America's Heart and Soul

Maybe you've seen this, maybe you haven't: there was a Saturday Night Live
spoof commercial showing a montage of quirky people of various ethnicities,
beautiful Americana landscapes and faux-Rockwell imagery of families celebrating,
men doing manly jobs and general bland patriotism. At the end of the montage a
subtitle comes up, "We have no idea what we're selling".



America's Heart and Soul is a well shot but sickly sweet documentary
postcard to the wonderful variety of Americans and their very American dreams
of achieving whatever their heart/God/boredom tells them to do. The individuals
are a lively sort and some of them are worthy of being the subject of their own
documentary, but we barely get to know a person before they are sent away.
There is no thematic flow from one person to the other, no message linking them
together and in the end the movie says nothing about the "greatness"
of America. This problem makes Heart and Soul as empty as a Dodge
commercial. The soundtrack album is equally as empty, and feels like it is
trying to sell us something even though we've already bought it.



The one highlight of the film besides the fantastic cinematography is the score
by Joel McNeely. That music is in short supply on this album, as only one track
of his music ("Score for Minnie Yancey") is included. There are two
tracks by John Haitt ("Have a Little Faith in Me", "Child of the
Wild Blue Yonder"), but they are just plain-vanilla Heartland rock. The
rest of the album is a hodge-podge of the various cultures skimmed over in the
film. The music jumps from gospel ("This Morning When I Rose") to
Cajun ("Two Step de Eunice") to Salsa ("Abusadora, Calculadora")
then bland pop ("Cheryl") and so on. Many of the tracks start with
vague quotes pulled from the many interviewees. You get a little bit of
something interesting ("Chusen Kale Mazel Tov"), but the amount of
music is not enough to keep you interested nor is the overall quality enough to
sustain an entire listen.



As you may have picked up on, I am not exactly a fan of the album. This is
exactly like one of those free samplers you find in a music store. Quickly
disposable, and forgettable.