Bound for Glory

In 1976, studios were looking for projects for America's bicentennial that spoke to the character and history of the country. Coming off the stratospheric success of  Shampoo, Ashby used his newfound studio clout to make a biopic about legendary dustbowl folk singer Woody Guthrie that managed simultaneously to be the sleek Academy Awards contender that United Artists wanted it to be (it was nominated for six Oscars, including Best Picture) and an idiosyncratic, nuanced and personal picture. Like many of Ashby's '70s films, its central character is a young(-ish) man on a quest to find himself, and it's to Ashby's great credit that his unconventional choice to cast David Carradine (previously just a TV actor on  Kung Fu) as Guthrie works so well, maybe because both Ashby and Carradine shared with Guthrie a quintessentially American kind of wanderlust. The late, great cinematographer Haskell Wexler deservedly won an Oscar for his work on the film, which includes the first ever Steadicam shot.