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pelled to direct Pay It Forward the
minute she finished reading the script
in August 1999.
"Call me foolish, call me an idiot,
but I thought it might make a slight
little impact on how people deal with
one another," she says.
Leder may not be far off the mark:
The story has already inspired class-
room projects, a college scholarship
fund and a New York mural project for
schools previously torn by gang rivalry.
Unassuming, soft-spoken Leder
admits there's a second reason she was
drawn to Pay It Forward: "the chance to
escape the moniker, 'Mimi Leder,
action director.'" Though she's made a
name for herself in the macho genre of
"boys' films," she says, she never loved
action films or intended to direct them.
That happened quite by accident
when Steven Spielberg unexpectedly
asked her to helm The Peacemaker as
his first DreamWorks release in 1996.
"I asked Steven, 'What makes you
think I can direct action?' And he told
me, 'You direct action every day on
ER,''' recalls Leder, who as a girl
attended a Yiddishist-secularist Jewish
Mittelschule in L.A.
These days, the director is hoping her
latest film will create a "pay it forward"
movement; she is participating, among
other ways, by battling the dearth of
women directors in Hollywood. It's an
arena where she feels she can make a
significant difference.
Leder, who's mentored female film-
makers through the Directors Guild of
America, believes it took her longer to
become an established director because
she is a woman.
"For me personally, things have
changed, but for many other women,
they haven't," she laments. "Hopefully,
I can use my success to help others."
❑
Pay It Forward, rated PG-13, opens
today in area theaters.
Helen Hunt, Haley Joel Osment and
Kevin Spacey star in "Pay It Forward"
On Record
e's got a song and a friend for
every mile behind
ehind him," says
Johnny Cash on the intro to the album
The Ballad of Ramblin7ack (Vanguard),
the soundtrack off of the much-lauded
Ramblin' Jack Elliott documentary
In 12 words, Cash perfectly cap-
tures the essence of Elliott. Ramblin'
Jack has been on the move since
1946, when he left his hometown of
Brooklyn, N.Y., to become a cowboy,
and then found himself hanging
around with Woody Guthrie. Elliott
is a self-proclaimed Guthrie devotee,
and some of the earlier recordings on
the album sound like almost perfect
Guthrie imitations. However, Elliott's
is no mere derivative act.
His music has a sweet authenticity
all its own. About half the songs on the
album were recorded on Elliott's 1998
tour (Elliott is still touring today), oth-
ers are culled from live
performances and old
Ramblin7ack
album tracks.
in New York's
Some were written
Washington
by Elliott, others by
Square,
Guthrie and Bob
circa 1954.
Dylan, and there are
some traditional
American folk songs. All together
Elliott's ramblings paint a picture of a.
rural American countryside that's largely
missing from current popular culture,
Unlike a lot of the folk music that
came out of the '60s, Elliott's songs
aren't overtly political. Elliott comes
across as a happy wanderer. He's the
cowboy on the move, the trucker on
the lonely highway: a weathered
American with a guitar by his side and
a song at the ready. And he's funny.
In "Cup of Coffee," recorded live
from a 1980 Texas performance, Elliott
drives his truck out to a rest stop, gets a
cup of coffee laced with moonshine and
winds up passed out in a flower bed.
He's got a knack for making fun of him-
self and remaining perfectly charming.
Elliott has the respect of some true
American folk/country heroes. There
are duets here with Cash, Guthrie and
Dylan. "Acne," a duet with Dylan per-
formed live in 1961, is wonderfully fun.
Elliott sings, "You said you'd ask me
to the senior prom/ found out I had
acne now you won't ask me/ cause
have acne."
Through the older and more recent
tracks; you get a sense of Ramblin Jack's
evolution from Guthrie fan to revered
artist in his own right, and the album
probably would work better if it fol-
lowed a chronological order. Then again,
it's just the sort of skipping around one
expects from this ramblin' fellow.
— Emily Friedlander
Copley News Service
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