Woodstock (film)
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Woodstock (film)
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This film has been preserved in the National Film Registry in 1996.
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Woodstock is a 1970 American documentary film of the watershed counterculture Woodstock Festival which took place in August 1969 near Bethel, New York.
The film was directed by Michael Wadleigh in his directional debut. Seven editors are credited, including Thelma Schoonmaker, Martin Scorsese, and Wadleigh. Woodstock was a great commercial and critical success. It received the Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature. Schoonmaker was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Film Editing, a rare distinction for a documentary. Dan Wallin and L. A. Johnson were nominated for the Academy Award for Best Sound. The film was screened at the 1970 Cannes Film Festival but was not entered into the main competition.
The 1970 theatrical release of the film ran 185 minutes. A director's cut spanning 224 minutes was released in 1994. Both cuts take liberties with the timeline of the festival. However, the opening and closing acts are the same in the film as they appeared on stage; the late Richie Havens opens the show, and the late Jimi Hendrix closes it.
Why It Rocks
- In a similar manner to previous concert films such Jazz on a Summer's Day and Monterey Pop, this documentary serves as a landmark film for capturing footage of the legendary Woodstock Festival from 1969, which became a touchstone for a generation of hippies and hippie manqués, and was famous for being gigantic. It's both an epic concert film and a documentary snapshot of a social culture. Had it not been for this movie, the festival would be most likely vaguely remembered as a rock concert that produced some recordings. The film created the idea of “Woodstock Nation,” which existed for three days and was absorbed into American myth.
- For context, the Woodstock Music Festival was initially planned as a benefit concert to help build a recording studio in Woodstock, New York, but the idea gradually evolved into a music festival along the lines of the Monterey International Pop Music Festival from June 1967. It was promoted as a brand, a "happening", rather than a concert with individual groups. The four promoters saw the financial potential in filming and recording the event, and two of them made a deal to film the concert.
- Although it should be mentioned that the festival had some setbacks: Bad weather marred much of the proceedings, and traffic congestion disrupted the concert schedule even further. Several performers chose not to be included in the film or were edited out of the final cut, including Creedence Clearwater Revival, Johnny Winter, the Grateful Dead, and the Incredible String Band. Other bands never made it to the concert: the Jeff Beck Group broke up just before Woodstock began.
- A dozen or so cinematographers ended up working at the concert site (the finished film also used some television news footage). As the scope of the event became apparent, cameramen shifted their focus from the stage to the audience, interviewing numerous attendees and officials, as well as people from surrounding towns. By including footage of cooking and sanitation facilities, food supplies airlifted in by Army helicopters, and impromptu camping and swimming arrangements, the filmmakers could showcase the event itself as much as the musicians who performed there. Wadleigh was determined to make Woodstock about the entire event, not just the music but the crowds, the experience, and the political and social culture that gave birth to it. It makes the viewer feel like they're there, with about 60% music and 40% people who were there. This is one factor that makes the documentary stand out from various other concert films.
- Michael Wadleigh, one of the film directors had the opportunity to make as large, as excessive a film as he wanted. The editors approached the material chronologically, from constructing the stage to the post-concert clean-up. They had a wide screen to play with but also had to compensate for footage that was often subpar: underlit, out of focus, shaky. As a solution, they split the frame into multiple sections. That way they could offset "bad" footage with what in other documentaries would be cutaways: shots of audience members, roadies, weather, etc.
- Splitting the frame was also used for creative effects, such as freezing a shot or doubling or mirroring performers. Each musical act was edited differently to highlight or comment on the musicians' various styles, not just to compensate for inadequate or missing footage. (It also meant they could work with multiple sound sources. In the film's opening they use the sound of helicopters flying overhead in one shot to aid in the editing of interviews on the opposite side of the screen.) The earlier groups, shot in daylight with a limited number of cameras, did not benefit from this approach as much as the stars who performed later. By the time The Who and Sly and the Family Stone appear, the film makes full use of all editing effects.
- It was Scorsese's idea to print the lyrics to Country Joe McDonald's "Feel-Like-I'm-Fixing-to-Die-Rag" with a bouncing ball, which matched the whimsy of the anti-war song and turned the performance into an audience sing-along.
- Incredible choice of performers from the concert. For instance:
- Country Joe leads the crowd through the anti-Vietnam “I Feel Like I’m Fixin’ to Die Rag.”
- Sha-Na-Na does a tightly choreographed 1950s version of “At the Hop.”
- Joe Cocker and everybody else on the stage and in the crowd sings “With a Little Help from My Friends.”
- The director’s cut adds 45 minutes, including sets by Janis Joplin and Jefferson Airplane which were not in the original.
- The Hendrix guitar solo is the most famous single element in the film, which uses it as a form of closure. As the late Jimi Hendrix begins, we see the concert grounds after most of the 400,000 have left, leaving behind acres of debris, muddy blankets, and lost shoes. Then the chronology reverses itself to show the field filling, until finally, we see the whole expanse of the mighty crowd, as Hendrix’s guitar evokes rockets bursting in the air.
Trivia
- Woodstock is the first concert film to be inducted into the National Film Registry.
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