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‘America’s Heart & Soul’ Celebrates Country’s Spirit

By David Kline
Editor

The new Walt Disney Pictures film “America’s Heart & Soul” is a modern-day Horatio Alger story.

Twenty-four stories, actually.

The documentary, which opened Friday, strings together profiles of people from all walks of life, from Olympic athletes to gospel singers to bike messengers to a blind mountain-climber.

And then there is the “explosive artist” who uses a cannon to make sandwiches and who entertains neighbors by performing tricks with a flaming bowling ball.

What links the stories is optimism, an outlook that even when faced with trying circumstances, Americans have the talent, spirit and freedom to accomplish great things.

The accomplishments are as diverse as the country in which they take place. At an “art car festival” in Berkeley, people go to extreme lengths to decorate vehicles with household objects, simply to make others smile.

A man who spent time in prison for armed robbery rebounds to become the captain of the U.S. Olympic boxing team and a mentor to young people in his neighborhood.

In a scene that only the most callous soul could watch without a tear, a man runs the entire Boston Marathon while pushing his disabled adult son in a wheelchair. The father explains, “Rick is the athlete and I’m just out there loaning him my arms and my legs, so that he can compete like everybody else.”

One exception to the 90-minute film’s optimistic tone arrives in a profile of West Virginia steel workers who face possible financial ruin due to competition from foreign countries.

The stories are told simply but elegantly. There is no interviewer to draw attention away from the subjects. Instead, they speak directly to the audience and go about their business — riding a horse into a bar, flying a stunt plane, raising children, dancing — while the camera follows and captures the scene.

The camera work elevates “America’s Heart & Soul” to greatness. The film features some of the most beautiful, colorful pictures you will ever see.

The man behind the camera probably isn’t a familiar name, even though you’ve seen his work many times. Louis Schwartzberg has traveled the world for more than 25 years, capturing cityscapes and nature scenes from every conceivable angle. His library of film is used by more movie and television directors than he can count.

Schwartzberg is considered the king of his trade, a Disney representative said before a recent screening at the Crest Theater.

It’s easy to see why. Schwartzberg, who also produced and directed the film, gets the most out of every scene, even one in which the camera lingers and literally watches grass grow.

Particularly inspiring is a shot of a klezmer musician practicing clarinet in a New York synagogue, surrounded by weathered wood and stained glass and shadows. And footage of salsa dancers in Los Angeles puts a spark into the PG-rated film without any of the usual Hollywood excess.

The filmmaker also makes effective use of music to stir the emotions. Aerial shots in the opening sequence are accompanied by John Mellencamp’s “The World Don’t Bother Me None,” which the singer contributed without charge after getting a sneak preview, the Disney representative said.

Although the film clearly celebrates what used to be called the American can-do attitude, it is does not lecture or push any particular political message. Even the profile of Ben Cohen, the notoriously liberal co-founder of Ben & Jerry’s Ice Cream, goes by without any partisan plugs.

Cohen, unconcerned with the ice cream dripping down his full gray beard, provides ones of the film’s comedic highlights, describing how he and his partner got their start:

“I was a short-order cook. I got fired from that. I was a baker’s helper and got fired from that. Jerry and I, we were failing at most everything else we were trying, so we decided to go into business and the only thing we liked doing was eating.”

In another vignette, a man smiles as he describes a “gap in my employment history” from the late ‘60s until a few years ago. Schwartzberg finds him making up for lost time, working hard in the kitchen at Glide Memorial United Methodist Church in San Francisco cooking meals for the poor.

Such stories of redemption and happiness are the heart and soul of Schwartzberg’s moving celebration of the land of the free.

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