The Soul of a Man
2003 · 103 MIN · IMDB 7.4 · 972 VOTES · DIR. Wim Wenders
Overview
In "The Soul of A Man," director Wim Wenders looks at the dramatic tension in the blues between the sacred and the profane by exploring the music and lives of three of his favorite blues artists: Skip James, Blind Willie Johnson and J. B. Lenoir. Part history, part personal pilgrimage, the film tells the story of these lives in music through an extended fictional film sequence (recreations of '20s and '30s events - shot in silent-film, hand-crank style), rare archival footage, present-day documentary scenes and covers of their songs by contemporary musicians such as Shemekia Copeland, Alvin Youngblood Hart, Garland Jeffreys, Chris Thomas King, Cassandra Wilson, Nick Cave, Los Lobos, Eagle Eye Cherry, Vernon Reid, James "Blood" Ulmer, Lou Reed, Bonnie Raitt, Marc Ribot, The Jon Spencer Blues Explosion, Lucinda Williams and T-Bone Burnett.
Dialogue Timeline — 676 lines
A SAMPLE ACROSS THE RUNTIME — EVERY LINE IS SEARCHABLE
00:00:16 Once I had a pretty little girl
00:03:59 Among all these sounds from our planet...
00:08:32 And tell me to lean on him
00:11:09 prohibition led straight to violence.
00:13:42 Yonder lays a steel-drivin' man"
00:22:40 The time I had in Illinois
00:26:30 Than be that woman's man
00:30:26 I'm so tired of moaning
00:33:07 I can't take my rest
00:38:11 Let Jesus lead you All the way
00:42:09 shot in the early Sixties by two art students...
00:44:30 Well, I feel so good I feel like playing my box
00:49:26 They said to us that we should do something in black and white...
00:52:45 and I have a daughter named Roberta. And my baby...
00:56:56 Voodoo music gonna knock you crazy Voodoo
01:00:51 Why don't you release me Devil
01:04:26 Both of them were, of course, family men too...
01:07:24 We thought there was enough, see. We thought there was enough to show...
01:09:23 So he is wearing a kin badge.
01:13:46 Skip's tunings were so odd...
01:18:09 And a chance to be recorded properly.
01:25:19 Down in Mississippi
01:33:15 up to the highest heavens.
01:38:29 And take me to the burying ground