Woody Guthrie and the Ghost of Tom Joad Today

The Woody Guthrie Center presents the world premiere of “Woody Guthrie and the Ghost of Tom Joad Today,” a new documentary narrated by Rosanne Cash exploring the life, work and enduring impact of Woody Guthrie. Screening at Circle Cinema - tickets are on sale through The Woody Guthrie Center website, $13 members and $15 non-members.

Writer and director Greg Mitchell will share insights into the making of the film, from research and archival discoveries to the process of bringing Guthrie’s story to the screen. The evening will also include a live musical performance that reflects the spirit of Guthrie’s legacy.

“Well done! And perfect for the spirit of the times.” — Joe Klein, author of “Primary Colors,” “Woody Guthrie: A Life,” and other books

“Bravo, I loved it! Great, unfamiliar footage and song versions, the fruit of excellent research and detective work — beautiful editing and narration – and fearless in its contemporary critique.” — Will Kaufman, author of “Woody Guthrie’s Modern World Blues” and “Woody Guthrie, American Radical”

About the film:

In the 1930s, as the Great Depression deepened in America, tens of thousands of families in Texas and the Midwest fled poverty and the Dust Bowl for the promise of jobs in California. Many of these refugees, failing to find steady work, were herded into migrant camps. A famous novelist, John Steinbeck — and a little-known folksinger, Woody Guthrie — would soon become friends and allies in exposing the horrific conditions.

“Woody Guthrie and the Ghost of Tom Joad Today,” narrated by Rosanne Cash, explores for the first time the conditions and chain of events that brought these two American icons together in California starting in 1938. The film include almost a dozen of Guthrie’s greatest songs plus one by Bruce Springsteen inspired by Guthrie and by Steinbeck’s “The Grapes of Wrath.” It also features little-seen footage and two dozen classic photographs by Dorothea Lange.

The film reveals numerous surprises, such as the venom aimed at Steinbeck’s novel when it was first released—it was taken off shelves at some libraries and copies were even burned—and the amazing full story of how Woody came to write “This Land Is Your Land” (not its original title). It closes with words and images that reveal echoes of 1930s conflicts in conditions and debates today.

About Greg Mitchell:

Greg Mitchell’s latest film, completed this year, “Woody Guthrie and The Ghost of Tom Joad Today,” will air nationally over PBS stations this summer. His four previous films have been aired via PBS since 2021. He is also the author of more than a dozen books, including “The Campaign of the Century: Upton Sinclair Race for Governor of California and the Birth of Media Politics,” winner of the Goldsmith Book Prize. It was named by the Wall Street Journal as one of the five greatest books every written about an election race. His film, “Atomic Cover-up,” won the top film prize from the Organization of American Historians in 2024 and three others awards, and screened at more than twenty festivals around the world.

“The First Attack Ads” and “The Memorial Day Massacre,” both hosted by SoCal for PBS, received local Emmy nominations for Southern California. His most recent acclaimed film, still streaming at PBS.org, is “The Atomic Bowl: Football at Ground Zero in Nagasaki.”

Mitchell has also served as editor of several national magazines, going back to the legendary Crawdaddy in the 1970s and more recently Editor & Publisher.

Among his other books are the bestselling “The Tunnels: Escapes Under the Berlin Wall” (2016), “The Beginning or the End: How Hollywood–and America–Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb” (2020), as well as the earlier “Tricky Dick and the Pink Lady” and “Hiroshima in America.”

He lives in Nyack, N.Y.