Oklahoma: Brand New State — Gonna Treat You Great!

Oklahoma movie On November 16 in 1907, Oklahoma Territory and Indian Territory joined the United States.  The area became the country’s 46th state of Oklahoma, a state that appears often in popular culture.

Much of Oklahoma’s pre-state history includes significant events that have been portrayed on film. Such incidents include the arrival of Native Americans forcibly moved to the territory along the Trail of Tears and the big land rush with its early arrivals that provide the name of the University of Oklahoma football team, the Sooners.

The Oklahoma Land Rush & Far and Away

Regarding the 1889 land rush, one sees it famously portrayed in movies such as Cimarron (1931) and Far and Away (1992). Check out the scene from Far and Away below.

Oklahoma!

While there are plenty of songs relating to the United States becoming a country, one is challenged to think of a memorable song about a territory becoming a state, with one exception. Oklahoma not only has an entire musical set in its final days as a territory, the play and movie versions end with a salute to the territory’s impending statehood.

Even if you are not a fan of musicals, you probably know and can sing along with the song “Oklahoma!” from the Broadway play and movie Oklahoma! The play was the first musical written by the team of Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein II. It is more than OK.

The classic movie Oklahoma! (1955) starred Gordon MacRae and Shirley Jones. A 1999 version of the musical starred Hugh Jackman and Josefina Gabrielle.

Finally, the 1955 movie has the honor of featuring a rare song about a territory becoming a state, but it is also a rare movie musical that itself is mentioned in a popular song. The 1971 album Muswell Hillbillies by The Kinks features the song “Oklahoma USA,” written by Ray Davies. In the song, a young woman reflects on her boring working-class life: “But in her dreams she is far away/ In Oklahoma U.S.A./ With Shirley Jones and Gordon MacRae.”

In honor of the anniversary of Oklahoma’s statehood, we hope that at least for a day you can escape work and can get out in the open and breathe some fresh air. And we hope you’re doing fine.

What is your favorite movie or song about a state’s early days? Leave your two cents in the comments.

  • I Think I Love You David Cassidy
  • The Kinks: Ray and Dave Davies Reunite
  • Why Did God Make Oklahoma?
  • Should You Hear the People Sing in “Les Misérables”? (Review)
  • Les Misérables Trailer
  • Listen My Children and You Shall Hear Inaccuracies About Paul Revere

    • (Some related Chimesfreedom posts.)

    Buy from Amazon

    What Comic Strips Influenced “Calvin and Hobbes”?

    Krazy Kat
    The documentary Dear Mr. Watterson (2013) opens this week in theaters and on video on demand. The documentary about the great comic strip Calvin and Hobbes and its creator Bill Watterson is directed by Joel Allen Schroeder.

    To promote the movie, which started as a Kickstarter project, the filmmakers  released an interesting clip that examines three comic strips that apparently influenced Watterson and Calvin and Hobbes.

    The clip does not have the reclusive Watterson, who remains protective of his creation and still refuses to license products related to the comic. So other commentators explain the comic strips whose influences they see in Calvin and Hobbes. The three influences discussed in the clip are Walt Kelly’s Pogo, Charles M. Schulz’s Peanuts, and George Herriman’s Krazy Kat. If you want more on Watterson, check out his recent rare interview on Mental Floss.

    What is your favorite Calvin and Hobbes strip? Leave your two cents in the comments.

  • Calvin and Hobbes: The Movie?
  • Charlie Brown Returns to the Big Screen
  • “We’ve Got Another Holiday to Worry About”
  • A Charlie Brown Christmas Reunion: Charlie, Charlie, Charlie, Charleeeee
  • When Is My Favorite Holiday Special or Film on TV?

    • (Some related Chimesfreedom posts.)

    Aaron Copland & Appalachian Spring

    Aaron Copland American composer Aaron Copland was born in Brooklyn on November 14 in 1900. Although he began his music education in Paris in the 1920s with a strong avante-garde influence on his early works, his compositions starting in the 1930s — including Billy The Kid (1938), Rodeo (1942), Fanfare For The Common Man (1942) — used traditional American sounds to create popular compositions.

    After I got my first CD player and began the process of switching from records and cassettes to the new format, I made my first CD purchase. I bought three of my favorite works that included one by Bruce Springsteen and one by Ludwig van Beethoven. The other CD in my first purchase was Aaron Copeland’s Appalachian Spring (1944). I have since added to my collection other versions of the composition, including one using only the thirteen instruments for which it was written.

    Copland wrote Appalachian Spring as a ballet, with the original working title of Ballet for Martha. Dancer Martha Graham was commissioned to create the choreography and star in the performance (see video above).

    While writing the music, Copland was not thinking about Appalachia. The Appalachian title was added after Graham suggested it after hearing some of the score.

    The story of the ballet follows two newlyweds in the western hills of Pennsylvania in the early 1800s. The music captures their enthusiasm, happiness and anxiety, while also reflecting warnings about life from neighbors and revivalists.

    As the Pulitzer-Prize winning composition ends with quiet notes, the couple settle into their new home.

    Copland once commented on how one could not predict the fate of a composition, and that was true for Appalachian Spring. Audiences connected with the music and its sounds of America, including Copland’s use of tunes like the Shaker song “Simple Gifts” (which plays at the start of part 3 above as well as at other points).

