This film offers a compelling look at Alabama Governor and erstwhile presidential candidate George Wallace's contribution to American political life and explains how a man who once declared "segregation forever" could later asked for forgiveness. Balanced and thoughtful, "Settin the Woods on Fire" avoids facile conclusions and banal cliches about Wallace and thus succeeds as an admirable piece of political biography.
Whether you love George Wallace or hate him, this documentary shows how power or its pursuit, corrupts. The movie shows Henry Wallace's change from his humanistic early state to his inhuman segregationist being and then back again. When he sought power, he said whatever the people of Alabama wanted to hear. When the ability to gain power no longer existed, he reverted back to the sympathetic being that he was early in life. Very worth seeing.
I watched this in my Southern Politics class in college and did not even know who George Wallace was. By the end of the movie, I was bawling my eyes out...literally. This film is a beautiful story of forgiveness and redemption, while also being an educational bio of the infamous Alabama Governor and racial politics.
Watch it if you can. You will not be disappointed. And if you are a history/gov't/polisci teacher, this is an excellent film to show your students; very interesting and very moving. I'm surprised there hasn't been a big Hollywood movie from his life yet... it would surely be an Oscar winner if done right
