Remembering a Father, and a Voice From America’s Tumultuous Past

A uniquely American voice of protest and patriotism comes back to life in Phil Ochs: There but for Fortune, a feature-length documentary opening today at the Smith Rafael Film Center. It is both a loving remembrance of a young man, full of promise and idealism, and an unflinching look at his painful decline and death at just 35 years old.

The film leans heavily on a vast array of archival video footage and voice recordings from radio and television interviews, which are punctuated with commentary from those closest to him, including his daughter, Meegan Lee Ochs (who grew up in Mill Valley), his brother Michael Ochs, fellow musicians like Pete Seeger and Joan Baez, and contemporary celebrity admirers like Sean Penn and Christopher Hitchens.

But the film's real revelation in the film are the dozens of performance films and recordings, which bring Ochs’ distinctive voice and lyrics to life. Writing about the times in which he lived, his early album titles had a ripped-from-the-headlines immediacy to them, and his first album was named All the News that’s Fit to Sing. But Ochs was also a gifted communicator with a razor-sharp wit and easygoing confidence; performance footage of him introducing his songs to live audiences reveal a magnetic personality in command of his stage.

Sadly, what begins as the portrait of a gifted young man in the late 50s and early 60s takes on more of the tumult and discord that was sweeping across America by the mid-60s. A family history of mental illness (Ochs’ father, a WWII veteran, was institutionalized after the war and diagnosed manic depressive) reared its ugly head as events like the Kent State shootings and the assassinations of Robert F. Kennedy and Martin Luther King, Jr. left Ochs devastated. He descended into depression and alcoholism, and eventually took his own life in 1976.

Ochs is remembered in the film not only as a singer, but also as a loving father by daughter Meegan, who grew up in Mill Valley with her mother, photographer Alice Ochs, after her parents split when she was three years old. She attended Homestead School (now ) and before eventually graduating from Drake. She currently lives in Marinwood with her husband and children.

“He treated me like an adult,” Meegan Lee Ochs says. "He treated me with love and respect, and never talked down to me."

Ochs says she is glad to see her father’s story on the big screen, and particularly for audiences to revisit his live performances.

“He was a very clever man, and he understood that introductions are an equal opportunity to get your message across,” she says.

In footage of Ochs introducing his song Love Me I’m a Liberal, he quips, “In every political community there are varying shades of political opinion. One of the shadiest of these is the liberals. An outspoken group on many subjects. Ten degrees to the left of center in good times. Ten degrees to the right of center if it affects them personally.”

“When I hear the audience laughing after that [introduction], I have to ask myself, ‘do they even realize he’s talking about them?’” laughs Meegan. “He was saying, ‘Look in the mirror, you can’t just pay lip service to these ideas.”

The film also shines a light on an intriguing contradiction in Phil Ochs’ personality. Revered as a counter-culture figure, Ochs himself revered popular culture heroes like John Wayne and Elvis Presley – not for their personal politics so much as what they stood for symbolically. He was particularly taken with Wayne’s image as the solitary hero.

“He wanted to be that person, standing up for what was right, taking a courageous stance,” explains his daughter. “People don’t realize that one of the most patriotic things to do is to challenge your government when they’re not doing their job.”

It’s hard to tell the story of any protest singer of the sixties without acknowledging the shadow of Bob Dylan, and director Kenneth Bowser dips his toe into the perceived rivalry between the two men. Comments about Dylan range from the mild (Alice Ochs remembers a friendship and mutual respect between the two singers) to the blunt (one club owner calls him a “prick”), but Dylan himself is noticeably absent as a participant in the film.

Watching a film that charts both her father’s good times and his tragic decline has been hard, Meegan Lee Ochs admits. But she’s glad that his life story isn’t being told through rose-colored glasses. Both she and her uncle Michael participated in the production of Bowser's film (Michael was his brother’s manager and is his archivist), and she hopes that a long-talked-about feature film about his life will now come to fruition on the heels of this documentary.

The 411: Phil Ochs: There But For Fortune opens today at the Smith Rafael Film Center. Meegan Lee Ochs and director Kenneth Bowser will be in attendance on Sunday, March 20 at the 4.30pm and 7pm shows. Click here for more information or to buy tickets.