    Yet, maybe one should not be surprised at the popularity of a composition written and released during World War II that evoked and paid tribute to living and surviving in America’s past. NPR calls Appalachian Spring “one of the most inspiring and symbolic works of the century,” noting it “captures the essence of an ideal America, one of open fields and endless possibilities.”

    I have played Appalachian Spring in my car while driving through the Appalachian mountains, and I have played it as a soundtrack while driving open roads out West. But I also can play it in my bedroom or my office and immediately feel the open expanse and history of a country in a simpler time, recalling that the gift to be simple is the gift to be free.

    What is your favorite part of “Appalachian Spring”? Leave your two cents in the comments.

  • A Lincoln Portrait

    • (Some related Chimesfreedom posts.)

    Buy from Amazon

    My Train A Comin’: New Jimi Hendrix Documentary

    My Train A Comin'

    The PBS American Masters series presents My Train A Comin’, a documentary about the life of Jimi Hendrix, who died at the age of 27. The documentary features previously unseen concert footage and home movies. For example, the movie includes recently discovered footage of Hendrix at the 1968 Miami Pop Festival. My Train A Comin‘ also contains interviews with people ranging from Paul McCartney to Hendrix’s girlfriend Linda Keith. [May 2014 Update: Unfortunately, the full PBS documentary is no longer available online.]

    The American Masters website features a number of extras related to the documentary, such as outtakes and an interview with director Bob Smeaton.

    What is your favorite part of My Train A Comin’? Leave your two cents in the comments.

  • Why Did Stephen Colbert Sing “Jump Up” With Elvis Costello on the Final “Late Show”?
  • The Latest and Last Beatles Song: “Now and Then”
  • The Song Paul McCartney Wrote for Rod Stewart
  • Ringo Starr Records a John Lennon Song (with a little help from Paul McCartney)
  • The Brilliance of Dylan’s “All Along the Watchtower”
  • New Jimi Hendrix Album (and Video): “Both Sides of the Sky”

    • (Some related Chimesfreedom posts.)

    12 Years a Slave (Short Review)

    12 Years a Slave The new movie 12 Years a Slave (2013) dramatically recreates the true events from Solomon Northup’s 1853 autobiography of the same name. The story recounts how Northup, living as a free man in New York, was tricked into traveling to Washington, D.C., where he was abducted and sold into slavery.

    In describing the film, one has to be careful not to ruin the story, but like the miniseries Roots (1977) or the movie Schindler’s List (1993), you sort of know what to expect when you decide to watch it. Not surprisingly, the movie features scenes of nearly unwatchable brutality, and generally the line between good guys and bad guys is clear, and the bad people are really bad.

    Solomon Northop Yet, there are two main reasons to see 12 Years a Slave. One reason is the fine performers, especially actor Chiwetel Ejiofor, who portrays Northup, bringing a complicated humanity to the man. Ejiofor makes Northup a three-dimensional human being that helps the audience understand the man’s agony as he discovers his fate and struggles to find a way home. In more than one scene, Director Steve McQueen lets the camera linger on Eliofor’s face and eyes, relying upon the actor to carry a scene without movement or dialogue. Eliofor, who has made small parts memorable in such movies as Children of Men (2006) and Love Actually (2003), here shows that he is an actor who should be commanding more lead roles. Similarly, other performers like Lupita Nyong’o as Patsey (who the New Yorker calls the hero of the film) and Michael Fassbender as an unstable slave owner are outstanding. Producer Brad Pitt also makes a welcome appearance.

    The other main reason to see 12 Years a Slave is that it is a true story. Were the movie fictional, it would carry less gravitas and in some ways would border on unbelievable. But the movie, with a screenplay by John Ridley, presents an essential reminder of the American legacy of slavery and how humans can treat each other in immoral and brutal ways.

    Although in the past I have written how I hate when movies manipulate viewers into cheering for violence against characters, while watching 12 Years a Slave, I found myself longing for Jamie Foxx as Django from Django Unchained (2012) to suddenly appear and render his bloody justice. But unfortunately 12 Years a Slave is not a fantasy, and real life does not end so neatly.

    Conclusion: 12 Years a Slave is essential viewing. The high Rotten Tomatoes rating (critics: 97%; audience: 94%) may partly reflect how a movie with such a subject is beyond criticism, but it also reflects powerful filmmaking.

    Bonus Real-Life Information (Spoiler Alert: Do Not Read If You Have Not Seen the Movie): For some reason, one of the most moving moments in the movie for me was the epilogue where the titles explained what happened to Northup. I found it disturbing that nobody knows what happened to him. Wikipedia explains that some people believe that he may have been kidnapped into slavery again, apparently dying in anonymity on a Southern plantation. Others believe that he died of natural causes in the North. I choose to believe the latter because the former is too horrible to imagine. And so I pray that Northup’s final line in his book came true: “I hope henceforward to lead an upright though lowly life, and rest at last in the church yard where my father sleeps.”

    What did you think of 12 Years a Slave? Leave your two cents in the comments.

  • “Gravity” Is Such a Lonely Word (Short Review)
  • Stephen King’s “The Life of Chuck”: A Few Thoughts for Those Who Haven’t Seen the Film . . . and a Few for Those Who Have
  • What is that song in “Moneyball”?
  • Analyzing Actors’ Accents in Films
  • The Hanging of Tom Horn
  • Folk Singer Glenn Yarbrough, the Real Most Interesting Man in the World

    • (Some related Chimesfreedom posts.)