CNN.com - Review: 'The Ballad of Ramblin' Jack' -- A daughter's not-so-loving song

What makes him ramble?

By Paul Tatara
CNN.com Reviewer

(CNN) -- If you're a fan of Bob Dylan's pre-electric folkie period, you've already had a back-door introduction to Ramblin' Jack Elliott. A new documentary, "The Ballad of Ramblin' Jack," allows you a much more personal form of access.

Dylan's Woody Guthrie infatuation is well documented. But Elliott's laconically masterful approach to music was also an early influence.

Guthrie was fading fast in a New Jersey hospital when Dylan first hooked up with him back in 1962. By then, Elliott was a legend, having spent several years absorbing Guthrie's populist wisdom and journeyman sensibilities. The two shared an almost symbiotic musical relationship, and even periodically performed as a duo. Dylan recognized the "real" thing when he saw it, even if Elliott's reality was a carefully crafted illusion.

Far from entering life as a rail-hopping cowboy, Ramblin' Jack was actually a Jewish kid named Elliott Adnopoz, the son of a Brooklyn physician. His gift for reinvention surely served as a guideline when young Robert Zimmerman (Dylan's real name) transformed himself into one of the most influential artists of the 20th century.

Good artist, absent parent

Directed by Elliott's long-suffering daughter, Aiyanna, "The Ballad of Ramblin' Jack" deals with all of this while purporting to be about Elliott's laissez faire approach to parenting ... or non-parenting, as the case may be. It says a lot about Jack's charm that Aiyanna never comes close to solving the wandering riddle that is her dad, but you still dig the guy.

Elliott's likeability simply overpowers everything in his path, and he's not inclined to answer questions that could make him look selfish. However, outside of flat-picking a guitar with amazing agility, self-centeredness is his most noticeable attribute. His great failing is that he never had the outward focus and discipline to score as a national recording artist. Unlike Dylan, Jack just kept ramblin', pickin' and ignoring his responsibilities.

His daughter gleefully delves into the details of Elliott's past, learning naughty secrets about him. When she was growing up, his increasingly extended absences drove her crazy. It's hard to imagine, though, exactly what she's hoping to say to her audience with this movie.

For all its personal touches, "The Ballad of Ramblin' Jack" is really just an expanded celebrity bio, albeit one that features a ton of remarkable music. Even with all his flaws, Elliott sure can deliver a song. You learn more about him during a touching rendition of Dylan's "Don't Think Twice, It's All Right" than you do from anything he pretends to reveal during the rest of the movie.

Forgiving friends

Aiyanna interviews her father's friends, ex-lovers and ex-wives. All of them are bemused by Jack's lack of responsibility, but are willing to let it slide as an inescapable part of his psychological make-up. Her fun-loving mother just shrugs and smirks when asked if Jack had any skills as a father, and her contention that Elliott was deeply hurt when Dylan turned his back on him in the 1970s is one of the film's more touching pieces of information.


Singer Jack Elliott's life is examined in "The Ballad of Ramblin' Jack" with interviews and home movies

Elliott's fellow musicians are the most insightful. Everyone from Arlo Guthrie (Woody's son) to Dave Van Ronk weighs in with their opinion of Jack. Guthrie also gently chides Aiyanna for hoping to find some secret that will explain the endless rambling. His contention that Jack may be driven by something unknowable is pretty clear-headed.

Home movies and various TV appearances are intercut with all of this; it's a private-yet-public mosaic. You even get to see Jack as a child, acting like a cowboy in the wilds of Brooklyn.

Perhaps Elliott's most captivating performance is on TV, during a broadcast of the Johnny Cash Show in the late 1960s. He simply oozes boyish appeal and show-offy vocal dexterity.

One of Jack's aunts insists that he would have been better off if he had taken singing lessons, but Elliott lets it fly straight from his heart, regardless of his technical limitations. You can't ask for any more than that -- unless, of course, you're his daughter.

"The Ballad of Ramblin' Jack" contains profanity and a bit of drug use. The soundtrack alone makes it worth the price of admission, but you'll enjoy the stories as much as the songs. Not rated. 110 minutes.