Searching for Sugar Man

If it were a tale about anyone else in the music business, like say the Beatles showing up in America, it would be a tale of idolatry and egocentrism and making it big and success as the world defines it. But because it's a tale of Rodriguez, it's different. He's a modest man who doesn't necessarily want to make it big, he just wants to change the world. Even that's easier said than done, because when he 'fails' in music he tries his hand in politics, and that goes nowhere just as quickly.

So when shows up in South Africa, this isn't typical music industry hype, this is a man who helped shape a generation. It's as though they don't want to worship him, they want to thank him. They appreciate him, and he's learning for the first time that he did somehow change the world. It's a story that, read on paper, is already pretty incredible, but to try and put yourself in all the strange mix of emotions at that first concert is absolutely astounding. It can't be put to words.

For them, a revolutionary leader is resurrected. For him, a hope is resurrected.

"To go from being the outcast to being who he really was, because it was as though it was him, and that was who he was."

But it's also a testimony to not only the power of art but the necessity of it, the mindset and outlook that comes with it for every corner of life.

"He approached the work from a different place than most people do, he took it very very seriously, sort of like a sacrament, he was going to do this dirty dirty work for 8 or 10 hours but he was dressed in a tuxedo. He had this kind of magical quality that all genuine poets and artists have to elevate things, to get above the mundane and the mediocrity that's everywhere. Even when his musical hopes were dashed, the spirit remained...he knew that there was something more..."

"So we're working class people, blue collar, hard labor...but just because people are poor doesn't mean their dreams aren't big and their soul isn't rich. My dad gave us a lot of exposure to the arts; he would let us go into the libraries and the museums and the science centers, and that was our day care, touring the halls of the museum -- Diego Rivera, Picasso, Delacroix -- and we began to learn of life outside of the city, in books and paintings and music."