What can I say about that "three days of peace, love and music" festival in the summer of 1969, and the documentary film about it, that hasn't been already said? No, I wasn't there; I was 14 during that summer, and I didn't even know of it until after the fact. (I later found out my sister, who was 12 at the time, could have gone with some friends of hers, but my mother put her foot down and said "No!") The film has performances of many of the name acts of the time, including Joan Baez, The Who, Richie Havens, Jimi Hendrix, Joe Cocker (at the top of his game, IMHO) and Sha-Na-Na (who looked totally out of place at Woodstock.) The film is rated "R" for nudity and language.
The festival itself was not held in the New York town of Woodstock, but at Max Yasgur's farm in nearby Bethel, as the Woodstock folk got cold feet at the last minute. Yet, the last time I visited the town of Woodstock, in the late 1980's, the town was only too willing to show off their connection to this historic event, with the festival poster displayed in many venues.
My nitpick concerns not the film (documentaries are kind of hard to nitpick) but with the presentation on VH-1 Classic this weekend. This film was shot in widescreen, with many split scren images. Yet VH-1 Classic chose to present the film in pan-and-scan, eliminating half the image, and consequently rendering the spilt screens impossible to see. To its credit, VH-1 Classic was the only TV channel to even pay tribute on this, the 36th anniversary weekend of the festival (they ran the film many times.) Both MTV and VH-1 ignored the anniversary, and stuck with their regular programming. VH-1 didn't even bother to run their "Behind The Music" episode on the festival.
Also, the festival was a titanic money loser, and the organizers were in debt for years afterward. And, I doubt we will ever see the likes of this again, especially due to the bad behavior of the attendees at "Woodstock 1999," who, in a display of anger, started fires at the end of that festival.
Woodstock director Michael Wadleigh has only one studio film to his credit - the 1981 thriller Wolfen. See it if possible; it's a good flick.
There's a museum and concert arena on the site of the Woodstock festival, the "Bethel Woods Center for the Arts." I went there with the girlfriend last summer to see "Hippiefest 2008". The Center is a great place to visit; I only wish we didn't rush through the museum so quickly.
A four hour "director's cut" of the movie will be released on DVD and Blu-Ray June 9. It includes a piece about the Museum. More here.
Woodstock, the Director's Cut, will receive a special 50th anniversary theatrical screening, courtesy of Fathom Events, on August 15. More here.