Review of Woodstock (1970) by Jer M — 25 Aug 2009

In remembrance of the fortieth anniversary of the event as well as in preparation for Ang Lee's Taking Woodstock....

WOODstock is GOODstock. What else can be said? This movie has been around for so long that enough words have been expended about both its cultural and historical relevance, as well as its extremely high entertainment value. And it gave the world a case to not write off documentary filmmaking forever. For Michael Wadleigh has achieved something that few films are able to do: It absorbs you so totally that you actually feel as if you are actually jiving along with the jivers in the jiveland.

The editing, by Martin Scorsese and Thelma Schoonmaker, is the key. It is what gives Wadleigh's film its lyrical power. The style may be journalistic detachment, but that does not mean that it cannot be art. The whole film feels like one long ode, eventually building into a rhapsody. Moment by moment, you are completely carried through by the strength of the images and, of course, that music thing.

Wadleigh's cinematography is incredible, eschewing huge crowd shots for up up up up up up close looks at the performers. How he managed to get those shots of Richie Havens' dripping nostrils or Canned Heat's gyrating bodies is a wonder. Since the focus is completely on them during the music segments (We only see the crowd in fleeting), the effect is almost otherworldly. The Woodstock Nation truly exists and these performers are singing their hearts out on a different plane of reality where peace reigns upon all things.

I always feel a bit awkward about reviewing well-known, older films because I am not sure what else I can add to volumes written about them. Yet with Woodstock, I think I know exactly what I can add to properly encapsulate my feelings towards both this film and the experiences it documents: ERGHY WERGHY! WOOD-ICA-STOCK!