- published: 07 Oct 2009
- views: 164154
A Mighty Wind is a 2003 American mockumentary comedy-drama film about a folk music reunion concert in which three folk bands reunite for a television performance for the first time in decades. The film was directed, co-written and composed by Christopher Guest. The film is thought to reference the 2003 tribute concert to folk music producer Harold Leventhal that reunited several of the folk groups that Leventhal had managed. More broadly, the film is a parody of the American folk music revival of the early 1960s and its personalities.
Guest co-stars and reunites many of his company of actors from This Is Spinal Tap, Waiting for Guffman, and Best in Show for this film. They include Eugene Levy (who also co-wrote the screenplay), Catherine O'Hara, Michael McKean, Harry Shearer, Fred Willard, Bob Balaban, Ed Begley, Jr., Jennifer Coolidge, John Michael Higgins, Jane Lynch and Parker Posey.
Several characters in the film originated in a sketch written by Guest for Saturday Night Live in 1984. Shearer, Guest, and McKean appeared as "The Folksmen" on Saturday Night Live, in the movie The Return of Spinal Tap (which similarly featured the trio as a parody of an aging heavy metal band), and occasionally on concert stages. The original conception for A Mighty Wind was as a longer narrative vehicle for the fictional group.
As I travel down the back roads, of this home I love so much,
Every carpenter and cowboy, every lame many on a crutch..
They're all talking about a feeling, or a taste that's in the air,
They're all talking about this mighty wind, that's blowing everywhere,
Oh a mighty winds a blowin', it's kickin' up the sand,
It's blowin' out a message to every woman, child and man
Yes a mighty winds a blowin', cross the land and cross the sea,
It's blowin' peace and freedom, it's blowin' equality.
(The Folksmen)
From a lighthouse in Barr Harbor, to a bridge called Golden Gate,
From a troller down in Shreveport, to the shore of one great lake,
There's a star on the horizon, and it's burning like a flame,
It's lighting up this mighty wind, that's blowin' everywhere,
Oh a mighty winds a blowin', it's kickin' up the sand,
It's blowin' out a message to every woman, child and man
Yes a mighty winds a blowin', cross the land and cross the sea,
It's blowin' peace and freedom, it's blowin' equality.
(Mitch & Mickey)
When the blind man sees the picture, when the deaf man hears the word,
When the fisherman stops fishing, when the hunter spares the herd,
We'll still hear the wondrous story, of a world where people care,
The story of this mighty wind that blowin' everywhere
Oh a mighty winds a blowin', it's kickin' up the sand,
It's blowin' out a message to every woman, child and man
Yes a mighty winds a blowin', cross the land and cross the sea,
It's blowin' peace and freedom, it's blowin' equality.
Yes it's blowin' peace and freedom, it's blowin' you and me…