He gains success in pop music and earns fans like Bob Dylan, Elvis Presley, and Barbara Streisand. We then do move on to the story of a very young man who forges a historic place in the world of international folk music, managing to become a national success in Canada even as he breaks out in American and Europe as a premier folk singer and songwriter. But, from the look of disgust on his face and the vulnerability in his eyes, it is clear-he carries a sense of guilt and grief over the sorrow he has caused others in his life. I hate this song, Let’s move on,” he finally demands. She lovingly reminds him he is treasured by so many. I guess I just don’t like who I am,” he complains as he receives reassurance from his wife, Kim. He was also the father of their two children. Lightfoot cringes at the misogyny of the lyrics with words like, “I’ve had a hundred more like you, so don’t be blue, I’ll have a thousand before I’m through.” The song was written while he was married to a Swedish woman, Brita Ingegerd Olaisson. With his wife, Kim, they watch a young Gordon performing “For Loving Me,” one of his early classic songs that was recorded by Ian & Sylvia, Peter, Paul & Mary, and Johnny Cash. We see 80-year-old Lightfoot sitting and peering grudgingly at himself on the television in his black-and-white past, from some 60 years ago.
Then we see family pictures, children, ex-wives, and loves roll by. The camera pans to a sketch of Toronto’s Massey Hall, where, it is later shown, Lightfoot will perform later that evening. He turns and opens the door and walks in. Set in the present day on the eve of his 80th year, the songwriter is standing, center-frame in the doorway of his classic mansion home between two traveling chairs at his feet. Lightfoot, at the height of his career, 1970s. His story is there from “Early Morning Rain,” to “The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald.” For Lightfoot, it’s present in his openness and the confessional way of telling his story that his brilliance as a singer-songwriter is clearly revealed. If this were Citizen Kane the first frame would reveal just what Rosebud symbolized. The effectiveness and engaging quality of this documentary also has a lot to do with the absolute openness of Gordon Lightfoot himself, who has dropped all pretense of mystery after several battles with heartbreak and near-death health concerns in recent decades.
The film’s success hinges on the visionary cinematic realization, the archival sensibility and cohesive writing skill that directors Martha Keho and Joan Tosoni have infused in this superior documentary. In this film the open book of his life is presented with honesty as well as care allowing a rare glimpse of the angels and demons that drive one artist as he creates an unparalleled body of work. The 2019 documentary, Gordon Lightfoot: If You Could Read My Mind, is as revealing as it is entertaining in its portrayal of Canadian singer-songwriter Gordon Lightfoot’s rise from a young promising singer-songwriter to his emergence as a major iconic legacy artist, an international treasure embodied in one man. If done well, we witness the highs and lows of the journey of life. Movies, the authentically good ones, have the ability to reflect the best and the worst in humanity.
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