Movies I Love, Part VII: Woodstock
The other night out to dinner with friends we got to talking about films that changed people’s lives. Obviously the discussion was fostered by the Idea Festival’s summer endeavor, a film festival showing a number of such films submitted by the public. The chosen movies to be culled from suggestions submitted.
One of our dinner gang mentioned “The Harder They Come” and “Gandhi.” He thought both flicks taught him the same lesson about perseverance in the face of oppression. Legit topics which can be discussed at another time. That’s not my purpose here.
Another mentioned “Woodstock.”
The suggestion resonated. Since hearing of the Idea Festival’s challenge I hadn’t really come up with any movie that I could say with any legitimacy changed my life. ( I do remember being fascinated with Red Skelton in “Excuse My Dust,” saw it any number of times. But, hey, I was only six. And I don’t think it changed my life.) But the mention of Michael Wadleigh’s 1970 documentary of the seminal music festival in upstate New York the summer before struck a chord.
I realized I knew the exact day and time that I first saw the film. It was the Friday on which I took my last law school exam, which was to be at 6:00 in the evening. Instead of spending the afternoon cramming for the test for which I was egregiously unprepared, I nestled in the fourth row at the first showing of “Woodstock” at Showcase Cinemas. The film washed over me. So the imprint of that clear memory must mean something, right?
(I can only think of one other film — “Psycho” — which I can say for certain exactly when I saw it. It was on the afternoon I registered for high school.)
I probably went at least four or five other times to see “Woodstock,” before living the experience myself a month later at the 2d Atlanta Pop Festival. Now that was a life changing weekend in ways I shan’t discuss.
Woodstock as an event was obviously a watershed. I guess the movie also.
The music isn’t extraordinary, with the exception of Santana, Sly Stone and familia, and perhaps Ten Years After. Some groups, like Crosby, Stills & Nash overdubbed their performances. Others like Creedence forbade their use totally.
But the vision of the possibility of the hippie nation gathering without total implosion remains impressive. Ask the guys who run Bonnarroo if it doesn’t still work?
The interviews are pretty incisive. Especially the most disarming one with Thomas Taggart. He’s the port-o-let cleaning guy who proved himself quite the professional despite the nature of his duties. The guy was obviously a mensch. That some lawyer got ahold of him and convinced him to sue the film’s producers for showing him in a bad light is too absurd. So too thought the courts when throwing out the lawsuit.
Anyhow Woodstock was a happening of significance. And not just for the stoned hippies at the time. Wadleigh’s film chronicles it well. We must remember this was way before the internet and a million cable stations fighting for footage to show. The reports from Woodstock came in print media, with the occasional televised report, usually from a helicopter flying over the vast crowd.
The film was America’s first view of what it was like there for those mired in the muck and music. In that regard it was seriously illuminating. It taught the unskilled ready to head out on the highway looking for adventure how to do it. I remember standing outside the gates of a festival in Canada later that summer. It was early morning and I needed to brush my teeth. So I just did it, using a canteen of water to wash away the toothpaste. It was a natural act, born of accommodation. Some smiling fellow walked up to me and turned to his friend, “That’s so cool. The guy needed to brush his teeth, so he just did it.”
It was a new time, kiddos. The Baby Boomer generation was learning to stretch its legs. And, in many regards, Woodstock set the standards and “Woodstock,” showing on screens across the land, was the primer.
There’s an expanded Director’s Cut which fills out the original theatrical release. It’s worth a view. Whether you’re watching for the first time, or decades after seeing it stoned, fascinated and ready to live it for yourself.
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