A Mighty Wind is the latest from the creative minds of Christopher Guest and Eugene Levy, and follows the same formula as Guest's previous satires, Waiting for Guffman and Best In Show: a mock documentary skewing one small niche of pop culture. This time it's folk music, and follows the organization and presentation of a reunion show of three legendary 60s folk groups: The Folksmen, Mitch and Mickey, and The Main Street Singers. The reunion concert is produced by Jonathan Steimbloom, son of Irving Steinbloom, the legendary folk music impresario who discovered and managed these three groups, in honour of his passing. We watch as Jonathan contacts each group and convinces them to come aboard for the concert. The bands reunite and begin rehearsals, although The Main Street Singers have endured with numerous roster changes throughout the decades.
None of Guest's films have made me laugh out loud throughout, and this is no exception. It's more of a gentle smile. Guest brings together the same repertory group of actors, including Levy, Michael McKean, Harry Shearer, Parker Posey, Ed Begley Jr, Don Lake, Larry Miller, Fred Willard, Catherine O'Hara, and Bob Balaban.
Some of the reviews have said that the film doesn't take a detailed enough look at the rise of folk music, leaving out too much of the history. This didn't bother me, as it wasn't the point of the film. Did Waiting for Guffman recall the history of theatre? Guest and Levy aren't bashing the Woody Guthrie/Pete Seeger schools of folk music, but rather, the sometimes bland and often boring and bleached three chord muzak of ensemble groups with squeaky-clean images such as the Back Porch Majority, the New Christy Minstrels, or the Serendipity Singers, and trios and duos not unlike Peter, Paul and Mary, or the Kingston Trio. Hootenanies and banjos, anyone? (Aside: the first single my parents bought for me when I was a kid was "Don't Let The Rain Come Down", by the New Serendipity Singers, so I do bow in their general direction, nonetheless...) Even then, I didn't feel the film had any sense of meanness to it any more than did the grandaddy of these spoofs, Spinal Tap. If anything, the film evokes melancholy and nostalgia, with a few groans of deja vu. Not unlike the rival bands who despised each other in Spinal Tap, here we learn that The Folksmen consider The Main Street Singers to be worthy of playing Branson, Missouri, and little else, and are furious with them when they open the show with a Folksmen number.
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