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If audiences want movie studios to produce great movies that the whole family can enjoy, they need to go out and buy tickets for those movies when they occur. This week is a perfect opportunity. While Spider-Man 2 and Fahrenheit 9/11 are making a lot of noise and raking in big box office receipts, an all-ages adventure is playing alongside them that is different than any big screen experience you've had before.

Imagine if an experienced cinematographer invited you to come and see his favorite footage from a career of capturing visions that inspire awe and national pride. The guy happens to be passionately patriotic. He also has a knack for discovering some of America's most interesting and inspiring people. His collection of footage is a treasure trove of exhilarating imagery and storytelling that challenges us to consider what makes us distinctive and what we can accomplish with our lives.

That pretty much sums up America's Heart and Soul, the new film from Louis Schwartzberg. He doesn't like to call it a "documentary," but considers it to be a big screen adventure movie that stars real people instead of Hollywood actors.

Unfortunately, the film is opening while the controversial, politically charged documentary Fahrenheit 9/11 is making headlines. Thus, some are arguing that this film is an answer to Michael Moore's troubling speculations and arguments. The truth is, America's Heart and Soul is not a political film. These interviews took place before September 11, 2001, and it took Schwartzberg a while to pull it together into a finished work. The film should inspire fans of John Kerry as much as it inspires supporters of George W. Bush or other American leaders. It'll inspire everyone but those who have given up on Disney studios completely.

The movie treats us to a whirlwind tour of the nation through Schwartzberg's romantic, colorful, gravity-defying cinematography. For just over 90 minutes, we're introduced to one amazing person after another, each one with a life story that will impress and intrigue you. You'll wish you could slow the movie down and dig deeper into each story, spending more time with each person.

My review is at Looking Closer, along with an interview with director Louis Schwartzberg, in which he shares his thoughts about the Michael Moore controversy and tells us one of the great stories that didn't quite make the final cut of the movie.

"What I love about America's Heart and Soul," writes Lisa Ann Cockrel (Christianity Today Movies), "is the way it presents people who are really living. Forget reality television. This is reality and it's all about people who don't need a head shot to validate their existence. Inasmuch as popular culture narrows the world by presenting a limited number of corporately sponsored artists and personalities for mass consumption, this movie widens the world by reminding us that there's a whole lot of interesting people out there. God bless America, indeed."

"There's virtually nothing in this uplifting film to warrant such terms as liberal or conservative, isolationist or interventionist, jingoistic or America-bashing," writes Steven D. Greydanus (Decent Films). "America's Heart and Soul is one of the least political documentary-type films … I've ever seen. The term 'patriotic' might apply, in the sense that the film celebrates American freedom and the unexpected myriad of ways Americans find to enjoy it—but not in any sense that need be felt to detract from other countries. The best adjective, though, would be simply human. [The movie] is a tribute to the endless diversity of ways in which human nature will engage in the pursuit of happiness, as long as there is life and the liberty to do so."

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July (Web-only) 2004, Vol. 48