Woodstock (1970) * * *

Directed by:  Michael Wadleigh

With musical performances by:  Jefferson Airplane, Crosby, Stills, and Nash, Janis Joplin, Jimi Hendrix, John Sebastian, Country Joe and the Fish, Sly and the Family Stone, The Who, Sha Na Na, Ten Years After, Santana, Joe Cocker

The best scenes in Woodstock depict the ordinary people who descended upon Bethel, New York between August 15-18, 1969.    Any logistics planned to control the event had to be tossed out the window, since 400,000 showed up instead of the expected 50,000.     The area was declared a disaster area mostly due to the sudden influx of humanity and the lack of resources necessary to feed, shelter, and provide proper medical care for the festival goers.    A nearby Army base flew helicopters in to deliver food and airlift people safely from the event.    The movie shows us in detail how the people were fed and cared for.    An unseen speaker over a PA makes announcements.   The poor man who services the portable toilets does so with a smile on his face as he is sucking up human waste into the truck.    They were there for the music, the love, the drugs, and a respite from the Vietnam War.    I almost wish the musical performances didn't interrupt the behind-the-scenes footage, but leaving the music out would be like leaving the Nazis out of a documentary about World War II.

Most of the musical performances drone on endlessly.    The acts drift into long, boring guitar and drum solos, but soon enough we are past a musical act and concentrating more on the people.   Why would they endure such hardships to attend Woodstock?    Did they know it would be a cultural phenomenon whose impact will last as long as there is music?    Or did they want to be part of a massive group of likeminded people who stressed peace, love, and harmony during a period in which those were hard to find?    The documentary, directed by Michael Wadleigh, and edited by Martin Scorsese and Scorsese's future Oscar-winning editor Thelma Schoonmaker, amassed roughly 120 miles of footage and condensed it into a four-hour movie (I saw the director's cut) which put us right in the middle of a happening unlike any before or since.    There was Woodstock '94, a 25th anniversary celebration of the original event, but 1994 wasn't 1969 and the social issues of 1969 were not there in 1994 to permeate the event and create a need for the gathering.

Woodstock could only have taken place in the late 60s.   All of the cultural and societal conflicts and influences converged into an August weekend in upstate New York on an obscure dairy farm with rolling hills and green grass for miles.    The film wisely seeks out the opinions of the town residents, who are split on their feelings about the massive festival which essentially shut down their homes for several days.    There were no arrests, no violence, although drug use, sex, and nudity were rampant and to the surprise of many, the "kids" acquitted themselves well.    That may not have been a comfort to some people whose phones were shut off and were basically prisoners of the town because traffic congestion led everything to a standstill.

The documentary did not judge anyone.   It conveyed the awesome size and scope of the event.    We feel as if we are in the middle of it and living it.    This would be a four-star movie if, oddly enough, it had less musical performances.    I know this view may be considered sacrilegious, but my opinion is my opinion.    Even the better performances by Joe Cocker (who sings With a Little Help from My Friends) and Jimi Hendrix soon overstay their welcome.    Hendrix played on the morning of the 18th, when many people already left and roughly 30,000 remained.    Some of those 30,000 started to exit once they caught a glimpse of Hendrix.    Those who did not stay to watch him could not have foreseen that in a mere thirteen months, Hendrix would be dead of a drug overdose.    The same with Janis Joplin, who appeared Sunday night and died in 1970 also.     They may have assumed, like most people, that their heroes were too young to die so young.  

Then, as Hendrix wails away on his guitar, we see the aftermath.    Trash as far as the eye could see.   Poor folks were thanklessly tasked with cleaning it up, while those who sank their money into the event had to wait until the movie came out in 1970 to bail them out of financial ruin.    The event was supposed to be for profit, but the sheer number of people attending made it impossible to sell tickets.   So, by default, it became a "free concert", which likely drew more spectators.    For one weekend in August 1969, the Woodstock festival population became the third largest city in New York state.    Then, they dissipated, facing their lives again with possibly a degree of hope and perhaps a larger degree of uncertainty.    With the 70s and beyond looming, we gain a true sense of just how big Woodstock was.