Director/Writer Steven Pressman Photo: courtesy Steven Pressman
Director, producer and writer (the latter with Lisa Stark,) Steve Pressman and I are laughing when I admit that his Doc, Dust Bowls and Jewish Souls: Another Side of Woody Guthrie, is so full of bizarre, uncanny coincidences, that audiences will be amazed!
“I can tell you from the outset, that having been making films about little known Jewish stories, mostly rooted in the American experience, I never in my wildest imagination would think I’d wind up making a film about Woody Guthrie,” Pressman enthuses. Dust Bowls and Jewish Souls: Another Side of Woody Guthrie opens the 12th annual Victoria International Jewish Film Festival on Saturday, October 10th.
How did a Protestant Okie folk balladeer from Dust Bowl roots of the 1930’s – the same singer who wrote This Land Is Your Land – also compose a Chanukah song, embrace Jewish traditions and culture, and have a close relationship with his Jewish mother-in-law who wrote music and stories in Yiddish?
“I first came across a Woody Guthrie exhibition at the Morgan Library & Museum in Manhattan four years ago,” relates the San Francisco-based Pressman. “There I saw his guitar and other artifacts and his original lyrics to a Chanukah song and thought ‘what on earth does Woody Guthrie have to do with Chanukah?’ At the time, I was working on another project but filed that information away but enough to plant that tiny little seed of an idea. I must confess, I didn’t know a lot about Woody then, mostly that he wrote This Land Is Your Land and was Arlo’s Dad.”
Woody Guthrie performs for the Jewish Welfare Board U.S.O. Club Photo: courtesy Woody Guthrie Publications
Fast forward two years and Pressman discovered that Nora, Guthrie‘s daughter, had put together a one-woman-show about Jewish elements in Woody’s life. “I found an email for her and her daughter and asked them if they would be interested in pursuing this project. Fortunately for me, Arlo (Alice’s Restaurant,) also came onboard when I emphasized that the film would be about his grandmother, Aliza Greenblatt as much as Woody.”
As it turned out, Woody’s second wife, Marjorie (Mazia) Greenblatt, an accomplished modern dancer in New York City and assistant to renowned choreographer, Martha Graham, happened to meet Woody Guthrie there. It was love at first sight even though they were both married to other people. She got pregnant with Woody’s baby and a year later they divorced their respective spouses and married.
Aliza Greenblatt. Photo: courtesy Woody Guthrie Publications
“Woody and Aliza Greenblatt, his mother-in-law, were kindred spirits,” says Pressman. “Aliza came from a small shtetl in what is now Ukraine and Woody from a small town in Oklahoma. But they both embodied people who faced discrimination and poverty and left their homes. Woody empathized with those people through his music and became the voice of the common man.”
Dust Bowls and Jewish Souls is a treasure trove of surprising anecdotes. For example, the time a dusty young man (“but wearing nice boots”) knocks on Woody Guthrie’s door. Teenage Nora Guthrie is annoyed because she was watching American Bandstand and had to answer the door which she quickly closes. The young man knocks insistently and this time Arlo answers and invites him inside. It’s Bob Dylan! As an adult, Nora goes to the Tanglewood Music Festival to hear famed violinist, Itzhak Perlman perform. She is astounded to hear him play one of Bubby Greenblatt’s compositions.
I asked Pressman if he was a consultant to the film A Complete Unknown, Dylan’s biopic that showcased his and Pete Seeger’s admiration for Woody Guthrie interpreted so believably by Timothée Chalamet.
“Actually, I didn’t even know that Woody would be a part of that film,” Pressman admits. “ I only have a mild criticism of it. What bothered me was when Woody was in the film towards the end of his life, and it never mentions that he was dying from Huntington’s Disease. When Dylan shows up in the film it’s 1961. Woody could barely talk by then. I never really understood that.”
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- Nora Guthrie Photo: courtesy PerlePress Productions
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- Arlo Guthrie Photo: courtesy PerlePress Productions
There’s a delightful Canadian connection to Woody Guthrie’s musical career: The Canadian folk group, The Travellers changed the lyrics to Guthrie’s famous tune, This Land is Your Land, This Land is My Land to Canadian locations and it’s become almost a second anthem in our country. “ When my film premiered in Toronto at the TJFF this year, unbeknownst to me, they had invited Jerry Gray, the original member of The Travellers,” explains Pressman. “It was such a treat to meet him and he actually led the audience singing the Canadian version, of course. He’s still going strong at 93-years-old!”
