interwoven into the dramatics? How authentic was the film in its presentation of environment?

5. The importance of the flashback,, the audience knowing that Leadbelly finished up in prison and was successful? Sympathies and interest because of the prison situation in the 30s.

6. The visual presentation of life in prison, the harshness of the 30s, the deep South,, Leadbelly's age. the racial question, the humiliation and the chains, the heat and the hard labour with the rocks? His music and his life told within this framework?

7. The transition to 1907 and the presentation of the Leadbetters' family life, Huddie's lack of responsibility. his relationship with Margaret Judd and his irresponsibility. clashes with the sheriff, his enjoyment of the music, the atmosphere of impulsiveness and rivalry, the cart and the horse race, his dancing and playing,, the shooting? How well did the film indicate the times, the environment. his expectations of himself with this poor background? The importance of his leaving, Margaret Judd and her pregnancy, the attitude of his mother and father?

8. The symbolism in his departure, his mother and father and their attitudes, his father's coming later to buy him out of prison and leaving him the guitar? The influence of his parents?

9. The transition to Shreveport? The brashness of the town, the street and the brothel. Shorty's saloon? His becoming king there, his being absorbed into this kind of atmosphere? His relationship with Miss Eula? His naivety? The attack and his fighting?

10. Why did he become a success, a king of the saloon, his wanting to break free, the episode with the old. man and the guitar, his sense of destiny?

11. His going to Texas? The influence of the police, the raid, his trip on the train, his experiencing friends in the cotton fields? The different atmosphere and the way of life in the cotton fields of Texas? The influence on his music?

12. His happiness in Texas, the dance, the humiliation in their not being paid, the violence, the prison, and the experience of his escape? How suspenseful and dramatic was his escape from prison?

13. His irresponsibility, the warnings, the shooting? His life in the prisons and the gangs and the influence on him?

14. Comment on the way that the long escape sequence was presented. Audience response?

15. His reliance on his music in prison, his playing and the playing for the Governor? The patronising aspects of the encounter with the Governor? His hope for some kind of reprieve? The irony of it when it came?

16. His reprieve and the possibility of a new life, the dramatic impact of his return, seeing his own house, his daughter? The irony and cruelty of his being a victim of the suspicious men? The irony of the change of where he grew up to the white sharecropper's house?

17. The pathos of his growing through hardship, the long years in prison?

18. By the end of the film was it clear what achievement was in his life, his music?